UW In The News

The U.S. has absolutely no control over the coronavirus. China is on top of the tiniest risks.

“Surfaces can occasionally be a source of transmission,” said Dave O’Connor, an expert on the genome of the virus at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. “They do not appear to be a major, or the major, source of transmission in areas where the virus is already endemic. If you have otherwise eradicated the virus, such as New Zealand or this region of China, vigilance will be required to prevent reintroductions by both goods and travelers.”

Charles Darwin’s hunch about early life was probably right

One researcher whose work is compatible with a pond environment is Lena Vincent of the University of Wisconsin-Madison – although she prefers to keep an open mind. She is trying to create sets of chemicals that copy themselves as a group. The simplest example would be a pair of chemicals A and B, where each has the ability to make the other, so A makes B and B makes A. Such a pair of chemicals would be able to self-replicate, even though neither could do so alone. In practice the sets of chemicals are more complicated than that, but the principle is the same.

What powers does Donald Trump still have? US law expert explains

Professor Robert Yablon, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison law school, told Checkpoint Trump has the same power he always has had as president, and can do what he wants, “within the standard bounds of the US Constitution and the law.

Grassland 2.0 Aims to Replace Soy and Corn Farming with Perennial Pasture in the Upper Midwest

“We’re shedding farms,” Randy Jackson remarks grimly one autumn day over video conference. A professor of grassland ecology in the department of agronomy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Jackson points to the fact that a record 10 percent of dairy farms in his state of Wisconsin shuttered in 2019, another milestone for a local economy that led the nation in farm bankruptcies last year.

Wisconsin’s largest county begins certifying US election results

David Canon, chair of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s political science department, said allegations of fraud are a “complete fabrication”. He said he expects little, if anything, to come from the Trump campaign’s attempts at litigation across the country.

It Took a Group of Black Farmers to Start Fixing Land Ownership Problems in Detroit

While Hantz Farms didn’t dispossess anyone’s land, the threat is real, said Monica White, author of “Freedom Farmers: Agricultural Resistance and the Black Freedom Movement.”

“There has been a historical dispossession of land from Black farmers, and redlining is a part of that history,” said White, an associate professor of environmental justice at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Trump lawsuits unlikely to impact outcome of U.S. election, experts say

“The current legal maneuvering is mainly a way for the Trump campaign to try to extend the ball game in the long-shot hope that some serious anomaly will emerge,” said Robert Yablon, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School. “As of now, we haven’t seen any indication of systematic irregularities in the vote count.”

University of Wisconsin law professor on whether Trump can successfully sue in Michigan and Pennsylvania to stop ballot count

President Trump’s campaign said it has filed lawsuits to stop counting ballots in Michigan and Pennsylvania to increase access to observe the tallying process. Franciska Coleman, assistant professor of constitutional law at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School, says stopping ballot counts is an ‘extraordinary’ remedy. She joins ‘Closing Bell’ to discuss.

Gray wolves are leaving the endangered species list. But should they?

Hunting also increased in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan after wolves in those states were federally delisted, adds Adrian Treves, an ecologist who leads the Carnivore Coexistence Lab at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

The presidential election and rising COVID cases prompt some to stockpile groceries again

Nancy Wong, a professor of consumer science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said it’s because stockpiling items, like we had seen earlier in the pandemic, serves as a security blanket.

“People feel assured and soothed by something that is concrete,” she said.

Mental health and the election: Tips for processing your emotions

Neuroscientist Richard Davidson, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the founder and director of the Center for Healthy Minds, has helped create a series of meditative soundtracks to cope with the anxiety of the election.

Fears about economy under Covid lockdown helped Trump outperform polls

Broad-based shutdowns in March and April brought economic worries to places such as the rural upper midwest long before the virus was widespread there. Political scientist Kathy Cramer, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said this was certainly the case in Wisconsin, where an edge-of-your-seat finish is now playing out.

“There is no doubt that, in general, people were experiencing economic effects more than the health effects of the pandemic,” especially in the spring and summer, said Cramer. Cramer is also author of the Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker.

Trump campaign wants a Wisconsin recount. But how would it work?

Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said earlier on Wednesday that Trump appeared to be trailing Biden by about 22,000 to 23,000 votes in the state, which would amount to less than one percentage point.

Why the Supreme Court probably won’t help Trump’s reelection fate

“I wouldn’t want to speculate on how the Court would rule, but the argument that voters relied on the rules in place on and before Election Day – and should therefore have their votes counted – is very strong,” said Dan Tokaji, dean of the University of Wisconsin Law School.

Politics pit neighbor against neighbor as Election Day looms

The fear created by threats and violence has a chilling effect on the nation’s political process, said Katherine Cramer, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Surging coronavirus cases loom large in pivotal Wisconsin

“The almost daily increases in cases, deaths, and hospitalizations in Wisconsin keep voters’ attention on the pandemic and that attention does not help Donald Trump,” said Barry C. Burden, the director of the Election Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Don’t Be Fooled By The Very Strong GDP Report

Aaron Sojourner at the University of Minnesota and Menzie Chinn at the University of Wisconsin have constructed the graph below which projects the size of the economy based on various September quarter growth rates vs. the December 2019 quarter.

Western Wisconsin helped put Trump over the top in 2016. Here’s how some voters there feel about him now

And while many of Wisconsin’s small towns and cities in its southwestern corner drove up Mr. Trump’s margins, most had not voted for Republicans in decades, says Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

As virus cases surge to new records, outbreaks in swing states could shape the election.

“Things are really running rampant, so there is a lot of discontent,” said Barry Burden, the director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Wisconsin battles rapid rise in Covid cases amid partisan disputes over safety

As a result, public safety measures have been largely left up to municipalities and individuals, said Patrick Remington, former epidemiologist for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The People Who Love Trump’s Coronavirus Response

Other wrinkles of our current political moment could further explain why so many Trump supporters approve of the president’s pandemic response. Katherine Cramer, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, says the most consistent theme on the right-wing talk-radio shows she’s been listening to is a desire to trust people to make their own decisions, rather than trusting the government to make decisions for people.

Europe Aims to Emerge Smarter From Latest Lockdowns

“The question is not so much what policy needs to be enacted, but what are people willing to embrace?” said Ajay Sethi, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “A policy is only as effective as people will follow it.”

Election Day disinformation concerns: Premature winners, ballot claims

Some researchers will focus more on what happens after the election. University of Wisconsin, Madison Professor Young Mie Kim studied Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and continues to monitor for Russian-linked accounts in 2020. She leads research called Project DATA, or Digital Ad Tracking and Analysis. It tracks digital political ads to learn how parties, organizations and candidates target potential voters.

Europe and US facing new round of shutdowns amid virus surge

“It is absolutely exhausting right now,” said Dr. Jeff Pothof, chief quality officer at UW Health, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s hospital and medical arm. Nearly a third of its COVID-19 patients are in intensive care, filling all three wings of the ICU, he said. Some require one-on-one care around the clock.

U.S. Supreme Court Decision Could Disenfranchise Wisconsin Voters

“Those ballots would not have been counted,” Mayer told FRONTLINE. “And now, no ballots that arrive after elections will be counted, and it is a certainty that there will be some.”

Covid-19 Live Updates: U.S. Reports 90,000 New Daily Cases, the Equivalent of More Than One Per Second

“Things are really running rampant, so there is a lot of discontent,” said Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Gerrymander Power on the Line in Narrowly Divided Legislatures

“It’s going to be volatile control of Congress in the near term,” said University of Wisconsin Professor Barry Burden. To keep or gain an edge, partisans “want states like Wisconsin where one party seems to have really baked in its power in the legislature, but it’s still a purple state.”

Trump and Biden teams prep for once-outlandish election standoffs

“If they aren’t confident that they believe the result, some legislatures will be tempted to take the authority and appoint electors directly,” said Barry Burden, founding director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Why lockdowns have left kidney patients ‘totally and completely terrified’

Kidney disease is often hidden but quite pervasive. According to 2019 data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than one in seven Americans—37 million adults—have some chronic form of the condition. This means these vital organs aren’t filtering toxins and waste out of the blood as well as they should, but they haven’t completely failed. Although simple blood tests can identify kidney deficiencies, explains Fahad Aziz, a nephrologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, these cases rarely develop symptoms.

Fight for Senate Stays Closely Tied to White House Contest

“There’s almost no daylight anymore between what happens in the presidential race and what happens in the Senate race,” said Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin and the author of a book on ticket-splitting.