UW In The News

More explosive volcanoes expected as glaciers melt

Pablo Moreno-Yaeger from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who is presenting the research at the conference, said in a statement: “Our study suggests this phenomenon isn’t limited to Iceland, where increased volcanicity has been observed, but could also occur in Antarctica. Other continental regions, like parts of North America, New Zealand and Russia, also now warrant closer scientific attention.”

Hurricane forecasters are losing 3 key satellites ahead of peak storm season − a meteorologist explains why it matters

Written by Chris Vagasky, a meteorologist and research program manager at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

How does the job market determine whether or not there’s inflation?

Slower wage growth has an outsized impact on the cost of services, said Menzie Chinn, an economics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“Because services are provided, you know, the main input is going to be labor,” he said.

But Chinn said there are factors that could actually lead to higher wages in the service sector. For instance, employees might ask for higher wages to help them cover the cost of tariffs.

Sea spiders lack a key body part and a missing gene could explain why

Biologists interested in reconstructing the family trees of spiders and their relatives have long sought a complete sea spider genome, said Prashant Sharma of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who is an author of the new paper. Because sea spiders are members of a group that are siblings of arachnids on land, characteristics they share with modern land spiders could be traced to a common ancestor.

Musk vows to start a third party. Funding’s no issue, but there are others.

“A new party is going to benefit most from Musk if they can draw on his resources but keep him in the background,” said Barry Burden, director of the University of Wisconsin’s Elections Research Center. “And if he can portray himself as an innovator and a tech entrepreneur — and somebody who is really contributing to the American economy and funding this new operation without being its front person — I think that’s probably going to lead to the most success.”

The hidden cost of convenience: How your data pulls in hundreds of billions of dollars for app and social media companies

Written by Kassem Fawaz, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, and Jack West, a doctoral student in computer science, both a the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Scandinavia has its own dark history of assimilating Indigenous people, and churches played a role – but are apologizing

Written by Thomas A. DuBois, a professor of Scandinavian Studies, Folklore, and Religious Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

From injured pups to promising careers, UW Veterinary School gives aspiring techs a real shot

UW’s newly expanded $174 million facility offers plenty of high-tech tools and advanced care options—but it’s the heart behind the work that stands out.

“Across the nation, there’s a shortage of veterinary technicians and staff in the veterinary profession,” said Dr. Chris Snyder, hospital director. “Giving an opportunity to welcome them in and to see what cutting-edge veterinary care can look like—and what a career working in a teaching hospital can be—and how rewarding that is to be able to train others.”

First images from world’s largest digital camera reveal galaxies and cosmic collisions

Keith Bechtol, an associate professor in the physics department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has been involved with the Rubin Observatory for nearly a decade, is the project’s system verification and validation scientist, making sure the observatory’s various components are functioning properly.

He said teams were floored when the images streamed in from the camera.

“There were moments in the control room where it was just silence, and all the engineers and all the scientists were just seeing these images, and you could just see more and more details in the stars and the galaxies,” Bechtol told NBC News. “It was one thing to understand at an intellectual level, but then on this emotional level, we realized basically in real time that we were doing something that was really spectacular.”

Mark Copelovitch on the high costs of political and economic uncertainty

UW-Madison political science professor Mark Copelovitch discusses how the unstable landscape of tariffs and war abroad disrupt both the overall global marketplace and the everyday lives of American consumers.

Can A.I. quicken the pace of math discovery?

“I think we’ll learn a lot about what the capabilities of various A.I. protocols are from how well we can get them to generate material that’s of interest,” said Jordan S. Ellenberg, a mathematician at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who is part of a team applying for an Exponentiating Mathematics grant. “We have no intuition yet about which problems are going to be hard and which problems are easy. We need to learn that.”

Why is everybody ‘crashing out’?

Kelly Elizabeth Wright, an assistant professor of language sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the lead editor of Among the New Words, said that it can be difficult to pinpoint when a phrase is created, and whether or not the language comes from African American Language or if it is just used within Black communities.

“I don’t think that it’s inaccurate to say that Black Twitter and other online spaces were using these terms maybe first or more visibly than when it was floating around in high school classrooms all across the country this year,” Dr. Wright said. “I also don’t think it’s inaccurate to say that young people online are using this term. I think both things can be true at the same time.”

Sasha Maria Suarez on revitalizing Indigenous languages

UW-Madison history professor Sasha Maria Suarez describes programs by tribal nations, K-12 schools and higher education institutions to teach Wisconsin’s Indigenous languages to learners of all ages.

Many falls are preventable. These tips can help.

Many falls can be prevented, said Dr. Gerald Pankratz, a geriatrician at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. That makes him “optimistic about this issue,” he said.

In his practice, Dr. Pankratz said, it is not unusual for people assessed as having a 50 percent chance of falling over the next year to cut their risk in half by taking action to avoid slips and trips.

Wisconsin state lawmakers, industry experts share concerns about proposed limits to AI regulation

University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Annette Zimmermann is a political philosopher of AI and co-lead of the school’s Uncertainty and AI research group.

“Much like many other experts working in this area, I’ve been deeply concerned about imposing such a heavy handed blanket ban on any sort of state-based efforts to effectively regulate this space,” Zimmermann said. “Right now, unfortunately, we’re in a regulatory landscape where we are heavily relying on individual states to think very hard about how to protect ordinary citizens and consumers from these kinds of harmful outputs.”

Clinical psychologist explains how ADHD drugs work, addresses unscientific harm concerns

James Li is the A. A. Alexander Associate Professor of Psychology and an investigator at the Waisman Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” that Kennedy’s statements on the harms of medications like Adderall aren’t based in science.

“The evidence is quite clear that the medications that are currently FDA-approved and prescribed to treat ADHD in particular are fairly well tolerated. They don’t lead to early mortality … and they are generally very beneficial when used properly under doctor’s orders,” Li said.

A hidden gem on campus: Inside UW-Madison’s Zoological Museum

All that most students see of the University of Wisconsin Zoological Museum (UWZM), located in the Noland Zoology Building, is the fourth floor staircase’s sign prohibiting entrance from all other than museum staff.

Behind the locked doors, however, the museum’s extensive collections of animal skins and skeletons serve as a powerful resource for research and learning.

Officials launch new grant-making program to improve rural health outcomes

The Orion Initiative, administered through the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, aims to invest in partnerships between frontline rural providers and the academic medical community.

Rising housing costs are forcing some Wisconsinites to delay medical care, new report says

Rising housing costs have been forcing some Wisconsinites to delay medical care, which can lead to negative health outcomes for residents and communities.

That’s according to a new report from the University of Wisconsin-Extension as part of a project examining livability in rural communities led by Tessa Conroy, associate professor of agricultural and applied economics at UW-Madison.

‘My Childhood in Pieces’ is a funny, moving look at mid-century life

Book review written by Porter Shreve, director of the creative writing program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

How your pets alter your immune system

UW Health expert shares friendly family summer activities

While many kids will reach for screens, Dr. Shilagh Mirgain, a distinguished psychologist with UW Health, said this doesn’t have to be the default.

She suggests going to the library with your kids and having them check out books.

She also recommended parents take their kids to a local or state park, even going as far as planning a picnic. “Think about bringing your food outside to eat. Kids outside thrive,” she said.

UW engineer: Feeding robots could be breakthrough

Written by James Pikul, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at UW-Madison.

Robots run out of energy long before they run out of work to do − feeding them could change that

Written by James Pikul, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Abortion bans harm care for pregnancy problems, UW-Madison study says

The University of Wisconsin-Madison Collaborative for Reproductive Equity released a study this spring showing that during the 13-month period in which abortion was largely unavailable in Wisconsin, OB-GYNs struggled to provide care for pregnant patients and treat pregnancy complications because of unclear legal guidelines.

Alf Clausen, Emmy-winning ‘Simpsons’ composer, dies at 84

Clausen was born March 28, 1941, in Minneapolis, but grew up in Jamestown, N.D. He earned degrees from North Dakota State University, the University of Wisconsin and Boston’s Berklee College of Music. He later studied film scoring with Earle Hagen and was a two-year member of Lehman Engel’s BMI Musical Theater Workshop.

A fungal disease ravaged North American bats. Now, researchers found a second species that suggests it could happen again

“Cave ecosystems are so fragile that if you start pulling on this thread, what else are you going to unravel that may create bigger problems in the cave system?” said University of Wisconsin–Madison wildlife specialist David Drake to the Badger Herald’s Kiran Mistry in December.

Here are the best states for remote work, if you can still find it

The gradual retreat from telework “presents a valuable opportunity for companies that continue to offer remote work to differentiate themselves from the competition,” said Anyi Ma, an assistant professor of management at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “These companies now have the chance to attract and hire the most talented employees who prefer remote work.”

New PBS documentary on public libraries, ‘Free for All,’ has a Wisconsin accent

While the documentary takes a nationwide view, there’s a lot of Wisconsin in it. Among the interview subjects is Ethelene Whitmire, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who talks about Regina Anderson Andrews, the first African American to lead a branch of the New York Public Library and a key figure in the Harlem Renaissance.

UW professors discuss attacks on higher education, ‘fragility’ of U.S. democracy

With the 100th day of President Donald Trump’s second term in office approaching, University of Wisconsin-Madison professors and staff met Thursday to take stock of the growing threats to higher education and U.S. democracy and to discuss collective action to push back.