UW In The News

How Our Ancient Brains Are Coping in the Age of Digital Distraction

Quoted: In recent years, scientists have identified about two dozen genetic changes that might have helped make our brains not only bigger but incomparably capable. “It’s not just one quantum leap,” says University of Wisconsin-Madison paleoanthropologist John Hawks. “A lot of adaptations are at play, from metabolic regulation to neuron formation to timing of development.”

Are Face Masks The New Condoms?

Quoted: David O’Connor, who studies viral disease at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said, “If a substantial amount of transmission occurs before people feel sick, how do you stop that? By the time people feel sick and seek care, all the testing and isolation in the world would be too little, too late.”

Earth is Hit by Solar Winds that are Hotter Than They Should be, and Here’s Why

Boldrev, together with his colleagues, physics professor Cary Forest and Jan Edgal from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, have explained this discrepancy in solar wind temperature. They sought the answer in the related field of plasma physics

Dairy Groups Look To Milk Supply Management Amid Coronavirus Pandemic

But Mark Stephenson, director of dairy policy analysis at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said these are not ordinary circumstances.

There’s no roadmap for teaching online, so Washington’s teachers are creating their own

Quoted: Existing research on best practices in online learning will only get educators so far. “When you are being asked to implement online learning in the way our research suggests you should, but you are being asked to do that in a 12-day period, that’s nearly impossible,” said Annalee Good, co-director of the Wisconsin Evaluation Collaborative at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

A Gloomy Prediction on How Much Poverty Could Rise

Quoted: “Poverty represents a level of deprivation that many middle- or upper-income Americans can’t even wrap their head around,” said Sarah Halpern-Meekin, a sociologist at the University of Wisconsin who has conducted extensive interviews with poor parents. “The first thing that come to mind is a mother I met who was trying to manage her son’s asthma while living in an apartment that had rodents, insects and mold no matter how much she cleaned. Rising poverty rates means more families living like that.”

Male lemurs may spread fruity ‘love potions’ with their tails

Quoted: Most pheromones are single chemicals, says Charles Snowdon, an emeritus psychologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who was not involved with the work. “But what this paper is saying is that it’s a mixture of chemicals that seem to be more important,” he says.

State Party Chairs Discuss Options For May 12 Election

Quoted: Barry Burden, University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor, said that likely gave some Democrats more of an incentive to vote even if the race was all but decided, according to previous Wisconsin Public Radio reporting.

An Exciting Development, CRISPR Lets UW-Madison Researchers Edit Genes

On a crisp, sunny February afternoon in Kris Saha’s lab in Madison, doctoral candidate in biomedical engineering Nicole Piscopo put a petri dish of cells underneath a high-powered microscope. The cells, which were gene-edited to include a gene from sea anemones, were glowing red.

Is the coronavirus connected to climate change

Coronavirus quarantine: Why you don’t have to be productive right now

Quoted: “We can practice relaxing as we are walking, cleaning our house, doing the laundry,” says neuroscientist Richard J. Davidson, founder of the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “We can also practice a little self-compassion at these times, recognizing that no one is perfect and not being too hard on ourselves for failing to accomplish something in the time we had originally planned, for example.”

Republicans tried to suppress the vote in Wisconsin. It backfired.

Quoted: It’s more likely that Democratic turnout benefited from the party’s presidential primary being on the ballot. And at a time when Americans are spending more time consuming news at home, the controversy over whether to hold the election may have actually wound up encouraging voters, said Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Trump Has a Gut Feeling About What Covid-19 Means for 2020

Quoted: Barry Burden of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Amber Wichowsky of Marquette, co-authored “Economic discontent as a mobilizer: unemployment and voter turnout.” Burden described by email the complexity of political mobilization during an economic crisis:“Historically, unemployed individuals have voted at much lower rates than working people,” Burden said, but when unemployment “becomes widespread enough to be perceived as a communal concern rather than an individual predicament” it raises turnout.

Despite Obstacles, Democratic Turnout Surged In Wisconsin Supreme Court Race

Quoted: Barry Burden, University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor, said that likely gave some Democrats more of an incentive to vote even if the race was all but decided.

Despite Obstacles, Democratic Turnout Surged In Wisconsin Supreme Court Race

Quoted: Barry Burden, University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor, said that likely gave some Democrats more of an incentive to vote even if the race was all but decided.

Screen Time Is Replacing Playtime — and That’s Changing Kids’ Brains

Quoted: Action games are associated with improvements on a pretty broad range of perceptual and cognitive skills,” says C. Shawn Green, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who specializes in cognitive neuroscience.

Social-Distancing Rules—and Those That Flout Them—Spur Online Shaming

Quoted: And for this generation of teens, there is little precedent for this kind of threat. Most were born after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and haven’t experienced the type of disruption that would make them fearful of going about their regular lives, said Bradford Brown, a professor of human development at the University of Wisconsin in Madison who specializes in adolescents.

Voting by Mail Could Be What States Need. But Can They Pull It Off?

Quoted: In the 2016 presidential election, voters there cast some 145,000 absentee votes by mail; in Tuesday’s election, there were over a million. The state’s election officials regularly process high volumes of absentee ballots, but the last-minute cascade left them swamped, said Kenneth Mayer, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin.

For Caregivers Of Children With Autism, COVID-19 Conditions Can Present Extra Challenges

Quoted: Sigan Hartley is a University of Wisconsin-Madison associate professor of human development and family studies and the 100 Women Chair for the School of Human Ecology. She’s also a Waisman Center investigator, whose research focuses on positive well-being in individuals with developmental disabilities and their family members.

Wisconsin Clerks Guarding Ballots for Days Before Counting

Quoted: Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, called tampering a minor concern for clerks who already had processes for securing absentee ballots before election day.

The trouble with predicting how the coronavirus will spread.

Quote: As governments around the world try to predict the toll and duration of the coronavirus, they’re turning increasingly to a handful of forecasting models for answers. But many of the leading models differ drastically in their approach and methods. What do we need to know about these forecasts? And what are their limitations?Guest: Jordan Ellenberg, mathematics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madiso

State Officials Developing Guidelines For Scarce Medical Equipment

Quoted: Dr. Norman Fost, a professor emeritus of pediatrics and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, leads the Ventilator Allocation Advisory Workgroup. He said there was general agreement on having uniform guidelines within the state.

Covid-19 documentary to shed light on pandemic

Quoted: “The virus, people say sometimes, is a piece of bad news wrapped in protein. It is a vector for getting genetic information into a cell and that genetic information just contains a blueprint to make more viruses. They were able to tell that although this virus was new, it was closely related to the original SARS virus,” explained Professor Thomas Friedrich from University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Trump Hates Having Too Many Voters

Quoted: Except for the part where he had actually endorsed said judge in January. “And there were no polls,” added Barry Burden, the director of the University of Wisconsin Elections Research Center.

How to Avoid Misinformation About COVID-19

If you’ve found yourself unsure whether a soundbite or headline you saw or shared was true, know that you’re not alone, says Dietram Scheufele, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies science and political communication.

How Wisconsin’s election disenfranchised voters in the coronavirus pandemic

“As the weeks wore on, the legislature dug into that position, allowing no accommodations, no flexibility for voters, and the governor slowly moved to the opposite side,” University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor Barry Burden told Vox.

Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders and No Decision in Wisconsin, Yet

Quoted: “There will be lingering concerns no matter how the election is run,” says Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “It’s just not possible to run an ideal election in a public health pandemic. Who’s complaining about it will vary depending on what is done.”

Bharat Biotech: Hope to get nasal vaccine against Covid-19 into market in 12-18 months: Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech

Q When did you start work on a new vaccine and what is the status of the research?

A. We began work on the new vaccine, CoroFlu, in February this year. CoroFlu builds on cutting-edge technology from an influenza vaccine already being developed by US company FluGen, and based on research at the University of Wisconsin, Madison (UWM). Because CoroFlu is based on a flu vaccine, our team hopes to protect patients from both the flu virus and the novel coronavirus at the same time.

3D printing faces hurdles in coronavirus response

Quoted: Tim Osswald, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an expert on the technology, told The Hill that 3D printing speeds up manufacturing much more than traditional production methods.

Wisconsin is scheduled to vote today. How will the pandemic affect turnout?

On Tuesday, April 7, Wisconsin is scheduled to vote. With the coronavirus still raging, state lawmakers of both parties have for weeks been urging voters to cast ballots early or absentee to help contain the pandemic.

-Michael Wagner, Katerine Cramer, Dhavan Shah, Lewis Friedland