UW In The News

Visualizing Science: How Color Determines What We See

“When people approach a visualization, they have expectations of how visual features will map onto concepts,” said Karen Schloss, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery. Schloss and her team are working to tackle these implementation issues and understand trade-offs between deeply ingrained, communal familiarity and the next generation of color tools.

Global warming is making hurricanes worse, study finds

The study, by a group of researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the University of Wisconsin at Madison, builds on previous research that found a trend, though not a statistically robust one, toward stronger tropical cyclones.

Coronavirus vaccine trials have their first results — but their promise is still unclear

Still, the early data offer clues as to how coronavirus vaccines might generate a strong immune response. Scientists say that animal data will be crucial for understanding how coronavirus vaccines work, so that the most promising candidates can be quickly identified and later improved. “We might have vaccines in the clinic that are useful in people within 12 or 18 months,” says Dave O’Connor, a virologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “But we’re going to need to improve on them to develop second- and third-generation vaccines.”

Climate Change Is Making Cyclones Stronger, Researchers Find

Climate change is making tropical cyclones more intense with stronger maximum sustained winds, according to a new study led by scientists at NOAA and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS), who analysed nearly 40 years of enhanced infrared satellite imagery.

In a World ‘So Upside Down,’ the Virus Is Taking a Toll on Young People’s Mental Health

“Not every kid can be online and have a confidential conversation about how things are going at home with parents in earshot,” said Seth Pollak, director of the Child Emotion Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Global warming is making hurricanes worse, study finds

The study, by a group of researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the University of Wisconsin at Madison, builds on previous research that found a trend, though not a statistically robust one, toward stronger tropical cyclones

‘Immunity passports’ won’t reopen America

“There are a lot of other things to do to change the workplace” to make it safer, said Alta Charo, a bioethics expert at the University of Wisconsin Law School who has served on several national and state ethics advisory panels.

Wisconsin: Images of the Badger State

Students and visitors enjoy the sunset on the campus of University of Wisconsin–Madison, along Lake Mendota, in July 2018. #

Beware This COVID-19 Vaccine ‘Study’ From an 80s Teen Tech Titan and a Carnivorous Plant Smuggler

Dr. Ajay K. Sethi, an infectious disease epidemiologist and associate professor of population health sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, cautioned that there is no evidence Gold and his co-investigators “used a scientific approach to test their hypothesis that ‘different exposure to vaccines between younger and older people may account for this different morbidity rate [in COVID-19].’”

But Dr. Jim Conway, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said readers “need to be cautious when people are trying to draw associations that don’t have a lot of biological plausibility.”

How to Maintain Motivation in a Pandemic

Richard J. Davidson, professor of psychology and neuroscientist at the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has demonstrated that “when individuals engage in generous and altruistic behavior, they actually activate circuits in the brain that are key to fostering well-being.”

How To Eat For A Healthy Gut

For years, people with irritable bowel syndrome symptoms were told the issues were related to stress, it was in their heads or they needed to exercise more, said Melissa Phillips, a clinical nutritionist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Health System’s Digestive Health Center.

How Venus flytraps evolved their taste for meat

That duplication freed up copies of genes once used in roots, leaves, and sensory systems to detect and digest prey. For example, carnivorous plants repurposed copies of genes that help roots absorb nutrients, to absorb the nutrients in digested prey. “That root genes are being expressed in the leaves of carnivores is absolutely fascinating,” says Kenneth Cameron, a botanist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Study shows cats can easily spread coronavirus to each other – here’s what that means for cat owners

The research team, lead by Yoshihiro Kawaoka, professor of pathobiological sciences at the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine, inoculated three cats with the virus, and then introduced three other uninfected cats to the group. In five days, the three previously uninfected cats had caught the virus.

As Some Places Reopen, Public Health Official Says Significant Risk Of Infection Remains

Dr. Patrick Remington, director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Preventive Medicine Residency Program, said it’s a natural reaction to start testing the waters and evaluating risk after a period of intense measures.

Cats with no symptoms spread virus to other cats in lab test

He and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine led the lab experiment and published results Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine. Federal grants paid for the work.

Anxiety, Hope, Trust And Slowing The Spread Of COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories

Ajay Sethi, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health and director of its Master of Public Health program, studies the spread of infectious diseases such as HIV and measles. He also studies the spread of public health conspiracies, which can quickly unravel the progress achieved by researchers.

What college seniors are losing in their last semester because of COVID-19

Robin Mwai just graduated from University of Wisconsin, Madison, and is trying to figure out that balance.

Cats can infect each other with coronavirus, study finds

In the study, led by researchers at University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Tokyo, three felines were inoculated with the virus. A day later, three other cats were housed with the infected felines in pairs, and all three also went on to test positive for Covid-19.

The pandemic and wild animals – Protecting great apes from covid-19

Late in 1990, when Paul Kagame was hiding on the Congolese side of the Virunga Mountains preparing to invade Rwanda, his army, the Rwandan Patriotic Front, were not the only formidable inhabitants of that densely forested volcanic range. The Virunga are also home to mountain gorillas. Soldiers are notoriously trigger-happy when it comes to wildlife, but Mr Kagame ordered his men not to shoot the apes. “They will be valuable one day,” he said.

(Tony Goldberg, virologist, School of Veterinary Medicine)

Cats Can Transmit the Coronavirus to Each Other, but They Probably Won’t Get Sick From It – The New York Times

Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine and Peter Halfmann of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, along with other researchers from both the United States and Japan, conducted the study, in which three domestic cats were inoculated with the virus and three additional uninfected cats were put in cages, one with each of the inoculated cats.

Would airport coronavirus testing get people flying? Not alone, experts say

For diagnostic tests that are designed to detect current infections, the possibility of some false-negative tests could also allow infected travelers slipping through the cracks, Laura Albert, an industrial and systems engineering professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told ABC News.

Fact check: The coronavirus pandemic isn’t slowing climate change

“This may sound small at first, but it is the largest drop since World War II, as emissions have generally increased year-over-year, even during recessions,” Ankur Desai, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told USA TODAY.

Opinion: The University of Wisconsin and other public universities are on the front lines of the battle against coronavirus

From Rebecca M. Blank is chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and chair of the Council of Presidents of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, a research, policy, and advocacy organization. Peter McPherson is president of APLU and former president of Michigan State University. 

Soyeon Shim is a big picture entrepreneur at the School of Human Ecology

When Soyeon Shim was young, she wanted to be a teacher.

“I’d come home and gather all the kids in the neighborhood and play like we were at school and I was the teacher,” she says.

For a girl growing up in South Korea, there weren’t many other options. “Teacher or nurse,” Shim says. “But in the back of my mind, I always wanted to be an entrepreneur.”

Coronavirus Group Testing Can Help Fight the Pandemic

There is no test fairy. Keeping the curve flat, having gone through so much pain to flatten it, is going to require a level of infection reconnaissance we don’t yet know how to achieve. We’ll need improvements in manufacturing, we’ll need more people to do the tracing work a test can’t, and we’ll need to get more out of the materials we have.For the last of those goals, group testing is a promising way forward.

Jordan Ellenberg (@JSEllenberg) is a professor of mathematics at the University of Wisconsin and the author of “How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking.”

How not to lose the COVID-19 communication war.

COVID-19 has put science in a tricky spot. The good news, as National Academy of Sciences President Marcia McNutt explains, is that scientific expertise is back in high demand: “When the chips are down and everything is on the line and you can be the next person in the hospital bed, it’s the experts that you want to listen to.”

DIETRAM A. SCHEUFELE, NICOLE M. KRAUSE, ISABELLE FREILING, and DOMINIQUE BROSSARD

Dairy Cows Are Being Sent to Slaughter as Demand for Milk Plummets

“It looks like cow numbers are still going up and milk production is still going up, so there’s countervailing forces,” Jared Hutchins, a researcher in dairy economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said by phone.

Primatologists work to keep great apes safe from coronavirus

Seven years ago, a respiratory virus swept through the 56 chimpanzees in the Kanyawara community at Kibale National Park in Uganda, where researchers have studied chimp behavior and society for 33 years. More than 40 apes were sickened; five died. “Chimpanzees looked like limp dolls on the forest floor,” coughing and sneezing and absolutely miserable, recalls disease ecologist Tony Goldberg of the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “It was just horrendous.”

Zoom celebrations, speeches, lights display: UW-Madison gets creative with commencement amid COVID-19 pandemic

No Spike, but No Certainty on Fallout of Wisconsin Election

“It’s safe to say (the election) didn’t help,” said Dr. Nasia Safdar, medical director of infection control and prevention at UW Health, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s medical arm. “But whether it actively hurt people, it’s very likely but not possible to really prove it.”