UW In The News

Milwaukee Common Council Bans Plastic Straws

Quoted: Rebecca Klaper, a professor at the School of Freshwater Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, told WPR that the push for straw bans came after a video of a sea turtle with a straw stuck in it’s nose went viral.

Could your next mobile phone wreck our weather forecasts?

Quoted: “It’s like an apartment building of sorts,” explains Jordan Gerth, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “There’s some general expectation that everybody keeps relatively quiet.

A Tight Job Market Insulates a Slowing Economy—and Perhaps Trump, Too

“Farmers had prepared themselves for three-year cycles, but not five,” said Mark Stephenson, director of Dairy Policy Analysis at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Does ‘hazing’ work in keeping coyotes away from homes?

Quoted: The motivation behind those attacks is unclear. But David Drake, a wildlife biologist with the University of Wisconsin-Madison Urban Canid Project, ventured a guess.

Could 5G and your next cell phone wreck our weather forecasts? It’s possible.

Quoted: “It’s like an apartment building of sorts,” explains Jordan Gerth, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “There’s some general expectation that everybody keeps relatively quiet.

2018 Sees Continued Downward Trend In Babies Born In Wisconsin

Quoted: “The number of births and the birth rates are at some of the lowest levels since the mid-70s. We haven’t seen this pattern for over 40 years,” said David Egan-Robertson with the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Applied Population Lab.

How safe is vaping? New human studies assess chronic harm to heart and lungs

And given that e-cigarettes vary more than conventional cigarettes in their chemical composition, “We’re asking medical science to do a huge, heavy lift” to pinpoint health impacts across people, says James Stein, a preventive cardiologist at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

Interview: Cartoonist Lynda Barry, Author Of ‘Making Comics’

It’s always a surprise to see who the MacArthur Foundation selects to receive its annual fellowships — the six-figure awards known as Genius Grants — but one of this year’s picks was particularly exhilarating: comic artist Lynda Barry. For anyone who read alternative weeklies from the ’80s through the ’00s, she was the eternally wise and strange mind behind Ernie Pook’s Comeek.

Wisconsin Conservation Hall of Fame to induct three in 2020 class

The Wisconsin Conservation Hall of Fame will induct Stephen Born, Jens Jensen and Stanley Temple in its 2020 class.

Francis Wilkinson: This white Wisconsin county has no time for Trump

Quoted: Dane County’s prosperity appears to drive both Democratic votes despite Democratic support for higher taxes on the affluent and rural conservative resentment. University of Wisconsin political scientist Katherine Cramer spent years meeting with small groups of residents in rural Wisconsin.

Doctors Underscore Cannabis Risks For Some Users As Legalization Expands

“Children and adolescents are really the place we have to look the most,” said Dr. Angela Janis, director of psychiatry for the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s University Health Services.

Bloomberg News will avoid investigating Mike Bloomberg during his presidential campaign

Quoted: But Bloomberg News’s safeguards may not be enough to avoid perceptions of conflicts, said Kathleen Bartzen Culver, who directs the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Flu ‘wonder drug’ may cause the virus to dangerously mutate

However, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have found worrying evidence that, in the process of banishing the virus, the drug may cause it to mutate while it is still infectious, and that drug-resistant mutation can be passed on to others.

UW-Madison Saw Second Highest Big Ten Voter Turnout In 2018

The University of Wisconsin-Madison had the second highest voter turnout in 2018 of any Big Ten university in the nation. With the help of a concerted volunteer effort to increase political engagement, voting increased on campus by nearly 20 percent compared with turnout in 2014.

The Last Time America Turned Away From the World

One hundred years ago, on Nov. 19, 1919, Alice Roosevelt Longworth threw a late-night party. Longworth, the daughter of Theodore Roosevelt and wife of Nicholas Longworth, the future speaker of the House, was celebrating the defeat in the Senate that day of the Treaty of Versailles, which encapsulated President Woodrow Wilson’s grand project for world peace, the League of Nations.

How MacArthur ‘genius’ Lynda Barry is exploring brain creativity with true artists: Preschoolers

As an associate professor of interdisciplinary creativity at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Barry is pushing the envelope on understanding how the brain creates and responds to words and pictures — a scholarly envelope that, in her mind, should be positively covered with illuminating doodles.

Kamala Harris’ claim about typical dad paying higher taxes than 400 richest families is Mostly False

Quoted: University of Wisconsin-Madison economist Andrew Reschovsky praised the study, but called Harris’ claim misleading.

Revealed: Bayer AG discussed plans to give not-for-profit funding for influence

Quoted: Kathleen Bartzen Culver, who leads the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said any arrangement in which a funder is given influence into and journalistic endeavors, education and awards is improper.

What happens when college students discuss lab work in Spanish, philosophy in Chinese or opera in Italian? – The Washington Post

Quoted: “I don’t understand the conceptual model for global competence that leaves language out,” said Dianna L. Murphy, director of the Language Institute at the University of Wisconsin.

American Trust in Scientists Remains Stable—Despite “Demonstrated Growth” in Conspiracy Theories

“Over and over again, scientists are at the top of trustworthy professions,” said Dominque Brossard, a professor of life sciences communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and senior author of the report, in a statement.

Report: Milwaukee, Racine Rank As Worst Cities For African Americans To Live

Quoted: Pamela Oliver, a sociology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said she has studied incarceration rates across the state.

New research finds the American public’s trust in the scientific community remains strong

In a US-based study spanning over decades, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that the public’s trust in scientists still remains strong. The findings appeared in the journal Public Opinion Quarterly.

Why are weather apps still so unreliable?

Quoted: As such, professional meteorologists are not monitoring and updating it,” Jordan Gerth, honorary fellow at the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, tells Mic.

As Utilities Cut Carbon Emissions, Some Transitioning Faster To Renewables

Quoted: However, Greg Nemet, public affairs professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and affiliate with the Wisconsin Energy Institute, said the cost of batteries now looks like solar around a decade ago.

The Census Is Going Digital, Bringing The Threat Of Disinformation Campaigns

Quoted: The polarized rhetoric surrounding the failed push for a citizenship question has turned the census into a hot button trolls can push, according to Young Mie Kim, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has studied Facebook ads.

Street science: Mural project seeks to engage the public

Gliding thick brushes covered in browns, pinks, blues and silver across white walls, Melanie Stimmell Van Latum gives off a Bob Ross-like aura as she tackles her newest mural project. It’s study time at the Discovery Building, and all is quiet, except for the sounds of dripping man-made waterfalls and the splashing of the artist cleaning her acrylic-caked brushes.

Coffee coalition: New UW-Madison group working to build community among women veterans

There are some not so obvious things that separate civilian from military life. Take chewing gum and talking outside on a cell phone.

“We all would get in trouble for doing that and no civilian gets why that’s weird to us,” says Carla Winsor, a U.S. Coast Guard veteran who is pursuing her doctorate in mechanical engineering at UW-Madison.

Dean Foods, No. 1 Milk Company, Declares Bankruptcy Amid Drop In Demand

Quoted: “We’re eating our dairy, not drinking it,” said Mark Stephenson, director of dairy policy analysis at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

America’s Largest Milk Company Just Filed for Bankruptcy

Quoted: While there might be shake-ups in the back-end of getting cow’s milk to the average American’s fridge, Mark Stephenson, director of dairy policy analysis at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told VICE that it’s unlikely to have a huge impact on the broader industry or on consumers.

As Politics Evolved, Wisconsin’s Train Was Along For The Ride

Weyrich’s death happened around the same time as the rise of the Tea Party, when conservatives were growing increasingly angry with government. And this anger was reshaping the GOP all across the country.University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist Kathy Cramer saw firsthand how it was influencing politics in Wisconsin.