UW In The News

One-Pixel Views of Earth Reveal Seasonal Changes

Aronne Merrelli, an atmospheric scientist at the Space Science and Engineering Center at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and his colleagues collected over 5,000 images of the sunlit side of the Earth taken in 2016 by the Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) on board DSCOVR.

How we know the oldest person who ever lived wasn’t faking her age

Quoted: ”A biological method of age verification doesn’t really exist yet, says Craig Atwood, a gerontologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. When it comes to identity theft, you could do whole-genome sequencing of someone at birth and at death.

How exercise may reduce risk of inflammation, depression

Quoted: Charles Raison, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says that exercise can provide a transient “hit” to the immune system that triggers other regulatory cytokines to dampen down the response, which may be one of the reasons exercise is such a powerful tool for improved health.

Ask Amy: Mom is giving her toddler melatonin; is this safe?

Quoted: Regarding the use of melatonin with young children, I shared your question with Dipesh Navsaria, a pediatrician at the University of Wisconsin.

Major Wisconsin Farm Groups Open To Creating Dairy Supply Management Program

Mark Stevenson, a dairy industry expert, said supply management programs like those in place in Canada and other countries can be effective.”If you restrict the amount of milk that gets to the marketplace, you can keep prices much higher, but if you do that, there has to be a lot of restrictions in place,” said Stevenson, director of Dairy Policy Analysis at the University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

UW-Madison Researchers Testing Postage Stamp-Size Weight Loss Device

It’s the new year, a time when many are turning to resolutions — including diets. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are testing a new model of a weight loss intervention device. It zaps a nerve into making your stomach feel full so that you eat less.

A mainstream journalist opposed a mosque’s expansion. Is such activism appropriate?

Quoted: While there’s no “actual” conflict of interest because Overberg isn’t using his position to influence a personal matter, there could be a “perceived” conflict, said Kathleen Bartzen Culver, director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin. “It would be easy for people to assume his activism makes his journalism suspect,” she said.

Republicans, Democrats Speak to Walker’s Legacy

University of Wisconsin political science professor Barry Burden: “He will be remembered for presiding over the longest stretch of single-party control of state government since the 1950s, and a highly productive stretch at that.”

Mediation and exercise lower your risk of getting the flu, study claims

The team, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says it hopes the results lead to doctors ’prescribing’ one of the activities to their patients in addition to the annual flu shot.

Federal Rule Makes Hospitals Post Prices To Increase Transparency, Competition

Health insurance expert Justin Sydnor, an assistant professor of actuarial science, risk management and insurance at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said there could be modest benefits to this regulation.

From Madison to Mars: UW lab plants seeds for deep space travel

“Three…two…one…engine ignited, and we have liftoff of SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket and Dragon.”

On Dec. 15, 2017, Simon Gilroy listened to that countdown as he gazed across a river separating a mass of scientists from the launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Titusville, Florida. He was a couple of miles from the site, but as close as you could get without being inside the rocket.

Voting Issues and Gerrymanders Are Now Key Political Battlegrounds

Quoted: Barry Burden, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin, called the results “a beautiful gerrymander” because Republicans were protected even in a bad year for their party.

Mediterranean diet, DASH are best diets for 2019

Quoted: “I am not surprised that the DASH and Mediterranean diets have been No. 1 and No. 2 for several years. They are more lifestyle diets than fad type of diets,” Samantha Gollup, a registered dietitian at the University of Wisconsin Health, told TODAY. She was not involved in the list. “You are limiting processed foods and you are increasing the amount of vegetables.”

He Hawks Young Blood As A New Miracle Treatment. All That’s Missing Is Proof.

Quoted: Rather, it noted in its informed consent form that there are “no known improvements” directly related to young plasma infusions. In fact, the form contained “an appalling lack of detailed explanation of what the actual effects of this intervention are supposed to be,” said Alta Charo, a professor of law and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who reviewed Ambrosia’s form at HuffPost’s request.

UW-Madison Ranks No. 1 For Peace Corps Volunteers For Second Year In A Row

For the second year in a row, the University of Wisconsin-Madison has been ranked the No. 1 feeder school for the Peace Corps.

China’s Population Is ‘Degenerating Into a Small Group of the Old and the Weak,’ Experts Say

.Yi Fuxian, a researcher from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Su Jian, an economist at Peking University, co-authored a paper suggesting that China has entered a long-term downward population spiral. The experts warned that the past year will be “remembered as a historical turning point for [the] Chinese population,” arguing that China is “degenerating into a small group of the old and the weak thanks to wrong demographic policies,” the South China Morning Post reported Wednesday.

You Got Them Exactly the Wrong Thing, Didn’t You?

“There is something intimate about sharing—think of sharing a meal or a bed or watching a movie together,” says Evan Polman, assistant professor of marketing at Wisconsin School of Business at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and lead author on the study. “The same thing happens when people share a material item. It brings the giver and receiver together and gives them something to talk about.”

50-million-year cooling trend is reversed

“We can use the past as a yardstick to understand the future, which is so different from anything we have experienced in our lifetime,” said John Williams, a palaeo-ecologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the US.

Surprising discoveries on how tornadoes form and how climate change could make them stronger

Dr Leigh Orf is a Tornado researcher and modeler at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He generally agrees with Houser’s results. “Her findings are quite compelling; a visible condensation funnel intersecting the ground long before rotation was seen on research radars.”

Female-Dominated Turtle Populations May Be in Trouble

“Studies like this remind us… that nature is far more complicated than we ever imagined,” says Warren Porter, who studies turtle ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, but did not contribute to the study.

In the hunt for aliens, scientists look again to the clouds of Venus

As for the search for life in the clouds of Venus, a paper published this autumn in the journal Astrobiology by a team led by Sanjay Limaye at the University of Wisconsin-Madison presents an argument for how and why it ought to be pursued further — now more than ever. And it hinges on data we’ve been able to uncover here on Earth.

As Surgeon General Declares Vaping An Epidemic, Wisconsin Leaders Continue Efforts To Discourage It

Quoted: Students who wouldn’t normally smoke are vaping, said Lori Anderson, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Nursing and expert on teen risk-taking behavior.

Arctic Lakes Are Vanishing by the Hundreds

As plants spring up on the landscape, they can invade small ponds and eventually overtake them entirely, said Christian Andresen, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Wisconsin.

Battle of the bulge goes high-tech: UW scientists devise innovative implantable weight-loss device

Just in time for the holiday snacking and buffet season, University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists have invented an innovative weight-loss device that someday may be implanted in people’s stomachs.

Wisconsin Lost Record-Breaking Percent Of Dairy Farms In 2018

Quoted: Bob Cropp, professor emeritus of agricultural and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said Wisconsin’s dairy farmers have had it tough.

Cooper’s hawk has adapted to urban surroundings and flourished

This irony is documented in a newly published study by University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers Benjamin Zuckerberg and Jennifer McCabe. Their research focused on the city of Chicago.

WisContext: Rethinking Treatment Of Traumatic Brain Injuries Among Children With Disabilities

Quoted: Walton O. Schalick III noted concerns about the use of CT scans to evaluate traumatic brain injuries in children at a Wednesday Nite @ the Lab lecture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on Nov. 8, 2017. The talk, which looked more broadly at changing approaches to treating disabilities among children, was recorded for Wisconsin Public Television’s “University Place.”

Self-weighing, self-awareness may prevent holiday weight gain

Few randomized controlled trials have studied effective programs to combat the year-end bloat, noted Dale Schoeller of the University of Wisconsin in Madison, who wasn’t involved in the study.

It ain’t over when it’s over: In Michigan, Wisconsin and elsewhere, losers seek to undermine election results

Quoted: “This is about as fundamental as it gets,” said Howard Schweber, a professor of political science and legal studies at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. “The way people lose faith in political institutions is when it seems they’re no longer governed by constitutional principles but government by capture — to the victor go the spoils.”

Climate Change Is Reversing a 50-Million-Year-Old Cooling Trend

The study’s lead author, Kevin Burke, worked with paleoecologist Dr. John Williams of the University of Wisconsin-Madison to assess the climatic characteristics of several geologic time periods, including the Early Eocene (beginning 56 million years ago), the mid-Pliocene (beginning 3.3 million years ago), the Last Interglacial (beginning 130,000 years ago), the mid-Holocene (beginning 7,000 years ago), the pre-industrial era (beginning in 1750), and the early 20th century.