UW In The News

Personal finance courses help people make better borrowing choices

Quoted: “Consumers should use alternative financial services as a last resort,” said Melody Harvey, author of the study and a fellow at the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

UW-Madison cook makes 900 eggs a day any way students like ’em

Seeman said her goal is to bring “a little smile” to the faces of the hundreds of UW-Madison students she serves each day.“After almost 30 years, the highlight of my day is being able to say good morning to everyone who is standing there just waking up,” Seeman said. “Even if they’ve had a rough night or rough morning and they come in for their omelette at 11 o’clock in the morning, you gotta smile, you gotta say, ‘Hi, how’s it going?’ So at least, if they are having a bad day, it’s like ‘OK, it’s good.’”

People Living With Incurable Cancers Urge More Research

Several studies are examining “what allows some people to live a very long time with incurable cancer,” said Dr. Mark Burkard, who is leading one at the University of Wisconsin in Madison for breast cancer.

How these scam ads promoting fake tax breaks prospered on Facebook

Quoted: “This is definitely concerning — definitely, it’s misinformation,” said Young Mie Kim, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor who studied 5 million Facebook ads during the 2016 elections. “I keep telling people: We don’t have any basis to regulate such a thing.”

Women’s hockey: A look back at Wisconsin’s incredible championship Season

The University of Wisconsin women’s hockey team is no stranger to success in the world of Division I Women’s Collegiate Ice Hockey. This year’s national title is yet another addition to the long list of accolades the team has garnered under the stewardship of head coach and UW legend Mark Johnson.

Kremlin Clamps Down on Internet

Quoted: “My feeling is this is the next step in an evolution in [which] Cold War cyber capabilities have grown to such an extent that they are only short of nuclear capabilities,” said Paul Barford, professor of computer science at the University of Wisconsin.

We may have bred with Denisovans much more recently than we thought

Quoted: “This study is giving us insight into the real pattern of human diversity,” says John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “It opens a window to the fact that there was once a population that was as rich and diverse as modern humans that’s now gone.”

What makes Wisconsin swing?

A few months after majorities of Wisconsin voters re-elected Democrat Tammy Baldwin to the US Senate with a 10-point cushion but only sent Republican Governor Scott Walker packing by a razor-thin margin, the Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez announced that the city of Milwaukee will host the 2020 Democratic National Convention.

With vaccine misinformation, libraries walk a fine line

Quoted: There’s this underlying recognition,” said Bob Drechsel, an expert in media law at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, “that it’s extraordinarily important and unavoidable that librarians have a great deal of discretion to make decisions about what they think is in the best interest of their collections and their patrons.”

BBC – Future – Are we close to solving the puzzle of consciousness?

Quoted: “With a dog, who behaves quite a lot like us, who is in a body which is not too different from ours, and who has a brain that is not too different from ours, it’s much more plausible that it sees things and hears things very much like we do, than to say that it is completely ‘dark inside’, so to speak,” says Giulio Tononi, a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “But when it comes down to a lobster, all bets are off.”

Fifty Years After Apollo 11, the Moon Is More Important Than Ever

Quoted: It’s valued at roughly $5 billion per metric ton or more, according to Gerald Kulcinski, director of the Fusion Technology Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a former member of the NASA Advisory Council. (Gold’s value is roughly $42 million per metric ton.)

Badgers take powerful message to Congress during UW-Madison Day in Washington DC

More than 120 University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni, students, and friends, from across the country gathered in Washington, DC, to let their voices be heard as part of the third annual UW–Madison Day.

Thai Election Mess Pits Thaksin Against Coup-Prone Generals

Quoted: “If the military can come to terms with the fact that despite all of their efforts they still can’t win, or if there’s a clear resistance, maybe they would stop,” said David Streckfuss, a scholar of Southeast Asian politics and honorary fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  “But I don’t have much hope for that.”

Feng Shui Tips for a Harmonious Life

For the last 15 years, Wei Dong, a professor in the School of Human Ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has taken students to China on an international study abroad program that examines the concepts of feng shui.

Report: New Solar, Wind Could Replace Coal While Cutting Costs

Quoted: Greg Nemet, professor of public affairs and environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said this report makes clear what people in the industry already know about the cost-effectiveness of coal.

Here’s how many trees are required to cool a city street

That’s why researchers at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, decided to start measuring. They strapped some sensors to a bike, and sent an able-bodied person around the city of Madison to test temperatures at regular intervals along blocks with varying levels of tree cover. They published their results Monday in the journal PNAS.

Throw Shade at Climate Change By Planting More Trees

And, according to a new study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, they play a big role in keeping towns and cities cool.

Cottage Cheese Is the New Greek Yogurt

Quoted: “It’s a pretty straightforward cheese to make,” says John Lucey, a professor of food science at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Even so, the process is time-consuming and labor-intensive. It begins with creating the curd, the lumpy matter found in cottage cheese.

The NCAA women’s hockey trophy is coming home to Wisconsin

The No. 1 Wisconsin women’s hockey team won its fifth national championship Sunday with a 2-0 win over No. 2 Minnesota.

Wisconsin dairy farmers lean on creativity, innovation

University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Victor Cabrera wants to help farmers make better decisions through his project called Dairy Brain , which would collect and integrate data from all parts of the farm operation, then use artificial intelligence to analyze the findings and help farmers make smarter management decisions.

Most styrofoam isn’t recycled. Here’s how 3 startups aim to fix that

Andrea Hicks, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Wisconsin, Madison published a recent study that looked at the environmental impact of polystyrene through its life cycle.

Why the Peace Corps director thinks UW-Madison tops all schools in producing volunteers

Seventy-five Badgers — more than any other U.S. university — are currently serving a 27-month stint in developing countries promoting peace through community integration.

Report: Climate Change Brings Rising Temperatures, Extreme Weather To Great Lakes States

The Environmental Law & Policy Center commissioned the study by researchers from several universities, including Daniel Vimont, director of the Nelson Institute Center For Climatic Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Debunking the Capitalist Cowboy

Business schools fetishize entrepreneurial innovation, but their most prominent heroes succeeded because they manipulated corporate law, not because of personal brilliance. –Nan Enstad is the Robinson Edwards Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and author of Cigarettes, Inc.: An Intimate History of Corporate Imperialism.

What Is the World to Do About Gene-Editing?

Quoted: This can be seen in what the University of Wisconsin bioethicist Alta Charo, an author of the 2017 NASEM report, both observes and endorses as the “yellow light” approach to regulating “technology [that] innovates faster than the regulatory system can adapt.”

Climate change is taking a toll on the $20 billion ski industry

Tonight’s spring equinox “supermoon,” explained in one chart

Quoted: A supermoon is when these two cycles match up and we have a full moon that’s near its perigee. The result is that the full “super” moon appears slightly larger and slightly brighter in the sky. This occurs about one in every 14 full moons, Jim Lattis, an astronomer at the University of Wisconsin Madison, notes.

The return of internet nationalism

Quoted: According to Paul Barford, an internet topology expert at the University of Wisconsin who worked on the Internet Atlas, Russia’s plan is almost certainly part of an attempt to defend itself against what he calls a “cyber cold war.”

UW-Madison scientists make key discovery on protein that’s a major focus of cancer research

New work by two University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers provides crucial insight into a major medical mystery: how a protein that normally protects cells from tumors is induced to abandon its mission.

UW scientists discover pathway behind common cancer gene

UW-Madison researchers have discovered one way a gene that usually protects against tumors can, when mutated, spur cancers of the breast, ovaries, lung and bladder.