UW In The News

Lakes ‘skating on thin ice’ as warming limits freeze

“The deeper the lake is, the more heat storage it has and it takes more cold weather to get the lake down to a temp where it could freeze,” said Prof John Magnuson, a co-author from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

You can’t control what you can’t find: Detecting invasive species while they’re still scarce

Jake Walsh, University of Wisconsin-Madison: Most of the 10,000 ships lost to the bottom of the Great Lakes in wrecks over the past 400 years are still lost – hidden somewhere in 6 quadrillion gallons of water. Finding anything in a lake is a lesson in humility, so life as a freshwater biologist is always humbling. If we can’t account for huge steel freighters, imagine the challenge of finding a single tiny organism.

Report: Lots Of Access To Pre-K, But Quality Sometimes Lacking

Quoted: “Particularly in large urban areas they can’t afford to have a class that low,” said Graue, director of University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Research in Early Childhood Education.

How to Stop Rogue Gene-Editing of Human Embryos?

Quoted: In a recent New England Journal of Medicine article, R. Alta Charo, a bioethicist at University of Wisconsin-Madison, recommended a “comprehensive ecosystem of public and private entities that can restrain the rogues among us.”

Evers Walks Back Comments As Legislature’s Attorney Says He Can’t Stop ACA Lawsuit

Quoted: Howard Schweber, University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor, said it could be up to the judicial system to decide the dispute.

How low-income parents are working to to help their children with autism

That means the needs of an untold number of children aren’t being met. It also has serious ramifications for research, because it can skew estimates of autism, says Maureen Durkin, an epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison: “It means that the prevalence of autism is probably even higher than we’re measuring.”

Where Sloths Find These Branches, Their Family Trees Expand

For almost ten years, Jonathan Pauli and M. Zachariah Peery, professors at the University of Wisconsin, and their colleagues have been tracking a group of sloths in Costa Rica. The animals are equipped with radio collars that transmit their location five or six times a month, so the team knows where each sloth’s usual territory is.

Alcohol-related disease overtakes hepatitis C as top reason for liver transplant

There is nothing magical about six months, according to Dr. Michael Lucey, medical director of the University of Wisconsin liver transplant program. He said it shows a poor understanding of alcohol abuse as a “very complex behavioral disorder.”

Scientists are learning how to farm on Mars through trail and error

Quoted: “Watering plants in space is really hard because water moves differently because there’s no gravity. If you get the water onto soil particles, it’ll just creep over the surface,” said Simon Gilroy, a botanist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who researches the effects of gravity on plant growth. He was not involved with the new study.

Warning as researchers find common cold and other human viruses are killing wild chimps in Uganda

’These are very common human viruses that circulate worldwide and cause ’the sniffles’ in kids,’ Tony Goldberg, a University of Wisconsin–Madison professor, said.

Losing the Humanity of Transplants

Surgeons like me, who work in the field of organ transplant, have been repeating a cliché for decades about the idea of using other animals’ organs to replace failing ones in humans: “It’s the future, and it always will be.” By: Joshua Mezrich

China seems to confirm scientist’s gene-edited babies claim

Quoted: The statement shows that “scientific leadership is taking this situation seriously,” said Alta Charo, a University of Wisconsin bioethicist and one of the leaders of the Hong Kong conference.

The Cotton Plant That Sprouted on the Far Side of the Moon Has Died

Quoted: He adds that though the project was cut short, he still considers it a success. And other scientists agree, including Simon Gilroy, a professor of botany at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who was not involved in the study.

Government shutdown frays America’s safety net

Quoted: “A safety net that has a frayed bottom to it makes people much less, feel more financially fragile and financially vulnerable than they already are,” J. Michael Collins, a professor at the University of Wisconsin- Madison, told ABC News.

Is It Ethical for Alcoholics to Get Liver Transplants?

Before he found out he needed a new liver, Herbert Heneman was not your typical corner-of-the-dive-bar alcoholic. Heneman, the Dickson-Bascom professor emeritus of management and human resources at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota. He had a happy childhood and a very supportive family. He describes his parents as somewhat heavy drinkers, particularly his father, but he remembers no health issues, legal problems, or family crises related to alcohol.

This post is adapted from Mezrich’s new book,When Death Becomes Life: Notes From a Transplant Surgeon.

Protecting monarch butterflies’ winter home could mean moving hundreds of trees

Quoted: Rising temperatures and habitat destruction at the butterflies’ breeding sites in the United States and Canada are the major drivers of monarch declines, says Karen Oberhauser, a conservation biologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

R. Kelly and the silencing of black women in history

Quoted: “It is incredibly courageous for the survivors to come forward, given the gross misogyny and disregard for black women and girls in the country and worldwide,” insists Bianca J. Baldridge, an Assistant Professor in Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of the forthcoming book entitled Reclaiming Community: Race and the Uncertain Future of Youth Work.

Farms, More Productive Than Ever, Are Poisoning Drinking Water in Rural America

Some contamination comes from septic systems, he says. In parts of Kewaunee County, more than one-fifth of private wells surpassed the federal nitrate limit, according to data aggregated by the University of Wisconsin.

What it means to be a peace corps volunteer

For the second consecutive year UW-Madison tops the list of universities for sending the most Peace Corps volunteers abroad. We find out more about the program and the opportunities they offer. We’ll also talk with a former lawmaker before he departs for Senegal next month about his decision to volunteer at the age of 65. Featured: Kate Schacter.

As Cheese Surplus Hits All-Time High, Dairy Industry Is ‘Cautiously Optimistic’

Quoted: Brian Gould, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of agribusiness, expects this degree of excess to be a temporary situation.”The industry … is not alarmed to a large degree, I mean there is some concern of course if these stick around, but I haven’t seen a tremendous drop off in those cheese prices over the last six, seven months,” he said.

Blame a wobbly polar vortex for why you’re so damn cold

Quoted: “We’re gonna freeze,” John Martin, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said in an interview.

How Lichens Explain (And Re-explain) the World

Tripp agrees that “we, as a community of lichen biologists, need to revisit the role of all symbionts in the lichen microcosm.” No matter how one describes Tremella and other lichen-associated fungi, it’s clear that they do affect the form and function of the lichen as a whole. How they do so is “the great unsolved problem” of lichenology, says Anne Pringle from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Lunar eclipse 2019: how to watch this “supermoon” turn blood-red

Noted: 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.

Wildfires Spark Population Booms in Fungi and Bacteria

“We’re beginning to parse out the ecological drivers of response to fire,” says study co-author Thea Whitman, a soil ecologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Earth’s Tilt Could Accelerate Antarctica Ice Loss

“Really critical is the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere,” said Stephen Meyers from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and the co-author of the new study. He added that extreme carbon dioxide and high-angled Earth’s tilt would be devastating for Antarctica.

Potatoes Have A Form Of ‘Depression’, But Scientists Have An Idea To Cure Them

A team of scientists meeting in 2016 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison proposed a new idea — reinventing the potato as a diploid crop, one with two, rather than four, sets of chromosomes.

How to help low-income children with autism

Quoted:That means the needs of an untold number of children aren’t being met. It also has serious ramifications for research, because it can skew estimates of autism, says Maureen Durkin, an epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison: “It means that the prevalence of autism is probably even higher than we’re measuring.”

Lunar eclipse 2019: how to watch this “supermoon” turn blood-red

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.

Earth’s Tilt May Exacerbate a Melting Antarctic

“Really critical is the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere,” said study co-author Stephen Meyers, a paleoclimatologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Severe wildfires spark population boom in fungi and bacteria

“We’re beginning to parse out the ecological drivers of response to fire,” says study co-author Thea Whitman, a soil ecologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.