UW In The News

Earth’s axial cycles impact the rise and fall of Antarctic sea ice

A new study has revealed that variations in the Earth’s axial tilt are linked to dramatic shifts in the the Antarctic Ice Sheet. A research team led by the University of Wisconsin-Madison has matched the planet’s celestial motions with the geologic record of Antarctica’s ice.

Gene-Editing Tool CRISPR Repurposed to Develop Better Antibiotics

Quoted: “What we need to do is to figure out new weaknesses in these bacteria,” said Jason Peters, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the US.

Why Would Paul Manafort Share Polling Data with Russia?

Noted: In her analysis of five million paid, issue-based Facebook ads—which covered such hot-button issues as gun rights, abortion, gay rights, immigration, terrorism, and race—during a six-week period of the 2016 Presidential campaign, the University of Wisconsin professor Young Mie Kim discovered that “the most highly targeted states—especially Pennsylvania and Wisconsin—generally overlap with the battleground states with razor thin margins.

The power of ‘Om’

Noted: The Nimhans researchers are not alone in their interests. Richard Davidson, director of the University of Wisconsin’s Center for Healthy Minds, is studying Tibetan Buddhist monks to understand how long-term meditation affects the brain.

America’s love-hate relationship with Marie Kondo and our clutter

Quoted: “Products give you a lot of value in different ways,” said Liad Weiss, an assistant professor of marketing and consumer psychology at University of Wisconsin-Madison. “There is the practical element but also the emotional attachment.”

Women Are Asking To Be Paid What They’re Worth — So Why Aren’t They Getting It?

More recent research has revealed that today, more women than ever are asking for what they’re worth — but they’re still not getting it. A 2016 study of 4,600 employees, conducted by the UK’s University of Warwick and the University of Wisconsin, showed that women now ask for raises at the same rate as their male peers — they’re just 25 percent less likely to receive them.

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.