UW In The News

The college try: How the Wisconsin Idea reached one of the poorest regions in Sierra Leone

Noted: The main force behind the University of Koinadugu is a man who could have used it decades ago. Alhaji N’Jai managed to go to college in Michigan only after escaping his country’s civil war. Eventually he joined a post-doctorate program at UW-Madison. It was here, on the second floor of the Memorial Union, that he saw a display about the famed Wisconsin Idea.

“Straight then I said to myself ‘this is actually what we need in Sierra Leone,’” N’Jai says.

UW-Madison in top 50 (again) among world’s best universities

UW-Madison is ranked among the top 50 universities in the world once again, and is in the top 25 of U.S. universities, according to rankings released Wednesday.

Climate change: National parks at greater risk, study says

A new study published Monday has warned that climate change has adversely and uniquely affected many of the 417 national parks spread across the United States and its territories, according to scientists from the University of California at Berkeley and University of Wisconsin.

Climate Change Science: National Parks Affected Worse Than the Rest of US

In the study, published in Environmental Research Letters, scientists from the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Wisconsin-Madison show that temperatures in the national parks increased by 33.8 °F from 1895 to 2010.

Does microwaving food cause nutrient loss?

Quoted: Any kind of cooking method will result in some nutrient losses, so a better way to look at the issue is to what degree nutrients are depleted, explained Scott A. Rankin, professor and chair of the Department of Food Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. And “typical microwave heating results in very minimal loss of valuable nutrients in food,” Rankin said.

An Artist Who Champions and Channels Female Voices

Ms. Coyne’s references to writers will be the focus of an exhibition in 2021 at the Chazen Museum of Art at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Amy Gilman, director of the Chazen, finds the sculptures “evocative in the way that great literature stays with you,” she said. “Petah’s work exposes private things without being explicit, these deep wells of memory and meaning and relationship.”

Trump’s Irresponsible Denial of Puerto Rico’s Hurricane Deaths

President Trump provoked outrage on Twitter and in the media in mid-September with his tweets that denied the death toll in Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria in 2017 and blamed Democrats for artificially elevating it.

An Artist Who Champions and Channels Female Voices

Noted: Ms. Coyne’s references to writers will be the focus of an exhibition in 2021 at the Chazen Museum of Art at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Amy Gilman, director of the Chazen, finds the sculptures “evocative in the way that great literature stays with you,” she said. “Petah’s work exposes private things without being explicit, these deep wells of memory and meaning and relationship.”

UW freshman class is largest ever; total enrollment tops 44,000

UW-Madison welcomed 6,862 freshmen, for a class of 2022 that’s 3.8 percent bigger than last year’s class of 6,610.

Study Eyes Climate Change Impact on National Parks

Emissions from cars, power plants and deforestation are leading to the increase in wildfire burn zones, the melting of glaciers as well as shifting vegetation, according to the study, which was conducted by University of California, Berkeley and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

National Parks Warming Twice as Fast as Rest of Country, Study Says

Temperatures have risen 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit in the 417 national parks between 1895 and 2010, twice the rate of anywhere else in the country, according to the study by the University of California Berkeley and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Weather and Climate: What’s the Difference?

Quoted: “Weather is the day-to-day variation in meteorological conditions,” Jonathan Martin, a professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, explains. “Climate is the aggregate of weather events, resulting in a long-term average.”

Analysis: Hurricane Florence’s Rain Produced Massive Flooding, But Paled in Comparison to Harvey

Quoted: The area drenched by more than 20 inches of rainfall covered more than three times more area in Texas and Louisiana during Harvey than in the Carolinas during Florence, according to an analysis by Dr. Shane Hubbard, a researcher from the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies at the University of Wisconsin.

How a warming world may have caused Hurricane Florence to stall

Featured: A study in the journal “Nature” in June of this year concluded, between 1949 and 2016, tropical cyclones have slowed down 30 percent when they hit land in the Northwest Pacific and 20 percent in the North Atlantic.Atmospheric research scientist James Kossin of the University of Wisconsin is the lead author.

Humans have been messing with the climate for thousands of years

“There is a huge difference between the very gradual and accidental warming trend that early farmers probably caused, versus the much more rapid climate changes that our modern industrial world is effecting knowingly,” said Stephen Vavrus, a senior scientist in the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Climatic Research who conducted the study, which recently appeared in the journal Scientific Reports.

Models in labor, breastfeeding are latest fashion trend

Quoted: “This is the latest incarnation of the whole ’super mom’ idea. Not only do we have to be working right up until we deliver our babies but now we have to look beautiful, nay sexy, while doing it,” said Whelan, clinical professor in the School of Human Ecology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “It puts a tremendous amount of pressure on women.”

New Discoveries Made in How Plants Warn Each Other of Danger

The research comes from a team at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Professor of Botany Simon Gilroy and postdoc researcher Masatsugu Toyota collaborated on the find. The pair has since collected over a dozen videos displaying the reaction of plants in response to stress.

Life Insurance Offering More Incentive to Live Longer

Quoted: “The main thing we’ve seen in a variety of studies looking at health incentives is that healthy people are very interested in being in these types of programs,” said Justin Sydnor, associate professor of risk and insurance at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Chemical in cigarette smoke may damage important aspect of vision

“This particular aspect of vision is really important because it affects your ability to see the end of a curb or put a key into a lock in low light,” said lead author Adam Paulson of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, School of Medicine. “It’s something that at this point in time there’s no way to correct, unlike visual acuity, which you can easily correct with glasses or contact lenses.”

Campaign ads in Wisconsin showcase porn-watching teachers

Quoted: “Walker is in trouble,” said Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

How studying chicken butts cracked the inner workings of our immune system

The missing piece, which was languishing largely unnoticed in Poultry Science, got to Cooper when some hormone researchers at the University of Wisconsin noticed the chicken paper and relayed it to Cooper’s advisor, Robert Good (an immunologist who would eventually perform the first successful bone marrow transplant).

How Studying Business, Engineering in College Can Lead to Jobs

The University of Wisconsin—Madison is exploring ways to incorporate cross-disciplinary content across a school of about 31,000 undergrads, says Suzanne Dove, assistant dean for academic innovations at the university’s Wisconsin School of Business.

Watch a Mutant Plant Burst Into Action When Attacked

When plants are wounded, they send out warning signals that spread to other leaves, raising the alarm and activating defense mechanisms for the undamaged areas. Now, researchers have captured this burst of activity in a set of mesmerising videos that are helping to explain the tricky topic of plant “intelligence”.

Gotta See ‘Em All: Group visits all 85 Bucky statues in one day

As summer winds down, so does Bucky On Parade.

Editorial: Keep Bucky on Parade going

MADISON, Wis. – Wednesday, one of Madison’s most successful public arts projects comes to an end with the conclusion of Bucky on Parade.

Editorial: It was the summer of Bucky love

Even in the most contentious of times, when tumult rules and vitriol pushes harmony aside, some days all we need is a little Bucky love.

UW-Madison ranked 15th best public university, drops slightly from last year, report says

Wisconsin’s flagship university remains one of the top public higher education institutions in the United States despite a slight drop compared to last year, according to a report released Monday.

Key internet connections and locations at risk from rising seas

Carol Barford, University of Wisconsin-Madison. (THE CONVERSATION) Despite whimsical ads about computing “in the cloud,” the internet lives on the ground. Data centers are built on land, and most of the physical elements of the internet – such as the cables that connect households to internet services and the fiber optic strands carrying data from one city to another – are buried in plastic conduit under the dirt. That system has worked quite well for many years, but there may be less than a decade to adapt it to the changing global climate.

Discovering the ancient origin of cystic fibrosis, the most common genetic disease in Caucasians

Philip Farrell, University of Wisconsin-Madison (THE CONVERSATION) Imagine the thrill of discovery when more than 10 years of research on the origin of a common genetic disease, cystic fibrosis (CF), results in tracing it to a group of distinct but mysterious Europeans who lived about 5,000 years ago.

RNA Detection Tool Debate Flares Up at ACS Meeting

Quoted: Weibo Cai, an associate professor in biomedical engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who was present at Mirkin’s presentation, says he didn’t think the heated discussion was a “big deal” and does not recall the name-calling, he writes to The Scientist in an email. “I think they probably have had the debate multiple times before,” he adds.