UW In The News

Honoring And Remembering Singer Aretha Franklin And Her Voice

Featured: NPR’s Audie Cornish talks with Thulani Davis about Aretha Franklin, the “Queen of Soul,” who died Thursday at 76. Davis says Franklin let the style of singing African-Americans knew from church blend into popular music.

How Aretha Franklin’s commitment to civil rights and equality changed hearts and minds

Quoted: “There’s no way to overstate what Aretha meant to the generation that came of age during the Civil Rights Movement,” Craig Werner, professor of Afro-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison told NBC News.

Do flat-tummy teas or activated charcoal help with weight loss? Nutritionists weigh in

Quoted: “There is evidence to suggest that vinegars can inhibit enzymes that break down food and change up how we digest carbohydrates,” Cassie Vanderwall, a nutritionist at University of Wisconsin Health, told TODAY. “(But) I don’t think the evidence is strong enough to recommend it (for weight loss.)”

Ryan Zinke blames ‘environmental terrorist groups’ for severity of California wildfires

Quoted: But Monica Turner, an ecologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, said this argument doesn’t address the bigger problem.“Making minor changes in the fuels [which] you then have to do repeatedly for many years is not going to solve the bigger problem of having to face climate change,” she told The Washington Post. “We cannot clear or thin our way out of this problem.”

Animals suffer in Europe’s summer of extreme heat

Quoted: “What we expect is more heat waves like this, and we expect that as the climate changes and heat waves become more common, species will experience heat stress, migrate away from periods of heat, or in the case of trees start dying,” said Jack Williams, a professor of geography at the University of Wisconsin. “There’s a saying that species have opportunities of moving, adapting, persisting or dying out.”

A drug’s weird side effect lets people control their dreams

Noted: A small number of people naturally have lucid dreams, meaning they can recognise when they’re dreaming and steer the storyline they experience. Some others can learn to induce them using cognitive techniques.The practice is most commonly used to pursue fantasies like flying, but it may also help to overcome fears and nightmares, says Benjamin Baird at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Turnout in Minnesota, Wisconsin primaries surges to two-decade highs

Quoted: However, David Canon, professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison, said not too much could be read into Tuesday’s turnout given several hot contests in the state.

UW-Madison maintains high affordability ranking, Money Magazine says

The annual Money Magazine Best Colleges for Your Money list out on Monday puts UW-Madison at 48th overall and 30th among public universities, based on affordability, quality of education and outcomes.

Video game to improve empathy in school kids

“The realisation that these skills are actually trainable with video games is important because they are predictors of emotional well-being and health throughout life, and can be practised anytime–with or without video games,” said lead author Tammi Kral, graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the US.

How a video game may improve empathy in middle schoolers

According to the researchers, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the US, empathy is the first step in a sequence that can lead to prosocial behavior, such as helping others in need.

Streaming Textbooks: Changing the Game

According to the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, “Other parts of the cost of attendance, including living costs, transportation, books and supplies, and personal expenses make up between 50 percent and 80 percent of sticker price. As a result, low-income students can be faced with making difficult financial choices. For example, tight finances among low-income students can lead them to sacrifice food and housing to stay in school.”

Video Game Designed to Boost Empathy in Kids Shows Good Qualities Can Be Taught: Study

Lead author Tammi Kral, graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the US, said: The realisation that these skills are actually trainable with video games is important because they are predictors of emotional well-being and health throughout life, and can be practised anytime – with or without video games.

Boost your gut health with crickets

A group of researchers led by Dr. Valerie Stull at the University of Wisconsin-Madison set out to see how eating crickets affects gut microbiota and if it functions as an anti-inflammatory. The resulting experiment showed that crickets are, indeed, very good for one’s gut health.

Here’s More Evidence Facebook Is Harming Democracy

Quoted: “On balance, the overall impact of social media on political knowledge appears to be negative,” write University of Wisconsin–Madison scholars Sangwon Lee and Michael Xenos. “Political social media use does not have a significant effect on political knowledge, while general social media use has a modestly negative effect.”

How Colleges Are Sparing Birds’ Lives and Conserving Energy

Aaron Williams was never a bird expert or even a bird enthusiast. But somehow, he’s found himself coordinating a flock of volunteers at the University of Wisconsin at Madison as part of a large-scale effort to protect local and migrating birds.

The Mendocino Complex Fire is now the largest wildfire ever recorded in California

Quoted: “Extreme droughts and high winds are increasing as climate is warming,” said Monica Turner, an ecologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison who has spent three decades researching fires at Yellowstone National Park. “That’s the ultimate driver behind what’s happening in California.”

An Invasive New Tick Is Spreading in the U.S.

Quoted: “One tick can crank out females in fairly large numbers,” said Thomas Yuill, a retired pathobiologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who was one of the first to raise alarms about the invaders.

Security Experts: Wisconsin Voting Systems Can Be Hacked

Noted: Wisconsin and other battleground states were targeted by a sophisticated social media campaign, according to a recent University of Wisconsin-Madison study headed by journalism professor Young Mie Kim.

Donald Trump, Barack Obama, and the war over change

A new report out of the University of Wisconsin Madison’s Applied Population Lab found that white births are now outnumbered by white deaths in 26 states, up from 17 in 2014 and four in 2004.

White House Report Claims ‘War On Poverty’ Is Over

Featured: According to the U.S. Census, more than 43 million Americans were living below the poverty line in 2016. But a recent report released from the White House says initiatives to reduce poverty in the United States over the last 50 years have largely been a success. Timothy Smeeding–Lee Rainwater Distinguished Professor of Public Affairs and Economics and former Director of the University of Wisconsin’s Institute for Research on Poverty–joins us to talk about the report and what it could mean for social programs in the future.

Is there a right kind of screen time?

Featured: In the last installment of our series on the trade-offs of technology and what it means for our kids, Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood talked with Dr. Megan Moreno, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin who studies how media use affects kids.

‘I Think All Those People Are Dead’: Laos Dam Survivors Seek Word of Neighbors

Quoted: “It’s hard to know if they were lying now or if they were incompetent before,” said Ian Baird, an expert on Laos at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, referring to Laotian officials. But he said the confusion was to be expected, with a risk-adverse authoritarian government in a poor country that is not accustomed to responding to disasters of this magnitude.

Weed Legalization Is Tearing This Neighbourhood Apart

But in Denver, pot businesses boosted property values in their host neighbourhoods, according to a report last year from the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business. In other words, the business of weed can be both a boon to homeowners and a source of stress on local renters.

Dam Collapse in Laos Displaces Thousands, Exposes Dam Safety Risks

Featured: We’ll discuss what led to the tragedy and how it could’ve been prevented with Ian Baird, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He’s an expert on Laos and impacts of dams.

‘Battery of Asia’: Laos’s controversial hydro ambitions

Quoted: “Poor people in the project areas are worse off because of these dams, not better off,” said Ian Baird, assistant professor of geography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Locals reap little benefit in Laos’s controversial hydroelectricity ambitions

Quoted: “Poor people in the project areas are worse off because of these dams, not better off,” said Ian Baird, assistant professor of geography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

An Advocate’s Perspective on Patient-Centered Care

Attorney Meg Gaines found a calling to be a patient advocate after her own cancer experience. Gaines’ self-advocacy helped her through her extended and difficult diagnosis and treatment process in the 1990s. After her successful treatment, she wanted to empower other people with cancer to advocate for their care. Her first opportunity came unexpectedly, when her oncologist asked her to help cheer up a patient who was feeling down. “I jumped on the bus and really was there in about 25 minutes,” Gaines told me in a recent interview. “[I] sat for most of the afternoon with her—talking about life, and death, and mortality and what it’s like, and family, and fear, and cancer.”

America needs independent judges

Rather than enhancing the neutrality of administrative law judges, the executive order diminishes them by making their hiring subject to political considerations. It means that administrative law judges will be more akin to Roger Goodell than a Supreme Court justice, no longer bound by precedent and legal reasoning, but rather incentivized to decide cases to advance political, not legal, objectives. This calls for Congress to protect the continued independence of administrative law judges.

-Steph Tai is a law professor at the University of Wisconsin who represents amici in federal court and Supreme Court cases.

A Day Before Laos Dam Failed, Builders Saw Trouble

Quoted: Both South Korean companies mentioned heavy rains in their descriptions of the disaster. But Ian Baird, a geography professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who specializes in Laos and has studied the hydropower project, said he believed the problem was either faulty construction, or a decision to store too much water in the dam’s reservoir at a time when heavy rain should have been expected. “When at the end of July do we not get rain in this part of the world?” he asked.

Why are so many products being recalled over Salmonella concerns?

Quoted: “It’s an ingredient derived from the waste of cheese making,” Bradley Bolling, a food scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said.