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Mackie’s goal: use what we’ve learned to help humanity
The Wisconsin Institute for Discovery's monthly Tools for Discovery profile features Rock Mackie, director of the medical devices research group at the Morgridge Institute for Research. Read More
First-year student remembered for love of music, nature
Cassidy Fritsch came to UW–Madison with a track record of academic success and a readiness to get involved. In just over six weeks on campus, she had already joined several organizations that spoke to her concern about the natural world: the Veterinary Science Club and the GreenHouse Residential Learning Community. Read More
Standing up to Socrates: Philosophy major invites more women to the table
When Macy Salzberger joined the Socratic Society, an undergraduate club for University of Wisconsin–Madison students interested in discussing philosophy, she was hoping to find like-minded friends eager to engage with her on complex topics: contemporary ethics, the nature of consciousness, and more. What she found, instead, was a fierce style of argument—and hardly any women. Read More
Exhibiting signs of life
What if you could travel back in time 3 billion years, and take a breath? What would earth’s air smell like? Deeply stinky, according to Brooke Norsted, an outreach specialist for the University of Wisconsin–Madison Geology Museum. Read More
New database allows custom comparisons of city finances
As Detroit faces bankruptcy and other U.S. cities address an ongoing crisis in municipal finance, a new interactive database allows for the first time meaningful comparisons of city finances — from spending on schools, police, and public works to revenues from the property tax and other sources. Read More
Scripts and the City
As New York City’s special narcotics prosecutor, Bridget Brennan has seen the city’s drug habit shift from the needle to the crack pipe to the prescription pad. Read More
Weather: More data + more computers = better forecasts
Been beefing about weather forecasts? Did the “experts” miss a thunderstorm, botch the rainfall prediction, mistake cloudy for sunny or windy for calm? You’re not alone. Forecasts of weather are already way better than forecasts of, say, unemployment or grain harvests, but that doesn’t lead us to predict that the caterwauling over weather forecasts will dampen. Read More