Newsmakers

(Every week faculty and staff from across campus are featured or cited in newspapers, magazines, broadcasts and other media from around the country. The listings that follow represent a small selection of the many stories that spotlight UW–Madison and its people. More newsmaker listings)

‘Bad science’ prevails
The decision last week by the Kansas Board of Education to effectively discontinue teaching evolution has given rise to fresh debate of Darwin’s theory and its social ramifications. Ronald Numbers, professor of the history of science and medicine, argues “the overwhelming impulse against (the teaching of evolution) is religious.” In an interview with the Christian Science Monitor (Aug. 16), Numbers says that high school biology teachers who present evolution as theory rather than fact are damaging science education in the U.S. “It’s just plain bad science,” he says.

Blindness blocker studied
Lauran Neergaard, Associated Press national medical writer, consulted university ophthalmologist Paul Kaufman for a wire dispatch (Aug. 17) exploring how scientists have discovered a possible new way to slow, if not prevent, the blindness caused by glaucoma: fighting a chemical called nitric oxide. So far, the method has worked only in rats. But the research is so promising that its discoverers already are talking with pharmaceutical companies about creating a drug glaucoma patients could one day use. The work “will likely be considered classic in years to come,” Kaufman declares in reviewing the research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Capitalism at its best
A School of Pharmacy study on the salaries of new pharmacy graduates in the area shows an increase in base salaries by 11 percent in the past two years. That’s because there are more prescriptions being written, which requires more pharmacists to fill them, according to David Mott, an assistant professor of pharmacy administration who conducted the study. “It’s economics 101,” he tells the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (Aug. 22), referring to the law of supply and demand. Salaries for entry-level pharmacists are more than $70,000 a year in the Milwaukee area, the study says. “It’s crazy. It’s capitalism at its best,” Mott says. Despite the growing need for pharmacists, however, the School of Pharmacy has no plans to expand.

Art Ellis

Action and reaction
Scientists today stand on a threshold like never before, as they gain a new and deeper understanding of how matter acts and reacts. Art Ellis, professor of chemistry and education, tells the Christian Science Monitor (Aug. 3) that the latest advances in materials science are incredible because they enable scientists to create materials that are not static, but rather reactive and malleable in relation to factors such as temperature, electrical currents or physical stress. “A ‘smart material’ can tell you something about a situation or a state of affairs by responding in a predictable way to some kind of stimulus,” Ellis says. And that is appealing to a wide range of industries, which are beginning to use “smart materials” to enhance performance, safety and efficiency. Embedding hybrid ceramic materials into snow skis to dampen vibrations and smooth out the ride on the slopes is one small example. “We have this unprecedented control over matter on this nanoscale,” says Ellis. “The idea of being able to make materials in a controlled way on this scale is just remarkable.”