UW In The News

We’re That Much Likelier to Get Sick Now

To toss any additional respiratory virus into that mess is burdensome; for that virus to be SARS-CoV-2 ups the ante all the more. “This is a more serious pathogen that is also more infectious,” Ajay Sethi, an epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, told me.

The Chicken Tycoons vs. the Antitrust Hawks

“These are issues that have festered for a quarter of a century or more,” says Peter Carstensen, an emeritus professor at the University of Wisconsin law school who focuses on antitrust issues in agriculture. “So we’ve finally got an administration that says: ‘We get it, there are some problems here. Maybe we should do something.’”

COVID Vaccine Prevented Thousands of Premature Births in Pandemic—Study

In their study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Torche and Jenna Nobles from the University of Wisconsin-Madison analyzed birth records from siblings born in California between 2014 and 2023. By comparing sibling births, the researchers found that from July to November 2020 mothers were nearly twice as likely to give birth three weeks before their due date.

Opinion | Biden Trade Policy Breaks With Tech Giants

The truth is that Ms. Tai is taking the pen away from Facebook, Google and Amazon, who helped shape the previous policy, according to a research paper published earlier this year by Wendy Li, a doctoral candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who used to answer the phone and interact with lobbyists at the U.S. trade representative’s office.

A century after the Osage murders, ‘guardians’ still harm American Indians

“Killers of the Flower Moon” highlights the U.S. government’s role in a historical injustice. But those concerned with modern poverty should not lose sight of the elephant in today’s room. Oppressive regulatory oversight means paper rights for American Indians, paper rights mean dead capital, and dead capital means poverty. We can’t change the past, but the federal government should cut today’s white tape.

-Dominic Parker is an economist at the University of Wisconsin and the Ilene and Morton Harris Visiting Fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. Adam Crepelle is a professor at Loyola University Chicago School of Law.

Treating the Depressed Brain – Chasing Life with Dr. Sanjay Gupta

Nearly one in five US adults are diagnosed with depression at some point in their lives. As the use of antidepressants have steadily risen since their introduction in the 1980s, what have we learned about depression? Is depression truly a “chemical imbalance” of the brain? And why do antidepressants work for some people and not others? Sanjay talks to Dr. Charles Raison, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, about what we now believe causes depression, and most importantly, what this means for how we treat the illness – from SSRIs to psychedelics and other emerging therapies.

Here’s What Causes Fainting, According to New Research

“You could potentially imagine that there’ll be therapies on the horizon,” Zachary Goldberger, a cardiologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Medicine and Public Health who did not participate in the research, tells the publication.

Beef is a way of life in Texas, but it’s hard on the planet. This rancher thinks she can change that

Randy Jackson, an agronomy professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, cites efforts like Ellis’ and argues the U.S. needs more cattle grazing, not less: “Well-managed grazing on perennial grasslands is our best and maybe our only hope of helping to mitigate climate change.”

5 things to do when you’re depressed

Psychiatrist Charles Raison, a professor of human ecology and psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said he has struggled with depression. Raison, who is also the director of the Vail Health Behavioral Health Innovation Center and a former mental health expert for CNN Health, described the state of mental health in the Unites States in one word: “bad.”

A flu shot is still worth it before the holidays. Here’s why.

“This is something influenza absolutely loves,” said Dr. Jonathan Temte, an associate dean at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.

The 2024 Republican primary looks like the 2016 Democrats — with no Bernie

For the past few weeks, University of Wisconsin at Madison political science professor Barry Burden had been depicting the size of the GOP primary field by plotting the time until the Iowa caucuses against the number of candidates still in the race. The resulting effect is a sort of a bell curve, with the field already well into the downslope.

With pandemic relief programs over, how will the economy fare?

“It’s neither acting as a material boost or drag on the U.S. economy,” he said.And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, said Menzie Chinn, an economics professor at the University of Wisconsin.

Three Days That Changed the Thinking About Black Women’s Health

One effect of this work was “increased awareness that health is political, that health is impacted by race and gender and class and sexuality,” said Sami Schalk, assistant professor of gender and women’s studies at the University of Wisconsin.

The Right-Wing Website Behind the ‘Inhumane’ Outing of an Alabama Mayor

Kathleen Bartzen Culver, director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told The Daily Beast that the private life of a public official is relevant to a news audience when it affects them in a meaningful way. She listed one example: If a public official is embezzling public funds to pay for hotel rooms for their extramarital affair. “But when it is purely the private life of a public official, I struggle to see the public interest that’s served by reporting on that private life,” Culver said.

Grass and Shrub Fires More Destructive Than Forest Fires in U.S.

Volker Radeloff, a professor of forest ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who led the new study, pointed to both the Marshall fire and the recent Lahaina fire in Hawaii as two extreme examples of the risks wildfire can pose outside of forests. Both started with burning grasses and grew into devastating urban infernos.

Wildfires Threaten More Homes and People in the U.S. Than Ever Before

Forest fires are well known for their ferocity. They accounted for just 33 percent of houses destroyed by wildfires in the early 2000s, however, the study authors found after analyzing the locations of homes within wildfire perimeters since the 1990s. In contrast, 64 percent of such houses were destroyed by grassland or shrubland fires. This is because even though forest fires are particularly destructive to buildings, much more of the area burned in the U.S. is made up of grasslands and shrublands, says the study’s first author Volker Radeloff, an ecologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. “We had a hunch,” he says, “but the actual numbers surprised us.”

Russian Lawmaker Wants a ‘Ministry of Happiness’ as Citizens Sour on War

Mikhail Troitskiy, professor of practice at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told Newsweek that while Matviyenko is likely not among the most corrupt politicians in Russia, her comments should be viewed in the context of the country’s current political situation. Russia is known for public figures who may struggle to properly express their sentiments, or those of the citizenry, because they avoid taboo subject matter.

Science of fainting: New research showing link between brain and heart offers clues

“Oftentimes we’re just scratching our heads as to what to do about it,” said Dr. Zachary Goldberger, a cardiologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health who wasn’t part of the new research.“Now that these scientists have helped us to understand that there’s a possible mechanism for it, you could potentially imagine that there’ll be therapies on the horizon,” he said.

Takeaways from AP’s reporting on an American beef trader’s links to Amazon deforestation

Holly Gibbs, a professor of geography and environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies land use changes linked to the beef industry, says that PMI has contributed to the Amazon’s destruction because it buys beef from companies that purchase cows raised on deforested land.

Handwriting muscles may feel weaker with less practice, device overuse

Bigger tendons crowd the median nerve, which essentially gets squished, said Lisa Kruse, a hand surgeon and assistant professor of orthopedics and rehabilitation at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. The result: carpal tunnel syndrome, which causes numbness, pain and weakness in the hand and forearm.

How and Why Do Violent Tornadoes Form?

Atmospheric scientist Leigh Orf of the University of Wisconsin-Madison has taken advantage of advances in supercomputing to build ten-meter-resolution models that can directly simulate tornadoes. At this scale, turbulence comes alive, Orf says. His models reveal how small areas of rotation could combine to kick off a tornado. “It fully resolves non-tornadic vortices that merge together in ways that are very compelling and I’ve never seen before,” he says.

Is Velveeta Real Cheese? The Secret Science That Makes “Cheese Products” So Gooey

“Processed cheese was really an attempt to reuse otherwise unusable cheese,” John Lucey, director of the Center for Dairy Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, tells Inverse.

Love it or hate it, feelings run high over candy corn come Halloween

“It’s not any sweeter than a lot of other candy, and I’ve tasted every candy there is,” said Richard Hartel, who teaches candy science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Burying power lines for wildfire prevention is effective but expensive

“So one option is to essentially just shut down the power line, because if there is no voltage and no current on the line, there is no chance of this release of energy happening and then there is no chance of an ignition,” explains Line Roald, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison whose work includes modeling the risk of wildfire ignition and power outages in the electric grid.

Before Trump, before Agnew, Hate Mail Reveals Long-Simmering Hostility to Journalists

Looking beyond published records to private discourses provides a fuller portrait of the U.S. at midcentury and the resentments that linger. Handwringing about the low trust in journalism that social media and online comments make visible today is justified as long as we acknowledge it has deep roots, ones that will not disappear when Trump rallies stop.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)Kathryn J. McGarr is an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication. She earned her Ph.D. in history from Princeton University and is the author of City of Newsmen: Public Lies and Professional Secrets in Cold War Washington (University of Chicago Press, 2022).

The Republican Party loves Israel. That support wasn’t always a key GOP priority

“Graham first visited Israel in 1960. And it’s a really big deal,” said Daniel Hummel, a research fellow at the University of Wisconsin Madison. Not only did Graham preach in Israel, but he met with then-Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion: “He really makes a point to articulate a Christian Zionist view that the nation of Israel is a fulfillment of God’s plans for the Jewish people and that it has a great future ahead of it,” explained Hummel.

Should You Delete Your Kid’s TikTok This Week?

Families with a direct connection to the region may have a tougher time navigating the next few days than those without one. And age matters a lot, the experts said. Younger kids, particularly those in second grade or below, should be protected from watching upsetting videos as much as possible, says Heather Kirkorian, the director of the Cognitive Development and Media Lab at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. They’re too young to understand what’s happening. “They don’t have the cognitive and emotional skills to understand and process,” she told me.

Book bans on rise: How Moms for Liberty rating system helps drive them

Rating books according to one person, or a group’s subjective moral guidelines, is not how professional librarians assess whether books are suitable for libraries, said Megan Schliesman of the Cooperative Children’s Book Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Education.

What Kind of Year Has It Been for Gardeners? An Aggravating One.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison determined that heating compost or soil to at least 104 degrees for three days will kill the cocoons, but solarizing isn’t an option in a bed containing plants.

What Colors Do Dogs See?

But unlike humans, who see very poorly in low light, canines have evolved to see well in both daytime and nighttime conditions, explains Paul Miller, a veterinary ophthalmologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.