Skip to main content

UW In The News

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

    NPR | October 19, 2023

    “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?

    The Atlantic | October 12, 2023

    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

    USA Today | October 5, 2023

    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.

    The New York Times | October 4, 2023

    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?

    Scientific American | October 4, 2023

    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.

  • UW-Madison bucks System’s enrollment declines, tops 50K students

    The Capital Times | October 3, 2023

    Even with a reduced freshman class this year, total campus enrollment at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is now the largest in the campus’ history.

  • Hurricane Idalia flung flamingos across US: What states are they in?

    USA Today | October 2, 2023

    When Dexter Patterson, a faculty associate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, got the call from a friend, he thought it was a joke, in part because Madison is the site of one of the greatest plastic flamingo pranks of all time, he said.

  • What the United States Can Learn From Brazil About Asylum

    Mother Jones | September 29, 2023

    But not all asylum seekers in Brazil are treated equally. In a new book published this month titled The Color of Asylum: The Racial Politics of Safe Haven in Brazil, Katherine Jensen, an assistant professor of sociology and international studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, offers a more complicated look at how different groups of asylum seekers, namely Congolese and Syrians, navigate the asylum process in South America’s largest nation.

  • Paul Ryan Predicts Exactly When And How Trump’s 2024 Run Could Be Doomed

    HuffPost Latest News | September 27, 2023

    Ryan, speaking at the University of Wisconsin, expressed hope that Republican rivals to front-runner Trump would by then consolidate behind the one showing the most momentum — and deprive Trump of the nomination.

  • College personal essays: How schools could end this nightmare.

    Slate | September 26, 2023

    olleges might think that essays help open up opportunities for students, but the opposite could be true. A new study by Taylor K. Odle, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Preston Magouirk, a data scientist at the District of Columbia College Access Program, looked at the nearly 300,000 students who started but never submitted an application through the Common App.

  • Ukraine Finds Defects in More Than Half of Tanks Sent by Ally

    Newsweek | September 25, 2023

    Mikhail Troitskiy, a professor of practice at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told Newsweek that recent military developments are not “insurmountable” for Ukraine and could simply be a byproduct of different governmental systems not properly repairing equipment.

  • The New Face of Nuclear Energy Is Miss America

    WSJ | September 25, 2023

    “Why isn’t this being shouted from the rooftops?” asked Stanke, a 21-year-old nuclear engineering student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is too Wisconsin-nice to shout, but in more than 20 states so far she has touted clean energy and nuclear medicine at schools, nursing homes, a state legislature and once on a water-skiing podcast.

  • We carry DNA from extinct cousins like Neanderthals. Science is now revealing their genetic legacy

    The Washington Post | September 25, 2023

    Human evolution was not about “survival of the fittest and extinction,” said John Hawks, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It’s about “interaction and mixture.”

  • Meet the Climate-Defying Fruits and Vegetables in Your Future

    The New York Times | September 25, 2023

    Phil Simon, a horticulture professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has spent more than a decade trying to breed a carrot whose seeds can germinate even when the soil is salty, hot and dry.

  • AOC? Romney? If voters don’t want Biden or Trump, who’s their pick?

    USA Today | September 25, 2023

    For Biden, one of voters’ biggest concerns appears to center around age. Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, previously argued that, even if Biden’s age has not affected his ability to do the job, “some members of the public may nonetheless believe he is not mentally sharp enough or that he lacks the necessary physical stamina.”

  • Healthcare workers worried about potential masking changes in hospitals

    Popular Science | September 19, 2023

    “It’s shocking to suggest that we need more studies to know whether N95 respirators are effective against an airborne pathogen,” said Kaitlin Sundling, a physician and pathologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in a comment following the June meeting. “The science of N95 respirators is well established and based on physical properties, engineered filtered materials, and our scientific understanding of how airborne transmission works.”

  • Five things to know as Wisconsin Republicans weigh impeaching Supreme Court justice

    The Hill | September 18, 2023

    “The U.S. Supreme Court has said that judges have a First Amendment right on the campaign trail [to speak] about disputed legal and policy questions,” said Robert Yablon, an associate professor of law and faculty co-director of the State Democracy Research Initiative at University of Wisconsin Law School.

  • How are Gen Zers buying homes already?

    Marketplace | September 15, 2023

    Members of Gen Z still face difficulties in home buying born out of the housing crisis, but they also benefited from entering the workforce at a time of record-low interest rates, said Max Besbris, an associate sociology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

  • DHS warns about 2024’s cyberthreats

    The Washington Post | September 15, 2023

    The uncertainty of not having a nonpartisan elections leader in a paramount state is worrying, experts said. “The elections commission is training clerks around the state and issuing guidance, so to have uncertainty about who the top administrator is going into this crucial election season, I think is a real problem,” said Barry Burden, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and director of its Elections Research Center.

  • Wisconsin Weighs Ousting Elections Official as Control of Voting Gets Partisan

    WSJ | September 14, 2023

    “It’s a serious problem to not have seasoned trusted leadership in place well before the election gets under way,” said Barry Burden, a political-science professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, who added that the nation will be watching the state in the 2024 presidential contest. “It’s a battleground state. It’s maybe the battleground state.”

  • US poverty rate 2022: Levels jumped, breaking a three-year streak

    USA Today | September 13, 2023

    “Child poverty took a big jump,” said Timothy Smeeding, a leading expert on the poverty line and professor of public affairs and economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

  • Opinion | America Already Knows How to Make Childbirth Safer

    The New York Times | September 12, 2023

    Dr. Tiffany Green, a professor at the school of medicine and public health at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, said she believes the effort to reduce maternal mortality should focus not only on care received in hospitals, but on the social and economic conditions faced in general by Black women. The United States should consider using federal civil rights law in cases where racial bias severely hurt the care a patient received. “If you think bias is a fundamental driver of these iniquities then you have to hold providers accountable,” Dr. Green said.

  • An inverted yield curve signals recession. Is it wrong this time?

    Marketplace | September 8, 2023

    Parts of the yield curve started inverting in July 2022, yet the economy is still humming along. It’s too early to start calling the bond market a liar, said Menzie Chinn, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

  • School mask mandates are back. So are the political divisions they deepened.

    The Washington Post | September 7, 2023

    “Some school districts are rightfully going to want to protect vulnerable students,” said Tiffany Green, an associate professor in the department of population health sciences at the University of Wisconsin at Madison School of Medicine and Public Health. “Why would we not want to be proactive in protecting students, protecting teachers, protecting staff?”

  • A few schools mandated masks. Conservatives hit back hard.

    Washington Post | September 7, 2023

    “Some school districts are rightfully going to want to protect vulnerable students,” said Tiffany Green, an associate professor in the department of population health sciences at the University of Wisconsin at Madison School of Medicine and Public Health. “Why would we not want to be proactive in protecting students, protecting teachers, protecting staff?”

  • How hospitals can help patients prep for appointments

    STAT | September 5, 2023

    Working on question lists does not require a trained coach, however. A family member or friend can be a helpful guide to preparing for a visit, as the process of making a question list can decrease worry and increase a patient’s sense of control. In fact, there are various methods to brainstorm, clarify, and organize a question list, and anyone can find frameworks to navigate their medical decisions, including the Ottawa decision guides, the University of Wisconsin Surgery’s Best Case/Worst Case framework, or our own pre-appointment question list.

  • NASA’s New Air Pollution Satellite Will Give Hourly Updates

    The New York Times | August 25, 2023

    “The data from these field campaigns acts like a decoder ring” for the satellite instrument, said Tracey Holloway, a professor of energy analysis and policy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies air quality but is not involved in this project.

  • Is Raw Milk Safe? The Risks of Unpasteurized Dairy, Explained

    SELF | August 24, 2023

    In 1987, the FDA mandated that milk sold in the US must get heat treated, John Lucey, PhD, the director of the Center for Dairy Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, tells SELF. That means that the products you see on grocery store shelves have been pasteurized, so they’re less likely to get you sick, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

  • Tennis champion Althea Gibson’s greatness captured in two new bios

    The Washington Post | August 24, 2023

    In “Serving Herself: The Life and Times of Althea Gibson,” Ashley Brown, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, describes the scene on the grounds, which should be among the most well-known trailblazing moments in American sports: “One of the world’s leading symbols of white supremacy and White womanhood had presented a sterling silver salver to a Black woman, a descendant of slaves, while a stadium filled with colonizers cheered. These were role reversals for the ages.”

  • Wagner Plane Crash Sparks Flood of Theories About Prigozhin’s Death

    Newsweek | August 24, 2023

    Mikhail Troitskiy, professor of practice at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told Newsweek via email that he believes the crash was no accident and the plane “was likely deliberately destroyed.”

Featured Experts

Nathaniel Chin: Dementia risk rising in US population, new research says, doubling by 2060

A study published in January suggests the risk for developing dementia is higher than previously estimated, with projections doubling to about… More

Experts Guide