UW In The News

Trump and Harris Have Vastly Different Plans for Public Education

“A big concern for me [is] that the kids who are already poorly served will fall further behind because there won’t be anything that requires states” to use the funding equitably, says Gloria Ladson-Billings, a professor emerita of education at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

News on Hurricane Milton

The amount of lightning in Hurricane Milton is “unlike any event” meteorologist Chris Vagasky has ever seen in the Atlantic Basin. Hurricane Milton’s eyewall, where the storm’s strongest winds are, exhibited more than 58,000 lightning events in just 14 hours, according to Vagasky, a meteorologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. That’s more than one lightning event every second, which he described as “astounding.”

Forceps. Scalpel. Nerve Ninja: UW-Madison engineers devise tool to limit nerve damage in surgery

A patient should never come out of the operating room with more pain than they went in with.

That’s the thinking behind a group of UW-Madison engineers whose invention aims to make surgical incisions easier and reduce the incidence of accidental cuts from free-floating scalpels.

Why Cheeses Such as Mozzarella and Cheddar Melt Differently Than Ricotta

Cheese makers’ key tool in adjusting the number of these bonds is acidity, says John Lucey, a food scientist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and director of the Wisconsin Center for Dairy Research. In cheese made at a relatively neutral pH, there are enough calcium bonds that casein molecules are stiffly bound to each other.

Mushrooms are now becoming leather, packaging, bacon and more

There is such a thing as an endemic fungus, a place a fungus grows and where it doesn’t. So, moving it should be done thoughtfully,” said Anne Pringle, a professor of botany at University of Wisconsin-Madison. “In practice, we’re only about conserving plants and animals. We don’t have that sense of the biodiversity of fungi. But we’re starting to have that conversation.”

Nearsightedness Has Become a Global Health Issue

Terri L. Young, co-chair of the NASEM committee that produced the report and chair of the department of ophthalmology and visual sciences at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, talked with Scientific American about the implications of the myopia epidemic for people with myopia and policymakers.

Is Pumpkin Spice Dangerous To Dogs? Here’s Why They Should Avoid It

Pumpkin on its own is not toxic to dogs. In fact, a little pumpkin can do some good in some cases because it’s high in fiber. “If people are worried that their dog’s stool is a little firm or hard, or that they’re constipated, we’ll use it because of its nice, high fiber content to help soften stool,” Calico Schmidt, a veterinarian and clinical instructor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine, tells Inverse. “So it can be nice and beneficial, and many dogs like it, which is a plus, too.”

Arizona official who certifies elections alleges fraud after his defeat

Barry Burden, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and director of its Elections Research Center, said Cavanaugh’s title could bring legitimacy to the notion that election officials are conspiring to falsify election outcomes. And the claim comes just as many voters are beginning to pay attention to the coming election, Burden said.

How crop science is transforming the humble potato

Hybrid breeding will enable breeders to create new varieties faster and more systematically, said Shelley Jansky, a retired plant breeder at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and a professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. New potato cultivars could better withstand diseases, heat, drought, or salt.

Leave the Leaves: Why Nature Experts Say You Shouldn’t Rake Your Yard This Fall

Of course, you don’t have to be wading through piles of leaves before your yard sees results. Experts suggest leaving anywhere from 20 percent to 50 percent of leaf accumulation alone. Diana Alfuth, an extension educator for the University of Wisconsin’s horticulture department, explains that small amounts of leaves will redistribute themselves with the wind while larger collections need a quick run-through with a lawnmower to become fertilizer. But if you can barely see the green beneath the red and brown, it’s time to take action.

Rapamycin and Anti-Aging: What to Know

“It really did suggest that in humans, these drugs, mTOR inhibitors, can improve something that becomes impaired with older adults,” said Adam Konopka, an assistant professor of geriatrics and gerontology at the University of Wisconsin, who was not involved in the research.

Rare Copy of U.S. Constitution, Found in a File Cabinet, Is Up for Auction

After the Constitutional Convention came to a close and the complete draft of the Constitution was finalized in 1787, the founders’ last step was to have the document ratified by at least nine of the original 13 colonies, making it binding to the government of the new nation. As part of that process, Congress printed out 100 copies and sent them around the country, John Kaminski, an expert in the document’s history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said in an email.

Drug Overdose Deaths Are Dropping. The Reasons Are Not Perfectly Clear.

Dr. Elizabeth Salisbury-Afshar, an addiction physician at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has trained doctors in prescribing buprenorphine, said that the buprenorphine reforms had changed the culture around offering the drug, allowing it to be prescribed by phone or through a telehealth appointment. “We’re going to treat it like other medicines,” she said.

Should Your Cat Sleep in Bed with You? A Veterinarian Reveals the Hidden Health Risks

Sharing your bed with your cat increases the risk of transmitting zoonotic diseases, which are ones that are transmissible from animals to humans. According to Calico Schmidt, a veterinarian and clinical instructor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine, this is especially true if you have an outdoor cat.

Men are carrying the brunt of the ‘loneliness epidemic’ amid potent societal pressures

Authors: Alvin Thomas, Associate Professor, Phyllis Northway Faculty Fellow, University of Wisconsin-Madison and Quinn Kinzer, Graduate student and PhD Candidate, Department of Consumer Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

What is myopia? Experts now calling nearsightedness a disease

“It was long overdue,” said Dr. Terri Young, committee co-chair and professor of ophthalmology and visual sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Instagram Unveils Sweeping Changes for Users Under Age 18

Dr. Megan Moreno, a pediatrics professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine who studies adolescents and problematic social media use, said Instagram’s new youth default settings were “significant.”

Childhood poverty ticked up to 14%, latest Census data show

“So essentially when the cost of things go up, that reduces the amount of money that people have in their pockets at the end of the day,” said Michael Collins, a poverty researcher at the University of Wisconsin Madison. The biggest driver of the higher poverty rate is also the source of inflation the Fed has struggled with most: “Rent is more expensive, and so rent took away more money out of people’s budgets, and so — as a result — they had less money left over for everything else,” Collins said.

August CPI shows inflation sticking around in service sector

The parts of the economy where inflation is taking a while to come down are in the services sector. For instance, inflation actually picked up last month in the food away from home category.“Which reflects what? Well, that’s, like, restaurants. And what’s a big component of restaurant costs is labor costs,” said Menzie Chinn, an economics professor at the University of Wisconsin.

Why Are US Agricultural Emissions Dropping?

‘There’s so much uncertainty in those predictions that I would hesitate to really read too much into any small variation from year to year, outside of demonstrable changes and practices out on the landscape,” said Steven Hall, a professor in the Department of Plant and Agroecosystem Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “The emissions inventories published by EPA are subject to substantial uncertainty.”

These Americans are trying to make ‘underconsumption core’ trendy

“It’s really pushing back against this idea that you need to constantly be buying things to have a happy and fulfilling life,” said Megan Doherty Bea, assistant professor of consumer science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The debate elevates 2024’s central question: Who’s paying attention?

It’s also probably the case that viewership trended upward since 1996 in part because of increased partisan identification. The University of Wisconsin’s Barry Burden made this point before that Biden-Trump debate and it tracks: Higher investment in partisan success would suggest more interest in seeing how well each candidate does.

Can chief heat officers protect US cities from extreme heat?

“There’s very little authority behind these positions,” said Richard C. Keller, a historian of medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who wrote a book about extreme heat in Europe. “They can issue recommendations, they can help establish policy, but they’re going to have a very hard time enforcing those policies.”

Bat die-off led to more insecticide use and more infant deaths in US

“This study shows that bats can save human lives just by doing what they do best – eating insects,” says Jennifer Raynor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Many wild animals are important for human health and well-being, and we are now beginning to understand that technology cannot always replace these benefits when they are lost,” she says.

A probiotic called Akkermansia claims to boost health. Does it work?

While there’s a “much larger body of evidence” suggesting beneficial metabolic effects of akkermansia, the studies pointing to potential downsides should not be ignored, said Federico Rey, a microbiologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison who studies the relationship between the gut microbiome and cardiometabolic disease. “The overwhelming data suggests that akkermansia is good for your metabolic health, but there’s also data suggesting that it might not be good for other conditions,” he added. “There’s a lot of moving parts we still have to understand before making general recommendations.”

A Democracy With Everything but a Choice

“The distribution of offices does not align with the distribution of voters,” said Barry C. Burden, who heads the Election Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

America Must Free Itself from the Tyranny of the Penny

Sarah Halpern-Meekin, a sociologist at the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told me that “the majority” of people with low incomes make cashless transactions — on apps like Cash App, for instance.

Notes App Lists You Should Keep In Your Phone To Be Happier

“We have little insights and micro-epiphanies all the time, but we usually forget about them a few moments later,” Dahl, who is also a research scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Healthy Minds, told HuffPost. “Taking a few moments to step back and make note of the ways we are learning and growing is a great way to build some muscle memory around self-discovery.”

Detecting agricultural pests through sound

(Emily) Bick, an entomologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, researches ways to better detect the agricultural pests that drive serious economic losses worldwide. She says improving these methods could result in using pesticides more strategically — less often, at just the right time.

How to be More Resilient, According to Experts

“We as humans are very social creatures,” said Kathryn Howell, a psychology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “So when bad things happen to us, we want to be together and connected to others.”