UW In The News

How gerrymandering allows a purple state to promote Trump’s big lie

“It’s a purple state, as purple as you get. The Republican party has managed to lock in a very large and durable majority in the state legislature that is unmovable,” said Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin – Madison.

The best N95 and other high-filtration masks of 2022

You might be able to feel on your face if air is coming out of any gaps. “When you exhale, you can feel the jets of air coming out” if the mask doesn’t fit well, says Scott Sanders, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Demand for This Toad’s Psychedelic Toxin Is Booming. Some Warn That’s Bad for the Toad.

“People hunger for the narrative that the toad was used ancestrally by the Indigenous people of Sonora,” said Ana Maria Ortiz, a doctoral student who is carrying out a population study of the toad at the University of Wisconsin’s School of Human Ecology. “There’s an appeal to that narrative, and even I believed it at the onset.”

A growing battle over carbon capture and climate change riles Iowa

“We do have to try anything,” said Gregory Nemet, who studies how public policy can spur climate-friendly technology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “If we want to deal with the climate problem and make it safe, we have to get to net zero emissions by 2050, and that’s not that far away.”

How Russia Uses Disinformation As A Weapon Of War

Propaganda is a powerful tool. For years, Russian officials and state media have “pre-conditioned” Russian people to treat Ukraine with some suspicion, said Anton Shirikov, a disinformation researcher at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Both of the planet’s poles experience extreme heat, and Antarctica breaks records : NPR

“Not a good sign when you see that sort of thing happen,” said University of Wisconsin meteorologist Matthew Lazzara.Lazzara monitors temperatures at East Antarctica’s Dome C-ii and logged 14 degrees (-10 degrees Celsius) Friday, where the normal is -45 degrees (-43 degrees Celsius): “That’s a temperature that you should see in January, not March. January is summer there. That’s dramatic.”

Demand for Psychedelic Toad Venom Leads to Fears for Species’ Survival

Toad venom proponents are divided between those who insist that “milking” straight from the source is the only way to smoke up, and those who advocate for a synthetic version of the venom. “Synthetic 5-MeO-DMT is just as good,” said Ana Maria Ortiz, a doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin studying the species. “People need to leave the toads alone.”

Raskin’s out, but climate’s still in play

Biofuels trade group Growth Energy is calling on Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm to “correct the record” on a recent peer-reviewed study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison that said the carbon intensity of corn-based ethanol is likely at least 24 percent higher than gasoline. Proponents of ethanol have pushed back against the study, but critics of the Renewable Fuel Standard program have pointed to it as evidence that ethanol has worsened the climate crisis.

Could the Keystone XL pipeline help lower U.S. gas prices?

It’s important to understand what’s contributing to the high prices of oil in the first place. Gregory Nemet, professor of public affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Wisconsin Energy Institute, pointed out that the cost of oil has steadily increased since last fall, when it was around $70 a barrel, to more than $130 last week before settling back at around $100 a barrel on Tuesday. That initial jump in the cost of crude was driven by the ongoing economic recovery, which boosted demand by consumers and businesses that had been dampened by the COVID-19 pandemic.

How will year-round daylight saving time affect the economy?

Dan Phaneuf, a professor of agricultural and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said it’s unclear whether we would be better off operating on daylight saving time vs. standard time year-round.

Could the Keystone XL pipeline help lower U.S. gas prices?

It’s important to understand what’s contributing to the high prices of oil in the first place. Gregory Nemet, professor of public affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Wisconsin Energy Institute, pointed out that the cost of oil has steadily increased since last fall, when it was around $70 a barrel, to more than $130 last week before settling back at around $100 a barrel on Tuesday. That initial jump in the cost of crude was driven by the ongoing economic recovery, which boosted demand by consumers and businesses that had been dampened by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Putin’s Revised Foreign Agent Law Could Enable Mass Repression

In the past two weeks, it has become increasingly dangerous for Russian citizens to participate in anti-war demonstrations, to express opposition to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, or to share true information about the military campaign. The Russian State Duma has introduced legislation that threatens fines, forced military conscription and prison sentences for speaking the truth.

Francine Hirsch is Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the author of Soviet Judgment at Nuremberg: A New History of the International Military Tribunal After World War II (Oxford University Press, 2020).

The Memo: Zelensky virtual address raises pressure on Biden

Yoshiko Herrera, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Russia expert, noted that the Ukrainian president has an important role to play in maintaining support among the public in Western nations.

Russia is nearly isolated online. What does that mean for the internet’s future?

There are other problems for Russia, such as finding replacement switches, routers and other hardware. At least one bank began stockpiling equipment before sanctions hit. The typical life cycle for such parts is two to three years, said Paul Barford, a computer science professor at the University of Wisconsin.

Bacon buying guide: What uncured, center-cut and other package terms really mean

According to Jeffrey Sindelar, meat extension specialist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison: “The primary reason most bacon is not lower sodium is due to consumer preference. A majority of consumers expect bacon to have a certain amount of saltiness. So unless all bacon is lower in salt, some companies will lose market share if they reduce sodium (while others do not) since the majority still prefer ‘regular’ salt bacon. It’s all consumer driven.”

Mutations on infectious COVID variants, explained

But what makes the mutation “weird and unique” is that it appears to set the stage for other variants, says Kyle Wolf, a biophysicist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. SARS-CoV-2 infects cells faster when it has more RBDs flipped up—but that also makes its spikes more likely to fall apart before they find their target. A virus with DOUG appears to be more stable: When its RBDs up, they wedge together, holding the spike proteins together until it finds a host, Wolf explains. The mutation could be required for other variants, which opened the spike even further, but needed a way to stabilize the package, says Sophie Gobeil, a structural biologist at Duke University.

‘We’re going to fight’: Trans people express outrage over anti-LGBTQ measures in Texas, Florida

Elliot Tebbe, a University of Wisconsin assistant professor with a Ph.D. in counseling psychology and a trans man, said he and other trans people feel “a sense of exhaustion (from feeling) constantly under attack by different legislators and all these different policy initiatives.”

OE parasite affecting hand-raised monarch butterflies

“It’s been shown that infected butterflies have lower flight ability and suffer from all of these fitness ramifications, but this is the first time it’s really been shown on a population level that a really important feature of monarch biology is affected by the rate of infection,” says Karen Oberhauser, director of the University of Wisconsin Arboretum.

Supermassive Black Hole is Blowing Bubbles at the Heart of the Milky Way

Ellen Zweibel, professor of astronomy and physics at the University of Wisconsin, explained why the findings could rule out the starburst model. She said the typical duration of a nuclear starburst, and therefore the length of time into which a starburst would inject the energy that forms the bubbles, is about 10 million years.

Biden says gas prices are going up: Will people pay more for Ukraine?

But Thomas O’Guinn, a professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Business who specializes in political branding, said…(behind paywall.)

For global brands, pulling out of Russia is a complicated decision

According to Enno Siemsen, a professor of operations management at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, if the conflict is short and companies want to reopen their operations, “all the investments you’ve made over years are basically gone. If you want to reenter the Russian market, you’re starting more or less from scratch.”

For global brands, pulling out of Russia is a complicated decision

According to Enno Siemsen, a professor of operations management at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, if the conflict is short and companies want to reopen their operations, “all the investments you’ve made over years are basically gone. If you want to reenter the Russian market, you’re starting more or less from scratch.”

How taxes can go towards presidential campaign funds

Federal income tax forms offer taxpayers the option to check a box to give to a fund for presidential campaigns. NBC News’ Joshua Johnson speaks with Kenneth Mayer, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, about how many candidates are avoiding the fund as it comes with strings attached.

Bicycle Infrastructure Saves Lives In More Ways Than One

“Because of our over-dependence on the private motorized vehicle, we are leading sedentary lifestyles,” said Jonathan Patz, director of the Global Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. “According to several reports from the World Health Organization, because of that increase in sedentary lifestyles there are almost four million premature deaths every year.”

Climate Action Could Avert Nearly Half The World’s Premature Deaths

The pollutants driving the climate crisis are also making people sick, and as the crisis worsens people are getting sicker. That’s the bad news.Now the good: Mitigating the climate crisis, according to a global health expert, would eliminate nearly half of the world’s premature deaths.“When you think about what it means to get to a low-carbon economy, and what it could mean for our health, this is an amazing opportunity,” said Jonathan Patz, director of the Global Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. “Solving the global climate crisis is the greatest health opportunity of our times, and a low-carbon future could improve global health and achieve economic benefits.”

Amazon deforestation is fueled by meat demand. Shoppers can make choices that help.

The United States banned beef imports from Brazil because of unsanitary conditions found in some of the country’s meatpacking plants and animal health concerns in 2017, but the Trump administration reversed the measure in February 2020. Holly Gibbs, a land use scientist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, explained the move came after on-site inspections by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service found improvements in practices at six Brazilian beef production plants. Since then, she says, exports to the United States have been climbing to pre-ban levels. Calls for a ban were renewed recently in response to a reported outbreak of mad cow disease in Brazil.

Why America Became Numb to COVID Deaths

Richard Keller, a medical historian at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, says that much of the current pandemic rhetoric—the premature talk of endemicity; the focus on comorbidities; the from-COVID-or-with-COVID debate—treats COVID deaths as dismissible and “so inevitable as to not merit precaution,” he has written. “Like gun violence, overdose, extreme heat death, heart disease, and smoking, [COVID] becomes increasingly associated with behavioral choice and individual responsibility, and therefore increasingly invisible.” We don’t honor deaths that we ascribe to individual failings, which could explain, Keller argues, why national moments of mourning have been scarce.

Studying sharks’ immune systems could lead to powerful human medicines

Aaron LeBeau regularly visits a local grocery store’s seafood department to stock up on tuna, salmon and octopus. But LeBeau isn’t shopping for himself: He has hungry sharks to feed at his laboratory.

Though they might look mean, “sharks are, to put it lightly, misunderstood,” says LeBeau. He’s a professor of pathology (the study of diseases) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Nurse sharks — the kind he studies — are “probably the most docile sharks in nature. Pretty much all they do is sleep and eat.”

The link between depression and misinformation explained

In general, there’s strong evidence that mindfulness-based interventions, including MBCT, are an effective treatment for depression. A meta-analysis of conducted by Dr. Simon Goldberg, an assistant professor in the department of counseling psychology and faculty at the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin, indicates that such programs are as effective as psycho- and behavioral therapies.

Two beers a day damages human brains as much as 10 years of aging

“There is some evidence that the effect of drinking on the brain is exponential,” said co-corresponding author Remi Daviet, now from the University of Wisconsin. “So, one additional drink in a day could have more of an impact than any of the previous drinks that day. That means that cutting back on that final drink of the night might have a big effect in terms of brain aging.”