UW In The News

You can eat healthier without focusing on weight

Fiber is the material in plant-based foods that our body’s can’t digest. For a long time, scientists thought of it as junk, says Beth Olson, a professor of nutrition at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Today, we know that it’s essential. Fiber feeds the bacteria in our guts, which could have an indirect effect on everything from our mood to our immune systems, Olson says.

Wisconsin GOP bill would count prior COVID-19 infection as immunity

Ajay Sethi, director of the Public Health master’s program at UW-Madison, told the Wisconsin State Journal that if the Wisconsin Senate bill becomes law, “you would have people who falsely believe that they are protected against reinfection. And the science continually shows that people who are unvaccinated, even if they’ve had COVID before, are more likely to be hospitalized compared to people who are vaccinated and haven’t had COVID before.”

A University’s Stumbles in Qatar Revive Questions About Foreign Campuses

Kris Olds, a professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison who studies the globalization of higher education, noted that in almost all cases, branch campuses are funded by their host nations, shifting the balance in setting an institution’s direction and agenda. Because they rely on their foreign sponsors, western universities don’t have full autonomy over their offshore campuses, Olds said. Texas A&M and its Qatar campus are “wholly dependent upon the largess of a foreign state.”

Op-Ed: Americans used to respect public health. Then came COVID

Historically the public response to community health danger was ruled by the need to care about others. This tradition has served the country well over the last 300 years. But it is no longer standard in America. The freedom to not wear a face mask has become more important to many people than any obligation to others. Choosing narrow personal liberties over community cooperation and protection does not bode well for our ability to withstand future crises.Judith Walzer Leavitt is professor emerita in the history of medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

What do Wisconsin residents care most about? UW’s La Follette School asked 5,000 of us to find out.

Written by Susan Webb Yackee is director of the La Follette School of Public Affairs and a Collins-Bascom professor of public affairs and political science at UW-Madison.

Jan. 6 Capitol riot criminal prosecutions: Are judges going easy on defendants?

“There are a few factors related to particularities of these cases that could potentially explain why the Jan. 6 defendants were released pending trial at higher rates than average,” said assistant professor of law at the University of Wisconsin Law School Stephanie Didwania. “But I doubt these factors alone can explain why so many of the Jan. 6 defendants were released.”

Families ate meals together, read together more often during pandemic, data shows

While many parents have understandably worried about how things like remote learning, mask wearing and missing playdates have affected their children, this new data showing family togetherness should be reassuring, according to Dr. Dipesh Navsaria, a pediatrician and associate professor of pediatrics and clinical associate professor of human development and family studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Coronavirus + Flu = ‘Flurona’: Should You Be Worried About It?

In a meta-analysis of various studies last May, researchers from the University of Wisconsin found that 19% of people who tested positive for Covid simultaneously tested positive for another pathogen (a so-called “co-infection”) — be it viral, bacterial or fungal.

Emerging Data Raise Questions About Antigen Tests and Nasal Swabs

“Each test is going to have to be evaluated independently any time there’s a new variant,” said David O’Connor, a virologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison who urged people not to stop using rapid tests. “And that takes some time.”

How Psychedelic Drugs Can Be Used for Mental Health

That research isn’t conclusive yet, said Paul Hutson, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies psilocybin and leads the school’s center for psychedelics research. But he anticipates there will soon be enough evidence for the Food and Drug Administration to approve psilocybin capsules to treat at least some of these disorders — most likely in the next five years or so.

Come the Metaverse, Can Privacy Exist?

A key question for the Delft team and its counterpart at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is how to obscure data on eye movements with privacy filters without sacrificing too much utility. Researchers from both schools said eye-trackers could give companies a wealth of information for targeted advertising at a very granular level.

Lucid dreaming may help treat PTSD. VR can make that happen.

Lucid dreaming is more than just self awareness. People who lucid dream gain memories of what happened earlier in the dream, the ability to manipulate their environment, control their own actions, and marvel at how strange their dream worlds are. Psychologists compare it to a fully immersive virtual reality inside our own heads, which we have the ability to program and reprogram. “You plug into your extended self,” says Benjamin Baird, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Cannabis to Help You Diet? One Edibles Company Thinks So

Some of them may turn to cannabis because of the prohibitive costs of certain medications, a lack of access to those medications or mistrust of the pharmaceutical industry, said Lucas Richert, a historian of drugs and medicines at the School of Pharmacy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the editor of “Cannabis: Global Histories.”

The Word Of The Year And Why It Matters To Workplace Mental Health

According to Huffington, “It’s similar to happiness, actually—another quality we tend to idealize as an end state. But as Professor Richard Davidson at the University of Wisconsin has shown, we can actually train ourselves to be happier through practice in very tangible and measurable ways by giving ourselves the resources to deal with the ups and downs of life. Similarly, we can train ourselves to be more resilient through practice, and that’s the essence of Resilience+.”

The Myth of Tribalism

Sohad Murrar and her colleagues at the University of Wisconsin at Madison recently applied the same idea to intergroup relations. In recent years, universities and other organizations have invested heavily in training in which instructors extol the benefits of diversity and urge participants to be mindful of their own implicit biases. But those initiatives have a mixed record. Murrar’s team found that drawing people’s attention to social norms could produce much better results.

Today’s 72-Month Long-Term Auto Loans Aren’t Spelling Economic Disaster, Experts Say

According to Dr. Cliff Robb, a professor of consumer science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, those terms run longer than the average amount of time a driver typically owns a vehicle.

Mindfulness exercises for anxiety are the best thing you can do in 2022

It’s easy to believe we’re adept at taming anxiety born of uncertainty thanks to the pandemic. But this may be a false assumption. Dr. Jack Nitschke, a clinical psychologist, and associate professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin, told me that exposure to unpredictability doesn’t necessarily improve our coping skills. “I actually don’t think people get better at tolerating uncertainty just because there’s a lot of it,” he said.

Covid News: U.S. Daily Record for Cases Is Broken

David O’Connor, a virologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said of the Omicron estimate, “The 73 percent got a lot more attention than the confidence intervals, and I think this is one example among many where scientists are trying to project an air of confidence about what’s going to happen.”

UW-Madison again ranks 8th in nation for research spending

E.O. Wilson, a Pioneer of Evolutionary Biology, Dies at 92

The legacy of “Sociobiology” was profound for researchers who study animals. “It was liberating,” Karen Strier, a primatologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the president of the International Primatological Society, said in an interview. “You can study all animals with the same basic perspective.”

Sharks may be able to protect us from coronavirus, research suggests. Here’s how

Although some may fear sharks when swimming in open waters, these often misunderstood creatures may hold a way to help protect us from the coronavirus, new research suggests. As one of the ocean’s top predators, sharks have antibody-like proteins that can stop the virus that causes COVID-19, according to a study published Dec. 16.

Seeking refills: Aging pharmacists leave drugstores vacant in rural America

“It’s going to be harder to attract people and to pay them,” said David Kreling, a professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Pharmacy. “If there’s not a generational thing where someone can sit down with their son or daughter and say that they could take the store over, there’s a good chance that pharmacy will evaporate.”

Kids under 5 still waiting for Covid-19 vaccine protection

Omicron Tracking in U.S. Is Hindered by Data Gaps

With less real-time reporting and piecemeal testing programs, policy makers are reacting to Covid-19 rather than proactively working to contain it, said Ajay Sethi, an associate professor of population health sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

UW expert: Omicron could be dominant COVID-19 variant in Wisconsin in matter of days

Dr. Nasia Safdar, the vice chair for research in the School of Medicine and Public Health and UW Hospital’s medical director of infection control, made the remarks in a live-streamed question-and-answer session focused on the variant Tuesday night.

How Long Does Omicron Take to Make You Sick?

Shorter incubation periods generally lead to more infections happening in less time, because people are becoming more contagious sooner, making onward transmission harder to prevent. Ajay Sethi, an epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, told me he still wants more data on Omicron before he touts a trim incubation. But “it does make sense,” he said, considering the variant’s explosive growth in pretty much every country it’s collided with. In many places, Omicron cases are doubling every two to three days.

NCAA champion Badgers volleyball players celebrate with their fans

UW-Madison winter Class of 2021 celebrates after years of resilience amid pandemic

Seeking Refills: Aging Pharmacists Leave Drugstores Vacant in Rural America

“It’s going to be harder to attract people and to pay them,” said David Kreling, a professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Pharmacy. “If there’s not a generational thing where someone can sit down with their son or daughter and say that they could take the store over, there’s a good chance that pharmacy will evaporate.”

Opinion | Is the University of Austin Just a PR Stunt?

To debate the free speech crisis — or lack thereof — on campuses, Jane Coaston brought together Greg Lukianoff, the president and C.E.O. of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), and Mark Copelovitch, a professor of political science and public affairs and the director of the Center for European Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.