UW In The News

A new name for UW-Madison’s natatorium and a $20 million donation to help build it

Some fear boosters will hurt drive to reach the unvaccinated

Dr. James Conway, a pediatric infectious diseases expert at the University of Wisconsin, said last week that if vaccine-hesitant people “start to get the idea that this is only going to last for six or eight or 10 months,” they may be further soured on the whole idea.

UW-Madison sees record freshman enrollment

Facebook suspends efforts on an Instagram for kids

In a blog post published today, head of Instagram Adam Mosseri said that kids under 13 were already online, misrepresenting their ages and downloading apps meant for older teens and adults. Megan Moreno, a pediatrician who studies social media’s impact on adolescent health at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, isn’t buying it.

What’s going on with the debt ceiling?

“In concrete terms, you could see the price or the valuation of U.S. Treasury debt going down, which is the same as saying interest rates are going to rise for U.S. government borrowing. What that’s going to do is it’s going to tend to blow up our deficit faster than it otherwise would,” said Menzie Chinn, a professor of public affairs and economics at the University of Wisconsin – Madison.

Trumpers Spent Millions On The Arizona Election Audit. All They Found Was More Votes For Biden.

They’re not for establishing the residence of a voter in Maricopa County to vote,” Barry C. Burden, Director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said on the press call. “We don’t know how they get their data or what they do exactly, ” he added.

Report affirms Biden victory in Arizona as Maricopa County pushes back against other review findings

Ahead of the presentation, election experts criticized some of the methodology used by Cyber Ninjas that was detailed in the draft report. The report said the firm used a commercial public database to try to match information about voters. Such databases typically rely on the National Change of Address database, which can be out of date and incomplete and isn’t designed for that purpose, said Barry Burden, the Director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The message from Israel is clear: Covid booster shots should be standard

The biology of Sars-CoV-2 immunity, however, is the same whether you’re in Tel Aviv, Tokyo or Toronto. The pioneering Israeli work of making third doses the standard provides an instructive template for other countries to follow as quickly as possible, while also ensuring that this becomes the global standard of vaccination for everyone, no matter where they live.

-David O’Connor is professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the University of Wisconsin

Fact check: Biden’s approval rating is higher than Trump’s term low

“The best practice (is) to look at multiple polls and not to fixate on an individual poll, which can be cherry-picked to make inaccurate arguments,” Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center and professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said in an email.

Its relevance at stake, U.N. reaches toward younger generations

“If we want to ask what kind of world do we want to have, 15 to 29 is kind of the age that’s doing it,” said Connie Flanagan, a University of Wisconsin professor who studies youth activism. “Those are the years when you’re taking stock of your life. And as a result, you’re taking stock of your world.”

Where Americans Moved Into Fire Danger Zones

A 2018 study led by Volker C. Radeloff at the University of Wisconsin, Madison found that about one-third of new homes built between 1990 and 2010 were in the wildland-urban interface. Cheap mortgage rates have meanwhile made these markets more accessible.

The smart toilet era is here! Are you ready to share your analprint with big tech?

he toilet technology being developed by Joshua Coon’s academic lab is focused on urine, because it is easier to sample and analyse. He describes himself as “a smart toilet enthusiast”, rather than someone who is racing to get a product to market, although he says he is in talks with industry leaders. “There are several thousand known different small molecules that exist in urine and they give you insight into what’s going on,” says Coon, who is a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“Elective” and “nonessential” surgery labels limit lifesaving health care, especially in Covid-19 pandemic

Leigh Senderowicz, a health demographer at the University of Wisconsin Madison, describes the ambiguity around essential care as “a fissure” that allows groups “to pursue whatever existing agenda they have.” Abortion is one prominent example, said Senderowicz, whose team has researched reproductive autonomy during the pandemic.

UW-Madison announces $175 million in support for a new computer, data and information sciences building

The University of Wisconsin-Madison announced plans to build a new, $225 million academic building for its new School of Computer, Data and Information Sciences, one it plans to fund entirely through donor and private support.

How can the most endangered ecosystem in the world be saved?

A 2019 study led by Tyler Lark, an agricultural researcher at the University of Wisconsin, estimated that tillage for cropland expansion put as much carbon dioxide into the air annually as 31 million cars. A 2018 study, led by The Nature Conservancy, found that in the U.S., conserving grasslands could prevent almost three times as much carbon emission as conserving forests.

Some U.S. hospitals forced to ration care amid staffing shortages, COVID-19 surge

Since May, the number of COVID-19 cases at hospitals run by the University of Wisconsin’s UW Health system has quadrupled, Dr. Jeff Pothof said in an interview.

Major donation launches new building for UW-Madison school on computer and data sciences

Graduation Take Two: UW-Madison Class of 2020 gets grad fanfare at Camp Randall at last

Masks Protect Schoolkids from COVID despite What Antiscience Politicians Claim

For starters, laboratory experiments show that masks block the respiratory droplets and aerosols that transmit SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID. In one test, mechanical engineer David Rothamer and his team at the University of Wisconsin–Madison used a machine in a classroom to pump out particles of the same size as those that carry the virus.

Hate seeing snakes? Blame the asteroids that killed the dinosaurs, scientists say

Christoph Mans, clinical assistant professor of zoological medicine at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, said in 2016 that 50 snake species live in the United States.

Do warehouse clubs like Costco save you money in the long run?

Nancy Wong, a professor of consumer science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said she stopped shopping at Costco because she felt like she was losing money.

The climate crisis is getting worse, but the solutions have improved dramatically

Written by Gregory Nemet, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s La Follette School of Public Affairs. He is a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 6th Assessment Report, which will be released by the United Nations in spring 2022. He is co-chair of the La Follette School’s Climate Policy Forum on Oct. 6.

As the House gears up for debate federal infrastructure spending to fight climate change, signs of a planetary-scale crisis are everywhere. Intense rainfall and floods, searing heat in normally cool locations, and relentless wildfires of enormous scale raging continuously.

Efforts To Recall U.S. Governors Rarely Succeed

Likewise, the unsuccessful bid nine years ago to remove Walker. “I don’t think Democrats gained anything in Wisconsin,” Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told NPR. When they failed to unseat Walker, “I think it set back the Democrats for a while and emboldened Scott Walker and his supporters.”

Government support credited with 2020’s decline in poverty

Many Americans got a lot of new support during the economic disruption of 2020. The supplemental rate does look at those benefits, and that number “shows that we actually did a good job in keeping people out of poverty, even though the money incomes were falling,” said Tim Smeeding, who teaches public affairs and economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Biden says climate change causing severe weather is ‘no longer subject to debate’

Stevens’ view was echoed by University of Wisconsin geographer Paul Robbins, who argued such fires are not something new.”The idea that fire is somehow new… a product solely of climate change, and part of a moral crusade for the soul of the nation, borders on the insane,” Robbins said.

‘Cyber Ninjas 2.0′ Coming to Wisconsin?: Ballots & Boundaries

Barry Burden, a University of Wisconsin professor and election administration specialist, released a report declaring the Wisconsin 2020 presidential election “a tremendous success.”

The New Science on How We Burn Calories

The still-growing database, which underpins the Science paper, includes samples from dozens of countries and cultures, from foragers in Tanzania to commuters in Manhattan. “In terms of scale and scope, this is just unprecedented,” says Rozalyn Anderson, a professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an author of a commentary published with the study.

Mammoth-elephant hybrids could be created within the decade. Should they be?

The company’s advisers also include two prominent bioethicists who study genome editing: R. Alta Charo of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and S. Matthew Liao of New York University. (Stanford University chemical engineer Joseph DeSimone, a member of Colossal’s scientific advisory board, is also a member of the National Geographic Society’s board of trustees.)

Walmart (WMT) Denies Litecoin ($LITE) Pact After Fake Press Release

“If you’re putting out a press release that can move markets, you have tremendous potential for harm,” said Kathleen Culver, head of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin. “If you were someone who saw this, made some buys and then everything dropped back to Earth again, you could be out a lot of money.”

Column: Lawsuits demanding ivermectin raise fears of judges ordering doctors to commit malpractice

In one sense, says University of Wisconsin bioethicist R. Alta Charo, judges’ orders at least insulate hospitals and doctors from the consequences of what might be considered malpractice — the prescribing of a drug without established evidence of safety or efficacy for the purpose.