UW In The News

New UW clinic to use latest genetic technology to help patients with unknown diseases

Twelve years after scientists in Wisconsin delved into all the genes of a young Monona boy, diagnosed a new disease and saved the child’s life, a new clinic will try to do the same for scores of other people suffering from mysterious illnesses.

Why diverse children’s books are important tools for teaching kids about themselves and others

Includes interview with KT Horning, director of the Cooperative Children’s Book Center at the School of Education.

Notes from a Transplant Surgeon

Guest Dr. Joshua Mezrich, an associate Director of Surgery at University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, shares insights from his book, “When Death Becomes Life: Notes from a Transplant Surgeon.”

UW-Madison collects relics from COVID-19 to document the pandemic on campus

Wisconsin’s gray wolves are in serious trouble

The aim of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources was to have a hunting season that “resulted in no annual increase or decrease in the state’s wolf population.” Wolf hunts are annual events where hunters congregate to hunt the animals for sport, though this practice has become controversial in many countries. However, that no change in the wolf’s population goal was not met, says Adrian Treves, an ecologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and coauthor of the new findings.

After COVID-19 Successes, Researchers Push to Develop mRNA Vaccines for Other Diseases

In 1990, the late physician-scientist Jon Wolff and his University of Wisconsin colleagues injected mRNA into mice, which caused cells in the mice to produce the encoded proteins. In many ways, that work served as the first step toward making a vaccine from mRNA, but there was a long way to go—and there still is, for many applications.

Blackfishing: Here’s what it is and why people are doing it

Leslie Bow, a professor of Asian American studies at the University of Wisconsin, describes Blackfishing as “a racial masquerade that operates as a form of racial fetishism.”

Wildfires threaten all of the West — and one group more than others

“People know the risk, and that’s been a little bit of a wake-up call to ecologists like myself,” said Volker Radeloff, a fire ecologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

The economic toll of having your criminal record in the news

“What the AP has done here is say, ‘Well, we can still report on these cases. But can we really justify the harm that’s being done to people when the case is just a minor crime?’” said Katy Culver, the James E. Burgess Chair in Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Self-powered biodegradable patch zaps broken bones to heal them

Seeking a simpler, less invasive alternative, a team led by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Prof. Xudong Wang created a self-powered electrical patch that is surgically placed onto a bone-break site, but that is harmlessly absorbed by the body once its job is done. It’s called the fracture electrostimulation device, or FED.

We Are on Track for a Planet-Wide, Climate-Driven Landscape Makeover

Scientists debate what this floral rearrangement will look like. In some places, it may take place quietly and be easily ignored. In others, though, it could be one of the changing climate’s most consequential and disruptive effects. “There’s a whole lot more of this we can expect over the next decades,” said University of Wisconsin-Madison paleoecologist Jack Williams. “When people talk about wildfires out West, about species moving upslope—to me, this is just the beginning.”

Hunters killed as many as one-third of Wisconsin’s wolves since November, study finds

Poaching and a February hunt that far exceeded kill quotas were largely responsible for the drop-off, University of Wisconsin scientists said, though some other scientists say more direct evidence is needed for some of the calculations.

Up To Third Of Wisconsin’s Wolves Killed After Removal From Endangered Species List

Scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison estimated in a new study between 313 to 323 wolves were likely killed by humans between April 2020 and April 2021. Adrian Treves, a professor at UW-Madison and a lead author of the study, said the figures should raise concerns about further hunting seasons in the state.

‘It’s Science Fiction Until it Isn’t.’ UW-Madison Joins Global Institute To Help Prepare For, Prevent Future Pandemics

The University of Wisconsin-Madison has joined an international effort to create a pandemic prevention institute aimed at helping researchers, public health officials and governments respond quickly to future pandemics.

Ballots and voting equipment are moved again as review of 2020 election drags on in Arizona’s Maricopa County

In addition, a new report published last week and co-authored by former Kentucky secretary of state Trey Grayson, a Republican, and University of Wisconsin Professor Barry C. Burden concluded that the Arizona procedures “deviate significantly from standard practices for election reviews and audits” and that any findings are “suspect and should not be trusted.”

Months behind schedule, Arizona election auditors extend lease again

Barry Burden, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor and director of the school’s Elections Research Center, said the latest extension was “yet another sign that the Cyber Ninjas are in over their heads and didn’t really have the experience or qualifications to do the review that they’re doing.”

Oregon’s Buckled Roads and Melted Cables Are Warning Signs

In extreme heat, asphalt gets soft and behaves kind of like peanut butter, says Hussain Bahia, a civil and environmental engineering professor at the University of Wisconsin who heads the school’s Modified Asphalt Research Center. Put it in an oven and it will become a “slush fluid,” he says. Sustained heat on roads not built for heat can lead to potholes, pockmarks, and bumps.

The inside story of the new NASA missions to Venus

But by those same parameters, if we were observing our own solar system from afar, we might think Venus should be Earth-like too. “If you can’t understand Venus, which is our closest Earth-like neighbor, what chance do you have of believing anything some astrophysicist tells us about exoplanets?” says planetary scientist Sanjay Limaye of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Limaye is part of a contingent of Venus researchers interested in finding out whether its cloud layer could still host microbial life. In 2020, investigators reported in the journal Nature Astronomy seeing signatures of phosphine—a chemical known thus far only to come from biological sources—in the atmosphere. Though claims about the possible discovery didn’t pan out, the news helped to spotlight the planet as an overlooked astrobiology target.

Walmart (WMT) Offers Low-Priced Insulin to Counter Amazon’s Drug Push

The move could be “a really big deal” for people with diabetes, said Dawn Davis, an associate professor and endocrinologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

‘Dragon man’ claimed as new species of ancient human but doubts remain

John Hawks at the University of Wisconsin-Madison agrees. “My opinion is that… this is more than likely Denisovan.”

Want kids to learn math? Level with them that it’s hard.

Written by Jordan Ellenberg, a math professor at the University of Wisconsin and author of “Shape: The Hidden Geometry of Information, Biology, Strategy, Democracy, and Everything Else.”

NPR’s Ina Jaffe Shares Breast Cancer Diagnosis : NPR

This diagnosis doesn’t mean I won’t be. There are outliers, as they’re called. People who live 10 years or more with stage 4. Mark Burkard at the University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center is studying them to see what they might have in common. So far, it’s too early to draw conclusions.

Arizona Election ‘Audit’ Should Not Be Trusted, Expert Review Finds

“The Cyber Ninjas boondoggle deviates so substantially from a proper audit or recount that the results simply can’t be trusted,” Barry C. Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told Insider. “The Cyber Ninjas firm is not only unqualified to be conducting the review, but they do not actually seem interested in following protocols that could enhance public trust rather than undermining it.”

Can America’s Solar Power Industry Compete with China’s? One Firm Tries

Gregory Nemet, a University of Wisconsin solar specialist, says the Chinese successfully used a similar scheme in the early 2000s to boost their domestic wind-power industry, then dominated by European suppliers.

Kids’ cartoons have more LGBTQ representation than ever before – but only if you pay for it

AnneMarie McClain, a children’s media and education researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told Insider that inclusive shows are essential to kids across income differences.”Children might not have representation in their communities. They might not have representation in their schools. And so media is a source of representation that can help children know that they’re OK and that their identities are valid,” McClain said.

The environmental impact of bidets versus toilet paper

The main thing to consider, says Andrea Hicks, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Wisconsin, is where you live and what the water situation is there. For example, in Wisconsin, where Hicks is based, there’s plenty of water to spare for butt-cleansing purposes, so if a bidet is something you’re curious about you should just go for it. But water availability simply isn’t an easy thing for every person across the country—just look at the drought plaguing the West Coast currently.

Robert Hollander, towering scholar of Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy,’ dies at 87

“His more than 40 years of teaching Dante gave him many insights into the poem which he incorporates into the commentary,” Christopher Kleinhenz, a professor emeritus of Italian at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, said in an interview. “He has made Dante accessible,” Kleinhenz continued, so that “we as contemporary readers can appreciate and can see how Dante was important in the Middle Ages and how he continues to be important today.”

Jordan Ellenberg Wouldn’t Have Given the Nobel Prize to Bob Dylan

Jordan Ellenberg Wouldn’t Have Given the Nobel Prize to Bob Dylan

The Immune System’s Weirdest Weapon

The few scientists who did take up the inglorious mantle, however, quickly found a wealth of lore to uncover. Anna Huttenlocher, a rheumatologist and cell biologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, has spent years watching the cells zoom through tissues and built structures in the lab.

The amount of heat the Earth traps has doubled since 2005, NASA says

“The fact that they used two different observational approaches and came up with the same trends is pretty remarkable,” said Elizabeth Maroon, a climatologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison unaffiliated with the study. “It lends a lot of confidence to the findings.”