Newsmakers

(Every week faculty and staff from across campus are featured or cited in newspapers, magazines, broadcasts and other media from around the country. The listings that follow represent a small selection of the many stories that spotlight UW–Madison and its people. More newsmaker listings)

Kutler: Reagan bio clouded
Critics are wading through the revelations in Edmund Morris’s new biography, “Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan.” Professor Emeritus of History Stanley Kutler, who is reviewing the book, was quoted in USA Today (Sept. 22) saying that the book primarily illustrates Reagan’s skill as a “great practitioner of symbolic politics.” Kutler finds other parts of the book less illuminating. In the book, Morris inserts his own presence through the inclusion of sometimes-fictional characters, a practice that clouds the narrative, says Kutler.

Reasons to drink grape juice
Reporting on a study by John Folts of the Medical School, the San Antonio Express News (Sept. 21) identifies the newest health benefit associated with drinking purple grape juice. Drinking the juice seems to be significantly increasing the elasticity of blood vessels, thus fighting the narrowing of arteries that leads to coronary artery disease. In Folts’ study, subjects with coronary artery disease drank purple grape juice for two weeks. Folts found after that period that arteries were more elastic and the rate at which LDL cholesterol oxidized had increased. “Previously, much of the potential benefit of consuming purple grape juice was attributed to its apparent ability to make blood less likely to clot,” says Folts. “Now we see that there appear to be two other beneficial factors at work as well.”

Scary movies: Pickup strategy?
Author Jennifer Kornreich ponders in Salon (Sept. 19) whether scary movies such as “The Blair Witch Project” may prompt closeness between couples who see the movie together – or perhaps even induce some women to invite men to their bedrooms to calm their fears. Joanne Cantor, communication arts professor and author of a book on reactions to frightening media images, says that getting through a scary scene together can indeed be a bonding experience. But Cantor says the fright reactions can be more enduring than something that can be allayed by a night’s companionship. “I see 40-year-old women who say, ‘I have this thing ever since “Psycho” about showering [alone in the house]’,” Cantor says. The professor says a blind date took her to “The Collector,” a creepy 1965 horror film about one man’s sexual obsession. “I never wanted to see a man for the rest of my life!” Cantor recalls.

That pesky swamp gas again?
Physics professor Donald Cox was among those weighing in as scientists and citizens search for answers as to what might have caused a series of colorful blinking lights in the night sky above Menomonie. An Associated Press item (Sept. 17) says local officials believe the lights may have been caused by reflection from a planet. But Cox says reflections usually appear as tiny spots, and he finds equally incredible the notion that the lights may have come from a flying saucer. “I would say the chance is about zero, but that is a prejudice,” Cox says. “When I see one, I will change my mind.” More likely, he says, is that the lights were caused by something more terrestrial, such as reflections from swamp gases.

Hoyt: Cameras no problem
As a bipartisan bill that would allow cameras in the Wisconsin Supreme Court nears becoming law, journalism and mass communication professor James Hoyt, quoted in the Minneapolis Star Tribune (Sept. 13), says research shows cameras seems to have little effect. Hoyt helped run a study on the subject that shows witnesses pay little attention to cameras or anything else outside the scope of the trial. “Whether there’s a camera tucked back in the courtroom or not doesn’t even register on the radar screen,” he says.