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)

Cotton-tops: Sharing the parenting
Psychology professor Charles Snowdon says cotton-top tamarins, native to Colombia, offer lessons about family living. Tamarins practice “cooperative breeding,” where groups share responsibility for raising young. Research has shown that survival rates for infant tamarins rise with the number of caretakers, approaching 100 percent with five or more elders participating in parenting. “Overall, cotton-tops give us a broader view for the potential of family life,” Snowdon tells the Washington Post (Oct. 11). “Their more complex model might lead us to new ways of thinking about human families.”

Prof: Never say die to doom
History professor Paul Boyer says that people have been predicting an imminent end of the world for years. And he thinks the reason that history has featured so many doom-saying prophets is that a determinate end gives some shape to an uncertain world. “If you think you know when the end of time will come, it gives meaning to the events in history,” Boyer tells the Evansville Courier-Journal (Oct. 10). “The history that most people encounter in textbooks is a history without meaning.” Boyer has written a book on the history of prophetic thought.

DNA: Better than witnesses
Law School assistant professor Michael Smith tells ABCNEWS.com (Oct. 7) that DNA identification is really more reliable than the customary way we charge suspected criminals, by their given name. “To say Michael Smith is the guy doesn’t come nearly as close to identifying me as DNA does,” Smith says in commenting on a recent decision by Milwaukee prosecutors to indict a rape suspect based only on his DNA.

A fingernail-full of DNA
University biotechnology researchers have designed a tiny chip, made of thousands of mirrors, that allows scientists to examine many genes at once. Equipment currently on the market requires specialized DNA masks to analyze multiple genes and can cost thousands of dollars. The UW chip costs about $100 and avoids the need for stenciled masks by taking advantage of digital light projectors, which can shine light in deliberate patterns and obviate the need for masks. “Wherever you shine light, that area becomes reactive,” Roland Green, a postdoctoral fellow who led the development of the chip, tells Wired magazine (Sept. 28). “In an area the size of your fingernail, we’ll have 500,000 DNA sequences,” Green says.

Howard: Fees finance forum of ideas
Roger Howard, interim associate vice chancellor for student affairs, tells Good Morning America (Oct. 4) that student fees allow the university to create a forum for the exchange of ideas on campus. He commented during the ABC morning show’s five-minute story on the legal battle over student segregated fees at UW–Madison. The case, brought by former UW law student Scott Southworth, has been taken up by the Supreme Court.

Students: Game for hunting?
After discovering that many students have never hunted, some schools offer voluntary hunting expeditions to introduce students to what hunting is about. UW–Madison began a similar program four years ago, teaching some practical skills of hunting to students who go on to become game wardens, wildlife biologists or technicians. “Our sense was that a well-prepared wildlife professional should know something about hunting,” Scott Craven of the Department of Wildlife Ecology tells the Minneapolis Star Tribune (Oct.1).