Column co-authored by Jared E. Boyce, an M.D.-Ph.D. candidate in the Medical Scientist Training Program at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health
Tuition-free medical schools alone won’t fix diversity problems
STAT
Author: rueckert
Warm climate cuts short decades-long wolf study near Lake Superior, MI
Associated Press
Less ice could translate to longer fishing seasons, but winter storms could wreck nets and traps and destroy whitefish eggs that rely on the ice for protection, said Titus Seilheimer, a University of Wisconsin-Madison fisheries specialist.
The Comet Strike Theory That Just Won’t Die
The New York Times
When the paper came out, Jacquelyn Gill was working on her dissertation at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, studying the Pleistocene mammal populations of the Upper Midwest through the proxies of ancient pollen, charcoal and fungal spores.
Zero-proof and low-ABV drinks are becoming more popular
Marketplace
Christine Whelan studies the wellness economy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She said this is one Gen Z and millennial health obsession she can get behind. “The movement away from alcohol is probably the best of the wellness remedies,” Whelan said, compared to, say, vitamins and supplements, in terms of its proven positive impact on our health.
Estella Bergere Leopold Dies at 97; Found Climate Clues in Ancient Pollen
The New York Times
She settled on botany instead. She received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1948, a master’s from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1950 and a doctorate from Yale in 1955, all in botany.
Gen Z on Marriage: In This Economy?
WSJ
For thousands of years, marriage has been a building block of productive societies. Despite modern sentiments to the contrary, men and women need each other. The easiest way to build a meaningful and productive life is to fall in love, get married and start a family.
—Anika Horowitz, University of Wisconsin-Madison, economics
4 must-read books on birding (and 2 bonus picks)
LA Times
But, shaken by the devastation she (Trish O’Kane) saw in New Orleans, O’Kane, in her mid-40s, decided to return to school for a PhD in environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Enchanted by catbirds singing near her new home, she signed up for an ornithology class and became a regular at Warner Park, a recreation center and urban wildlife refuge.
Iris Apfel, designer who became ‘geriatric starlet’ in 80s, dies at 102
The Washington Post
She graduated from the University of Wisconsin’s art school in 1943 and accepted a job as a $15-a-week copywriter at Women’s Wear Daily magazine after winning Vogue magazine’s Prix de Paris writing contest.
Iris Apfel, renowned New York designer and style icon, dies aged 102
The Guardian
Born Iris Barrel in 1921 in Queens, New York, she studied art history at New York University and later attended art school at the University of Wisconsin.
How to address the problem of discarded donor organs
STAT
Column by Joshua Mezrich, a professor of surgery, transplant surgeon and holds the Mark A. Fischer Chair in Transplantation at UW Health and the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
Iris Apfel’s Life Dispels The Myth That Age And Competency Are Intrinsically Linked
Forbes
Apfel studied art history at New York University before attending art school at the University of Wisconsin. After graduating, she was a copywriter for Women’s Wear Daily, a fashion trade journal. At 27, she met her husband, Carol Apfel, and they married a year later.
Iris Apfel, Eye-Catcher With a Kaleidoscopic Wardrobe, Dies at 102
New York Times
Iris studied art history at New York University and art at the University of Wisconsin, worked for Women’s Wear Daily, and apprenticed with the interior designer Elinor Johnson before opening her own design firm.
Inside Smashmallow, Silicon Valley’s Failed Marshmallow Startup
Business Insider
Everyone agrees that it ought to have been possible, engineering-wise, to make a machine that made Smashmallows. Everyone also agrees that, in the end, no one was able to. “The fact that Tanis said they could do it was interesting,” says Richard Hartel, a food engineer who leads the candymaking program at the University of Wisconsin. “Their engineers must have said, ’Well, this shouldn’t be a problem.’ They probably figured this was going to be easy, and it turned out to be harder than they thought.”
Scientists Debunk the Idea That Smiling Makes You Happy
Inverse
Such rigor is admirable, but it also means one can miss things, says Simon Goldberg, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He studies the effects of meditation, including research among people who have psychological problems such as depression and anxiety. He noted that because of Dunn and Folk’s strict criteria, they omitted hundreds of studies on meditation’s benefits. “It’s, in the spirit of rigor, throwing lots of babies out with the bathwater,” he says. “It’s really very obvious that meditation training reduces symptoms of anxiety and depression.”
Will $1 Billion Given to a Bronx Medical School Improve the Borough’s Health?
The New York Times
Year after year, the Bronx is ranked as the least healthy county in New York, coming in 62nd out of 62, according to County Health Rankings & Roadmaps, a project of the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute that compares counties’ health metrics.
Cleveland’s income inequality gap is ninth in nation
Axios Cleveland
The fine print: 98 cities were surveyed, with data from the University of Wisconsin’s County Health Rankings & Roadmaps.
NPR College Podcast Challenge 2023: Finalists
NPR
Among the podcasts featured is All Good Things, Jack Ohly, a senior mechanical engineering and communication arts student at UW-Madison.
Daddy Longlegs Have Been Hiding Extra Eyes From Us
The New York Times
Guilherme Gainett, then a biologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was looking through a microscope at the embryo of a daddy longlegs when he saw it — or, rather, saw them.
Trump’s claims of a migrant crime wave are not supported by national data
NBC News
The data is incomplete on how many crimes each year are committed by migrants, primarily because most local police don’t record immigration status when they make arrests. But the studies that have been done on this, most recently by the University of Wisconsin-Madison, show that in Texas, where police do record immigration status, migrants commit fewer crimes per capita.
Former professor gives $1 billion to NYC medical school to pay for student tuition
Reuters
The school, attended by some 1,100 students, is located in the Bronx, an area that ranks last in New York state for health outcomes and factors, according to the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute.
My friend’s husband pressured her to give up her job — and ‘lost’ her passport
MarketWatch
Coercive control and financial abuse are often tied together. The vast majority of domestic-abuse cases also involve economic abuse, and finances are one of the main reasons a person stays with or returns to an abusive partner, as noted in a research brief by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Financial Security. The fact that your friend’s husband pushed her to give up her job is a bad sign.
Conservationist Aldo Leopold’s last remaining child dies at 97
ABC News
Estella Leopold graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1948, received her master’s at the University of California Berkeley and earned a doctorate in botany from Yale University in 1955.
The truth about illegal immigration and crime
The Washington Post
“Many politicians, law enforcement personnel and ordinary citizens are nonetheless incensed because this person should not have been in the country and thus capable of committing a crime,” said Michael Light, a sociologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison who has published several studies showing undocumented immigrants are not more crime-prone than native-born Americans. “This view that the person’s undocumented status is an aggravating factor is also likely a reason why these crimes generate such strong responses.”
The amount of frigid winter air is near a record low, and shrinking
The Washington Post
For about a decade, Jonathan Martin, a professor of meteorology at the University of Wisconsin, has analyzed the size of the cold pool at this level — or the area of the hemisphere covered by temperatures at or below 23 degrees (minus-5 Celsius). This winter’s cold pool will finish the winter as the second-smallest on record, Martin said.
Snow and ice are a way of life here. See how a lost winter upended that.
Washington Post
In Madison, Wisconsin’s capital in the southern part of the state, temperatures rise into the triple digits in the summer but have never hit 60 degrees in January, said Steve Vavrus, Wisconsin’s state climatologist.
Snow and ice are a way of life here. See how a lost winter upended that.
The Washington Post
“Maple sap just does not flow in January in northern Wisconsin, but this year it did,” said Karl Martin, co-owner of Martin and Sons Maple Syrup and dean of extension for the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Years later, pandemic purchases trigger buyer’s remorse – Marketplace
Marketplace
Shopping is actually a very normal, human response to chaos. It’s what Christine Whelan, a professor of consumer science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, calls credible costly commitments. These are purchases we think may solve our problems.
Tulsa offered remote workers $10,000 to move there. The results show how the program shook up the local economy — and what the future of smaller cities could look like.
Business Insider
But what happens to the rest of the economy when remote workers come to town? A new paper from Hoyoung Yoo, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, looked at the impacts of the program on local residents.
Is the 100-year old TB vaccine a new weapon against Alzheimer’s?
The Guardian
A pilot study by Coad Thomas Dow of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his colleagues suggests that BCG injections can effectively reduce plasma amyloid levels, particularly among those carrying the gene variants associated with a higher risk of Alzheimer’s. Although the sample size was small – just 49 participants in total – it has bolstered hopes that immune training will be an effective strategy for fighting the disease.
AI Will Shake Up Higher Ed. Are Colleges Ready?
Chronicle of Higher Ed
The University of Wisconsin at Madison plans to hire up to 50 new faculty members in AI as soon as this spring.
Epic’s Antitrust Paradox: Who Should Control The Levers Of Healthcare Innovation?
Forbes
Epic attracts thousands of new employees to the company and area each year, regularly pulling in top tech talent, including the likes of Amazon and Google. The company also has a symbiotic relationship with the University of Wisconsin-Madison, with Epic consistently being a “top employer” of UW grads.
Healthier Potato Chips Promised as ‘Toxic’ Problem Cracked
Newsweek
The gene for CIS was identified in 2010 by Jiang and his team at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. They have since worked at Michigan State University to modify this gene to prevent CIS from occurring.
How the polar vortex could deliver one last blast of wintry weather
The Washington Post
“What is remarkable is we have a second disruption to the stratospheric vortex happening right now,” Andrea Lang, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, said in an email. “Two major disruptions to the polar vortex in one season is not common. It has happened before, but it is not something that you expect to happen in any given winter season.”
Cloudy or clear skies for the April solar eclipse? – The Washington Post
Washington Post
Source: GOES imagery analysis by University of Wisconsin-Madison Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS)
Why Is Johns Hopkins Still Honoring an Antisemite?
Chronicle of Higher Ed
Along with the University of Wisconsin historian Paige Glotzer, we have petitioned Johns Hopkins’s Name Review Board to stop honoring Bowman. We are asking the board, which is tasked with reconsidering controversial campus iconography, to remove the bust and change the road’s name. It is slated to consider our petition this spring.
Colleges counteract a lack of public confidence in higher education with outreach
NPR
ELDER-CONNORS: UVM isn’t the only college doing this. Auburn University in Alabama and the University of Wisconsin received money from the same federal program that funds UVM’s work. Glenda Gillaspy at the University of Wisconsin says they’re setting up weather stations to help cranberry farmers time their harvests, which involves flooding their fields.
Wisconsin Republican-controlled Senate votes to reject Evers appointees
CBS Minnesota
The Senate also rejected the appointment of former Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton and former state Rep. Sondy Pope, both Democrats, and Candice Owley to the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics Authority Board. Democrats assailed the votes as unwarranted partisan attacks.
Evers signs bill requiring UW to admit top Wisconsin high school students
CBS Minnesota
Gov. Tony Evers on Tuesday signed into law a bipartisan measure that requires the University of Wisconsin-Madison to admit all high school students who finish in the top 5% of their class.
Opinion | Americans Believe the Economy Is Rigged Against Them
New York Times
By Katherine J. Cramer and Jonathan D. Cohen. Ms. Cramer is co-chair of the Commission on Reimagining Our Economy at the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Mr. Cohen is a senior program officer at the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
Twenty-five US universities face calls to cancel Starbucks contracts
The Guardian
The “Starbucks gets an F” actions will take place on Thursday at campuses including the University of Chicago, the University of South Florida, UW-Madison, New York University, Georgetown and Rutgers.
Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Has Fallen Out of Favor
The New York Times
“Chocolate chip used to be a flavor we produced constantly,” said Caroline Crowley, communications specialist for Babcock Dairy Plant, which has 75 years of ice-cream making under its belt, in Madison, Wis. Chocolate chip hasn’t been a staple for a decade, she said: “Now it’s seasonal.”
Do California’s High Road worker training programs offer a step up?
San Francisco Chronicle
The High Road program is an improvement compared to many other workforce programs, which often prioritize training people for jobs regardless of the quality, said Laura Dresser, the associate director of the High Road Strategy Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She helped coin the term “high road” and served as a consultant to California’s workforce programs in 2017.
First Came Blood Sausage, Then Botulism, and Then Botox
The Daily Beast
Dr. Ed Schantz, a lieutenant in the army and later civilian employee at Camp Detrick, remained custodian of the culture for more than 40 years at the newly named Fort Detrick and later the University of Wisconsin Madison. During this time, he provided suitable portions of the toxin to more than 100 researchers in the U.S., Canada, and Europe. In 1972, one of these researchers requesting the toxin was Alan Scott.
Gait speed is one of your vital signs, so make sure yours is OK
CNN
“For people who have certain injuries, a gait analysis can help us correct the mechanics that might cause it to recur,” said Dr. Bryan Heiderscheit, a professor in orthopedics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and director of Badger Athletic Performance in Madison.
Students across America put off college decisions due to FAFSA delay
Associated Press
Helen Faith, director of the Office of Financial Aid at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said she worries that the delays will harm both students and schools.”What ends up happening is that our underrepresented and most fragile populations are the ones that are disproportionately affected,” said Hill.
This Is Your Brain on 3-D Printing
Wall Street Journal
But then the journal Cell Stem Cell—always on my nightstand—reported that scientists at the University of Wisconsin had not only perfected a way to create brain tissue this way but could create brain cells that mimicked the behavior of real ones, and I knew that the breakthrough was real. Kudos to the Badger State scientists for figuring out that arranging the printed brain cells side by side, like a row of stick pretzels or a batch of linguine, would allow neurons to communicate just like those in a conventional brain.
How rising import prices could affect inflation
Marketplace
Not every type of import is raising a red flag right now. For instance, imports of industrial supplies, materials and other intermediate goods got more expensive. But those are just a small part of what goes into a finished product that a consumer buys, says Menzie Chinn, an economics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Artist Morgan Sims has nice “drip”
Axios Philadelphia
He works in the same building as artist, friend and fellow University of Wisconsin alum Stacey Lee Webber.
The Six Most Amazing Discoveries We’ve Made by Exploring Venus
Smithsonian Magazine
Sulfuric acid clouds circle the entire planet at a height of 25 to 37 miles above the surface. They contain tiny acidic aerosols that are about a hundred times thinner than human hair. Together the droplets resemble the air pollution in highly populated cities on Earth. “It’s like a haze that you find when you fly into, say, New Delhi or Beijing,” says Sanjay Limaye, a planetary scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Wisconsin Legislature approves guaranteed admissions
Inside Higher Ed
The University of Wisconsin at Madison will likely be required to admit all in-state students who graduate in the top 5 percent of their high school class under a bill approved by the state Legislature Tuesday, the Associated Press reported.
Universities of WI would admit all top-performing high schoolers under bill
Associated Press
The University of Wisconsin-Madison would be required to admit all high school students who finish in the top 5% of their class, and other campuses would have to admit those in the top 10%, under a bill passed Tuesday by the state Senate that’s part of a deal reached between the Legislature and university
Is It Safe To Eat Moldy Cheese?
HuffPost
Some cheese varieties naturally have a moldy appearance, explained Mark Johnson, assistant director at the Center for Dairy Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The blue veins in a wedge of gorgonzola or the white rind on a wheel of brie are examples of mold.
The US military is embedded in the gaming world. Its target: teen recruits
The Guardian
Scientific research has consistently shown that video games do not make people more violent. Playing games can, however, improve perceptual and cognitive functions, says Dr C Shawn Green, professor of cognitive neuroscience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The Office of Naval Research funded Green to research how certain games (mainly shooters) improve warrior performance. “These games have lots of speed in them,” he says. “There’s lots of what we call ‘transient events’ – things pop up on the screen and disappear.” He says this can improve basic visual perception as well as heighten levels of cognition (such as working memory).
Some Americans say Valentine’s Day gifts are worth going into debt
Scripps
“Everyone appreciates and remembers experiences more than ’stuff,’” said J. Michael Collins, professor of public affairs and human ecology at the University of Wisconsin. “There are lots of fun and memorable experiences that are not expensive, from moonlight walks to scavenger hunts to simple at-home dinners. Being creative can be better than bling.”
Opinion | “An Incoherent Riot”: Why London’s Skyline Looks So Weird
The New York Times
“Pittsburgh has recovered from the collapse of its steel industry in the 1970s and 1980s by building out competencies in computer and data science, A.I. and automation and now medical treatments. … Minneapolis-St. Paul — once the flour-milling capital of the world — is now a dynamic finance, retail, medical and biomedical hub. Nearby Madison, Wis. — home to the University of Wisconsin and its University Research Park — hosts over 125 start-ups.”
10 best U.S. cities for single young professionals
CNBC
The city is home to or in close proximity to major employers like the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Lands’ End, Spectrum Brands, American Girl and more.
Developing near-peer mentoring programs for grad students
Inside Higher Ed
Positive mentorship experiences are central to fostering self-efficacy, success, well-being and inclusion of students, particularly women and racial and ethnic minorities. Nationwide initiatives such as the National Academies’ the Science of Effective Mentorship in STEMM and the University of Wisconsin at Madison’s Center for the Improvement of Mentored Experience in Research, among others, enable scalable mentorship training of researchers.
China Desperately Hopes ‘Dragon Babies’ Can Reverse Population Slump
Newsweek
Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea and the ethnic Chinese demographic in Singapore—all populations that observe the 12-zodiac lunar calendar—also posted small increases, University of Wisconsin-Madison demographer Fuxian Yi previously told Newsweek, citing China’s annual census data.
Meet Teen Vogue’s 2024 Election Student Correspondents
Teen Vogue
TV: Tell us a little bit about yourself.JH: I am a senior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison pursuing a degree in journalism with a certificate in gender and women’s studies. I have covered a variety of topics on and off the UW campus, including local politics, campus culture, and the arts. I am currently a fellow at the UW Center for Journalism Ethics and the outreach coordinator for Sex Out Loud, UW-Madison’s peer-to-peer sexual health resource. Previously, I interned at Isthmus, Madison’s independent, local-news source, and served as an editor of a campus-life and -style magazine.
Monarch Butterfly Numbers Are Down Sharply at Wintering Areas in Mexico
The New York Times
It’s normal for insect population totals to swing up and down drastically, but drops become dangerous when they have been chronically eroded, as with monarchs, said Karen Oberhauser, professor emerita of entomology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who has studied monarchs for decades.