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Category: Research

Democratic lawmakers propose funds for universal, free school meals

WORT FM

Earlier this summer, the Healthy School Meals for All coalition and UW-Madison Professor Jennifer Gaddis released the first statewide survey of the Wisconsin school nutrition workforce.

That report found that of the approximately 5,089 K-12 school nutrition workers across the state, 94% were women, and 88% were white.

It also found that four out of five school food workers who were not managers worked part-time, and that a quarter of schools across the state offered poverty-level starting wages for school nutrition workers.

Why it may be better to skip raking your leaves

CBS News

There is an exception, according to the University of Wisconsin-Madison horticulture department. If your trees have serious foliar fungal diseases, you should be raking your leaves. “While most leaf spots on leaves are cosmetic and harmless to the overall health of the tree, fallen diseased leaves do serve as a source for spores that can infect next year’s emerging leaves,” according to a post from the school. “Significantly diseased leaves should be raked and removed from the area and disposed of properly, such as by burying, burning where allowed, or hot composting.”

How and Why Do Violent Tornadoes Form?

Smithsonian Magazine

Atmospheric scientist Leigh Orf of the University of Wisconsin-Madison has taken advantage of advances in supercomputing to build ten-meter-resolution models that can directly simulate tornadoes. At this scale, turbulence comes alive, Orf says. His models reveal how small areas of rotation could combine to kick off a tornado. “It fully resolves non-tornadic vortices that merge together in ways that are very compelling and I’ve never seen before,” he says.

AI revolution in diabetes care: How technology is beating this silent killer

Forbes

Take the case of Rufus Sweeney, a 4th-year medical student at UW-Madison and Oklahoma Choctaw. When he discovered his pre-diabetes condition, he turned to glucose monitoring apps in the market that recommended lifestyle changes, from diet adjustments to sleep tweaks. His breakthrough came when he prioritized physical activity over all other app notifications.

Weather Guys: Sea ice update, waterspouts and celebrating 75 years of the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at UW-Madison

Wisconsin Public Radio

Sea ice is one way that scientists can learn about the effects of climate change. The Weather Guys are back to share about this year’s sea ice season. They’ll also fill us in on waterspouts and 75 years of the UW-Madison Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences.

New drone technology could help scientists finally understand how tornadoes form

Inverse

Most models working at coarser resolutions can’t actually see simulated tornadoes, inferring them instead based on areas of air with a lot of spins. Atmospheric scientist Leigh Orf of the University of Wisconsin-Madison has taken advantage of advances in supercomputing to build 10-meter-resolution models that can directly simulate tornadoes. At this scale, turbulence comes alive, Orf says. His models reveal how small areas of rotation could combine to kick off a tornado. “It fully resolves non-tornadic vortices that merge together in ways that are very compelling, and I’ve never seen before,” he says.

Can the gray wolf help control CWD-infected deer? Great Lakes tribes and UW scientists team up to find out

WUWM-89.7 Milwaukee

Last week, as scientists gathered inside a cozy research station in north central Wisconsin, not far from Minocqua, Michael Menon was one of the researchers in the room.

He’s the UW-Madison PhD student chosen to conduct the wolf study that’s being funded and co-led by the Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission.

Wisconsin poverty has come down from highs of the 2008 recession, but still above early 2000s lows

Wisconsin Public Radio

Steven Deller, the report’s author and an agricultural and applied economics professor at UW-Madison, said he attributes the state’s inability to return to the low poverty rates it saw in the late ’90s and early 2000s to a shift away from more highly-paid manufacturing jobs toward a more service-based economy, the state’s decline in unionization and a slow recovery from the Great Recession.

Roughly 70% of Wisconsinites hold onto old opioid prescriptions. Drug Take Back Day can help.

Green Bay Press-Gazette

Expired and unused medications can fall into the wrong hands. Consider that less than 30% of opioid prescriptions are actually taken as prescribed for medical purposes. According to a recent study from Medical College of Wisconsin and the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, roughly 70% of people in Wisconsin hold onto their opioid prescriptions well past their need for medication, and it reaches nearly 90% in older Wisconsinites. One study found that leftover prescriptions accounted for nearly 40% of recreational use in high school seniors.

Wisconsin receives regional tech hub designation from the federal government

Wisconsin Public Radio

The University of Wisconsin-Madison is one of the partners behind the tech hub application, and contributes to the biohealth industry through academic research and providing an educated workforce through its medical physics, biotechnology and medical engineering programs.

In a statement, Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin said the university is thrilled to be part of the collaboration that helped secure the federal designation.

“Our culture of innovation and strong collaborative spirit, both within the university and across the state, make us well-positioned to make the most of this important opportunity,” she said.

Madison’s AVID/TOPS program helps more students graduate and go to college

Spectrum News

In Madison, AVID/TOPS is a partnership between the Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) and Boys and Girls Clubs of Dane County (BGCDC). It began in 2007. It functions as an elective class students have every day.

A new evaluation from the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Wisconsin Evaluation Collaborative found that the program is working.

Grammar changes how we see, an Australian language shows

Scientific American

Gary Lupyan, a psychology professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, says that words can organize the way we think about the world and shape the way we perceive it. In a recent experiment, he and his colleagues measured how hard it was for English speakers to assign circles colored in diverse ways to a random category (such as “A” or “B”) if the colors were easy to name (for instance, “red” or “blue”) or hard to name (“slightly neutral lavender” or “light dusty rose”). All the colors, regardless of how nameable they were in English, were equally easy to discriminate visually from one another. Even so, Lupyan and his colleagues found strong differences in participants’ ability to learn which circles went into the different categories based on how easily nameable the colors were.

How to make the most of your first science festival

Discover

If you’re a science educator, professional development sessions and lectures on timely topics are often included in science festivals to enrich your curriculum. Take the Badger Talks series from University of Wisconsin-Madison for example, where professors will speak on topics like sustainabilitypsychedelics research and weather monitoring.

How to avoid, identify and treat concussions

CNN

Far from being something to brush off lightly, concussions are classified as traumatic brain injuries, Julie Stamm, author of the book “The Brain on Youth Sports: The Science, the Myths, and the Future,” told CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta on the podcast Chasing Life.

“I often use the term concussion because it’s just so commonly used in sport especially. But it is a traumatic brain injury, and it’s often classified as a mild traumatic brain injury — and even that feels like it minimizes the injury,” said Stamm, a clinical assistant professor in the department of kinesiology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

PBS Wisconsin Education announces newest addition to ‘Meet the Lab’ collection, ‘Climate Trackers: Superpowered by Ecometeorology’

PBS Wisconsin

PBS Wisconsin Education is proud to introduce a new addition to Meet The Lab, a collection of online learning resources developed in collaboration with research labs on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. This collection is designed to introduce middle school students to cutting-edge research and develop their identities in science. Like all PBS Wisconsin Education materials, Meet the Lab resources are available for free for all Wisconsin educators.

Madison schools see surprise enrollment increase

The Capital Times

Soldner said for the actual number of students enrolled, there is an increase of 17 in 3K special programming, 58 fewer students in 4K, 14 more in kindergarten and 48 more in grades 1-12. He said staff will work with the district’s data and research team and outside consultants at the UW Applied Population Lab, which does population projections, to better understand how this affects the overall trend.

The glamorous new face of nuclear power: Miss America, 21, launches PR blitz claiming atomic energy is the way forward – as popularity rockets 57% in just three years

Daily Mail

The reigning Miss America is preparing to pass on her crown but not before using a bit of its glamour to give nuclear power a PR rebrand.

Grace Stanke, 21, believes the US needs to boost its atomic energy capacity and she’s not alone.

Leftovers of cell division spread cancer’s genetic blueprint

New Atlas

A new study led by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison examined the contents, organization and behavior of midbodies to gain a better understanding of what they do in the body.

“People thought the midbody was a place where things died or were recycled after cell division,” said Ahna Skop, corresponding author of the study. “But one person’s trash is another person’s treasure. A midbody is a little packet of information cells use to communicate.”

Federal Home Loan Bank criticisms are short on facts and nuance

The Hill

The positive impact the FHLBanks have on housing affordability and a functioning mortgage market in this country has also been clearly demonstrated. A recent University of Wisconsin study estimates that the activities of the FHLBanks reduce interest payments on mortgages by $13 billion each year and make more than $130 billion of additional mortgage credit available each year.

Why Are Carrots Orange? Scientists Reveal the Answer

Newsweek

In their research, which was a collaborative project with scientists at USDA-ARS, UW-Madison, UC-Davis, Bayer, and other collaborators from Poland, the authors also found that areas of the carrot genome under strongest selection by humans were genes involved in flowering.

How to Be Better at Stress

The New York Times

While we know that stress is associated with health problems, plenty of people with high-stress lives are thriving. How is that possible? In 2012, researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison published a seminal study looking at how 28,000 people perceived stress in their lives.

Hispanic representation in children’s books is quickly growing

ABC Action News

Every year, the Cooperative Children’s Book Center at the University of Wisconsin catalogs thousands of new books a year for various measures of diversity. In 1994, just 2% of children’s books were either by or about the Latino community — a community that comprises nearly 20% of America.

Living In A Poor Neighborhood Could Disrupt The Way Your Brain Functions

Forbes

To dig deeper, the researchers used the participants’ MRI scans and further assessed whether they lived in disadvantaged neighborhoods based on their zip code’s area deprivation index (ADI). The team was able to determine that by using Neighborhood Atlas, which was developed at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine’s Public Health.

College personal essays: How schools could end this nightmare.

Slate

olleges might think that essays help open up opportunities for students, but the opposite could be true. A new study by Taylor K. Odle, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Preston Magouirk, a data scientist at the District of Columbia College Access Program, looked at the nearly 300,000 students who started but never submitted an application through the Common App.

Despite declines, Black men still more likely to be incarcerated in Wisconsin

Wisconsin Public Radio

Michael Light is a UW-Madison sociology professor and co-author of the study.

“Those are still stark inequalities and still very high numbers,” he said in a statement accompanying the study’s release. “But it’s important to note that, across the country, this is not getting worse. It hasn’t plateaued. It’s getting better.”

How Agtech, Data Collection Are Changing Farming Methods

Business Insider

Soon, they’ll need even more help. The average age of a farmer is 57.5 years old, according to the US Department of Agriculture’s most recent estimates. With older farmers about to retire, estimates indicate that young people won’t be able to fill the gap; A 2022 survey conducted by The National Young Farmers Coalition and the University of Wisconsin Survey Center found that this is primarily because land is so expensive.

Laura Dresser on the state of working in Wisconsin in 2023

PBS Wisconsin

Wisconsin job numbers reached a record high in July, at more than 3 million. However, a new report from COWS – High Road Strategy Center says beneath the bigger picture is a troubling decline of women participating in the workforce, falling below 60% for the first time since the late 1980s. Laura Dresser, associate director at COWS, dives deeper into the report’s numbers.

Tom Still: Climate change heats up interest in nuclear energy

Wisconsin State Journal

For example, SHINE Technologies in Janesville is looking to use fusion to recycle fissile material from reactors, past and future. Company founder Greg Piefer said climate change can’t wait to be solved by fusion energy, but safe fission energy is possible now. The nuclear engineering programs at UW-Madison are also a part of that research mix.

America’s Surprising Partisan Divide on Life Expectancy

Politico.com

Keith Gennuso of the University of Wisconsin’s Population Health Institute says the reason Hispanic life expectancy is worse in El Norte is likely linked to centuries of discrimination. “Unjust housing policies and forced land dispossessions, immigration enforcement, racial profiling, taxation laws and historical trauma, among numerous other issues, all act as barriers to equal health opportunities for these populations at the border, with known impacts across generations,” he noted.