On the Friday 8 O’Clock Buzz with Andy Moore, Dean Diana Hess from UW-Madison’s School of Education discusses the critical need for teachers in Wisconsin and the innovative Wisconsin Teacher Pledge program.
In some areas of the state, “from a distance, they can actually look like plumes of smoke because there are so many, probably tens or hundreds of thousands, in some of these mating swarms that they form,” said P.J. Liesch, director of the UW-Madison Insect Diagnostic Lab.
Across the country, state lawmakers are cutting funding to their most prominent public universities.
That dwindling support for higher education was the subject of a panel at UW-Madison earlier this evening – and the School of Education’s Dr. Taylor Odlewas one of the panelists.
While public perceptions of the value of going to college have diminished in recent years, experts argue the lifelong earning potential for someone with a bachelor’s degree is worth the investment.
That was the message Wednesday from a forum about the future of flagship universities held at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. While ideological battles over diversity programs, curriculum and funding continue, universities must forcefully advocate for their value to society, the panelists said.
Several experts said the USDA’s plans to require testing in cows are a good start. “We need to be able to do greater surveillance so that we know what’s going on,” said Thomas Friedrich, a virology professor at the University of Wisconsin’s veterinary school.
Susan Carpenter, native plant garden curator and gardener at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum, told WPR’s “Central Time” that Wisconsin’s native bees have different ecological functions and needs than domesticated honey bees.
UW-Madison professor John Rudolph says instead of focusing on jobs and college prep, educators should teach what science is and establish trust in scientists. Rudolph joins us to discuss his book “Why We Teach Science (and Why We Should).”
Column by Menzie Chinn, professor of Public Affairs and Economics in the UW-Madison’s La Follette School of Public Affairs and Department of Economics.
Paul Robbins, dean of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at UW-Madison, said much of Gaylord Nelson’s legacy focused on alleviating poverty and addressing inequality in society — not just the environment.
“We lead with a community-first vision that justice comes first,” Robbins said. “If you get justice right, you’re on the road to healing the environment.”
A brood of periodical cicadas that call part of Wisconsin home is emerging for the first time in 17 years this spring. We cover all things cicada with P.J. Liesch, one of our favorite entomologists.
Co-authored by ssociate professor of Management and Human Resources, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Leaders with the University of Wisconsin-Madison said food waste accounts for about 30% of the solid waste the university generates.
“This is an innovative way to approach the issue, and the authors are up front about the limitations of their analysis, because it is so new,” says Tracey Halloway, a professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who was not involved in the report but read a draft. “The optimist in me knows there are a lot of moving parts, and it could end up being easier to be sustainable, easier to be resilient, than we thought, and maybe in some ways that will offset the costs that they project.”
PJ Liesch, an extension entomologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, compared it to the recent solar eclipse because “you only have so many opportunities in your life to witness something like it.”
“This year we are talking billions, if not, trillions of cicadas,” Liesch said.
“Available housing is incredibly low,” said Grace Kobe, who co-directs the University of Wisconsin Law School’s Eviction Defense Clinic, which is part of the partnership. “And so much of that housing that is being built is not affordable, and so when folks are facing eviction, or not facing eviction and just trying to find somewhere to go, their options are so incredibly limited here.”
Barry Burden, University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Elections Research Center director, said the main source of distrust in elections are messages from political leaders to their followers indicating they should be distrustful.
“As the most important voice in one of the major parties, Trump has a unique ability to undermine public confidence through his rhetoric, even though it is often detached from facts about the situation,” Burden said.
Heather Kirkorian, professor of human development and family studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, researches the effects of media on children’s development. Kirkorian said media effects vary widely among individuals, noting it can pose both positive and negative outcomes. While clear evidence exists of manipulative practices to keep youth engaged longer, she said a direct link is lacking between the use of social media and an increase in suicidal ideation or mental health problems.
“It’s really important for us to understand that the effects of media are not the same for everybody, and some groups of children might be disproportionately affected by media,” Kirkorian said.
High interest rates and soaring home prices are holding back Wisconsin’s housing supply and discouraging potential buyers, a University of Wisconsin-Madison real estate expert told an audience of bankers and business people at the Economic Forecast Luncheon on Wednesday at the Sheraton Madison Hotel. The annual event is hosted by news outlet WisPolitics-WisBusiness and the Wisconsin Bankers Association.
“We just don’t have product for sale,” said Mark Eppli, director of the James A. Graaskamp Center for Real Estate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Business School, in a keynote address.
A UW-Madison professor explains new research and immigration patterns in the Darién Gap. Then, a hematologist discusses a rare blood disease known as amyloidosis. Then, WPR’s Lori Skelton previews the spring concert season.
There are many types of cicadas in North America. Some emerge every year, often in July and August. These cicadas have life cycles of about 2-3 years, PJ Liesch, extension entomologist and director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Insect Diagnostics Lab, told the Journal Sentinel.
America dropped 20 spots in the latest World Happiness Report. We talk with Christine Whelan, a UW-Madison consumer science professor, about the trends contributing to lower happiness and what can be done about it.
We live in a time when fake news permeates social media feeds and partisan coverage blasts through some cable news channels. Teaching media literacy can help people wade through the disinformation and become critical news consumers. As Christina Lieffring tells us, a video game created by UW-Madison’s Field Day Labs aims to teach students to become more media literate and what it takes to be a journalist.
Joshua Calhoun, professor in the Department of English at UW-Madison, discusses how Shakespeare’s sonnets have been organized, printed and grouped over the centuries. Calhoun explores love and heartbreak in the poems.
Avian flu remains prevalent in Wisconsin’s wild bird populations and the risk to farms this year is about the same as recent years, said Ron Kean, a poultry specialist with the University of Wisconsin-Extension. Kean said lasers are a great option to reduce spread of the disease.
“Keeping the wild birds away from our domestic birds seems to be a big part of biosecurity,” he said.
America dropped 20 spots in the latest World Happiness Report. We talk with Christine Whelan, a UW-Madison consumer science professor, about the trends contributing to lower happiness and what can be done about it.
Nielsen data shows that the top streaming service on home televisions is not Netflix or Hulu but YouTube. UW–Madison media studies professors Jonathan Gray and Derek Johnson weigh in on how the video social media platforms like YouTube and TikTok are becoming the top competition for the television and movie industries.
“At this point, Republicans are generally more enthusiastic about Trump than Democrats are about Biden, but Trump nonetheless failed to win over about one in five GOP primary voters,” UW-Madison political science professor Barry Burden said. “Some of those individuals are probably independents or Democrats who were enticed by Haley’s campaign, but he still has work to do bringing on board Republicans with higher levels of education and income, such as those in Dane and the WOW counties.”
Ever since the days of Puritan New England, American governments have struggled to define the relationship between religion and a secular nation. In recent years, that struggle has become increasingly strident with the rise of the Christian Right. What is the relationship between the Christian Right and traditional evangelicals? At what point did the Christian Right become an influence in US presidential elections? And who were the key players in that development? Historian Dan Hummel of UW-Madison will take us into the world of the Christian Right and its influence in American politics.
University of Wisconsin-Madison criminal justice professor Kenneth Streit said the new unit will allow people on the waitlist for Mendota and other state mental hospitals to get treatment at a civil facility sooner, with more access to personal space and state-trained medical professionals. Many are currently languishing in county jails.
“A person’s going to have much more contact with people who are aware of what their symptoms are and aware of how that person should be behaving,” Streit said
UW-Madison’s Dr. Mikhail Kats is an expert on optics and photonics. He shared some advice with our News Producer, Faye Parks, earlier this afternoon. Dr. Kats says there are a lot of safe viewing options – but standard sunglasses don’t provide enough protection.
Anglers aren’t the only ones catching something out in Wisconsin waters. University of Wisconsin researchers have detected almost 20 viruses in wild sport fish, including a distant relative of coronavirus that’s usually associated with birds.
The State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School also examined the referendum language and found that Wisconsin didn’t lay out some exceptions that other states have.
“Even states that have restricted the use of private funding or resources have often included exceptions for common donations, such as private spaces for use as polling locations or food and beverages for poll workers,” staff attorney Emily Lau wrote in an analysis of the referendums.
“This is not really going to cost him the ability to be the Democratic nominee pretty easily, but it will be something that he and his campaign will have to pay attention to,” Barry Burden, a political science professor at UW-Madison and director of the campus’ Elections Research Center, told the Cap Times last month.
The total eclipse — which occurs when the moon aligns entirely in its orbit between the sun and the Earth — will begin to be visible in Madison at 12:50 p.m. but will be at maximum coverage at 2:05 p.m., said James Lattis, the director of the University of Wisconsin Space Place.
“The basic astronomy of the eclipse is that the moon comes between us and the sun, and blocks part of the disk or all of the disk of the sun,” Lattis explained. “So if you’re at the right place, that path of totality where the alignment is right for the moon to completely cover the disk of the sun, you get the sight of the total eclipse.”
A lab at UW-Madison is working to create an atlas of prenatal brains with Down syndrome in an effort to better understand the condition. Anita Bhattacharyya, the leader of the lab, joins us.
This April, which marks Donate Life Month, the UW Health Transplant Center is reflecting on a major milestone. In Feb. 2024, surgeons completed the 20,000th organ transplant in the program’s history.
“Kind of top of mind is the fact that, how many people have helped that many people receive the gift of life,” Dr. Dixon Kaufman, UW Health Transplant Center’s medical director, said. “At the top of that list are all the organ donors [and] their families — the vast majority from our community and the state of Wisconsin. That … allows us to give the gift of life to so many people.”
The symposium kicks off at 6 p.m. April 12 with a keynote presentation (via Zoom) by Stanley Temple of the University of Wisconsin-Madison on “The Migratory Bird Treaty Act, Then and Now: Is it Still Working?” Temple will talk about the first century of migratory bird protection and speculate about its future, given ongoing challenges from loss and degradation of habitat, collisions with human-made structures, predation by cats, pesticide poisoning and oil spills.
This year, the U.S. Department of Education revised their Free Application for Federal Student Aid – or FAFSA. They say that the new application is more user friendly and could broaden eligibility for federal aid by more than 600,000 students.
The Massachusetts General Hospital recently completed the world’s first successful transplant of a genetically altered pig kidney. A pair of Wisconsin kidney specialists share their insights on this milestone. Then, we dive further into chronic kidney disease, including transplantation and dialysis. Includes interview with Dr. Didier Mandelbrot, the medical director of the UW Health Kidney and Pancreas Transplantation Program
Keith Poulsen, director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, said the case highlights the importance of immediate action by dairy farmers if they see disease symptoms in their animals, which can include decreased lactation and low appetite. He said the people working on a farm with sick animals should be monitored closely.
“We don’t think that it’s a significant public health threat at this point,” Poulsen said. “But just like in our farms with poultry (highly pathogenic) avian influenza, they’re getting a large challenge, so we need to watch them very closely, and make sure that everyone is provided with the best public health care that we have available.”
In the dark, dungeon-like basement of Birge Hall at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, researcher Guilherme Gainett examined a tiny arachnid under a microscope and jumped from his chair in excitement.
It is likely the election funding ballot initiative will pass, but it is hard to gauge voter turnout in a presidential primary when neither major party has a competitive contest, said Kenneth Mayer, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
University of Wisconsin-Madison public affairs assistant professor and property tax expert Ross Milton said it is hard to find academic literature with “real world evidence” of how higher property taxes are shared between tenants and landlords.
He said renters voting Tuesday should be aware that landlords can decide to make them bear the brunt of higher property taxes. However, Milton added that property companies can raise rent whenever they want in Wisconsin, regardless of a new tax. “We don’t have rent control in Wisconsin,” Milton said.
One of the most common myths about dementia — a general impairment in thinking and memory — is that it’s a normal part of aging. But Dr. Nathaniel Chin, an assistant professor and geriatrician at UW Health, wants to bust that myth.
“There are plenty of people who live a really long and healthy life that never develop advanced thinking changes,” said Chin, the director of medical services with the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and host of the “Dementia Matters” podcast.
Many people seek the help of professionals after the death of a spouse or partner. We talk with Shilagh Mirgain, a psychologist from UW Health, about what options are available and how to decide what is right for you.
For the most part, the winter season was downright balmy, with only one small stretch of negative temperatures in January, making it the warmest on record for Wisconsin, said Steve Vavrus, Wisconsin’s state climatologist and the assistant director at the University of Wisconsin Madison’s Center for Climatic Research. The El Nino effect — which carries warm air from the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean across the U.S. — is largely to blame for the warmth.
“It was a full two degrees warmer than the previous record, which is a huge amount,” he said. “We had the warmest December on record. We had the warmest February on record and we had the 10th warmest January on record. So that really is extreme in terms of consistent warmth over a whole season.”
Reasons for the lack of candidates include the time commitment matched with lack of monetary compensation as well as declining participation in local government, according to Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“The positions often entail significant time commitments, do not provide much if any monetary compensation, and subject people to complaints, criticism, and even harassment,” Burden told The Post-Crescent.
Party platforms have internal and external purposes, said Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and director of the university’s Elections Research Center.
Internally, the platform serves to get all party faithful around the country on the same page, he said. The document is worked out in the lead-up to the convention and adopted by delegates at the event itself.
“The colder it is during the winter, the more cold hardy they’re going to get and the more heat they’re going to need in the spring to be able to wake up,” said Amaya Atucha, a fruit crop specialist with University of Wisconsin Extension.
The mixed recommendations are confusing, acknowledged Dr. Mai Elezaby, associate professor and breast imaging section chief at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health and medical director of breast imaging at UW Health, during a recent appearance on “The Larry Meiller Show.”
The Weather Guys, Steve Ackerman and Jon Martin from UW-Madison, are back to tell us why spring is often the season with the most dramatic weather. Plus, they’ll share their predictions for this summer’s heat and explain visibility ratings.
For a behind-the-scenes look at the series, PBS Wisconsin Education spoke with education producer Ian Glodich along with host Kacie Lucchini Butcher, who is director of the Center for Campus History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The official U.S. Census is only taken every 10 years, so estimates like these are “ballpark figures” determined by “symptomatic indicators of population change,” including births, deaths, and domestic and international migration, said David Egan-Robertson, a demographer with the University of Wisconsin’s Applied Population Laboratory. Still, they’re likely to closely reflect reality.
The new estimates reveal that, in the 2020s, some Wisconsin counties have seen significant population growth while others have seen steep declines.
Without a competitive Republican primary spurring conservative voters to the polls, “turnout will be lower and more balanced between the parties,” predicted UW-Madison political science professor Barry Burden.
James Lattis, director of the UW Space Place, said a partial eclipse is a rare site. They are an opportunity for scientific discovery. Lattis said people can watch the progression by facing away from the sun and looking at the image of the sun made by a pinhole, leaves on a tree or holes in a kitchen colander.
“You see the distant shadow of the moon rushing up on you,” Lattis said. “The crescent of sunlight that’s left is getting gradually thinner and thinner. You start seeing lighting effects in the environment around you.”
With two questions on the April 2 ballot asking whether to amend the Wisconsin Constitution, University of Wisconsin Law School professor Robert Yablon explains what they’re asking.
Written by Ross Milton ,an assistant professor with the La Follette School of Public Affairs at UW-Madison. His research focuses on the political economy and public finance of state and local taxes and includes studies of tax limitation policies and the effects of local taxes on alternative revenue sources.
“This is a huge step in the right direction to break down barriers to access contraceptives,” Dr. Abigail Cutler, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin’s School of Public Health said.
As automation and artificial intelligence become bigger parts of the workplace, employees will be relied on more for their “soft skills” like time management and interpersonal communication. We talk to Matthew Hora, an education professor at UW-Madison, about where and how we teach and learn those skills and how we can improve them.
