Zach Feiner is a research scientist at the state Department of Natural Resources and at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Limnology. On WPR’s “The Morning Show,” Feiner said the state hopes lowering the number of fish caught can help walleye recover.
Ion Meyn, an associate professor of law at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and former supervising attorney at the Wisconsin Innocence Project, said his experience representing incarcerated people showed him that correctional staff frequently ignore written policy.
“It’s just shocking — the kind of neglect and disregard that occurs in prison on a daily basis, regardless of whatever is written,” Meyn said. “Guards don’t follow it. They don’t.”
“For the staff here, it’s tracking these events over time, and seeing how they differ between different years,” said UW-Madison Arboretum ecologist Brad Herrick.
He’s worked there for 17 years, so he’s able to compare each season. He said this year is a weird one.
“We’ve had really sharp temperature swings from February on,” he said.
“This is the money that private give to city clerks to spend for the purposes of helping people get to the polls and cast votes,” Howard Schweber, a political science professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison, said.
It is not yet clear whether the bill that passed the House will get a vote in the Senate. President Joe Biden has said he would sign the bill if it passes.
Even if that happens, there would surely be legal challenges, said University of Wisconsin-Madison law school professor Anuj Desai.
“I suspect the government’s first defense, so to speak, is this is not a ban on TikTok,” Desai said. “It is an attempt to get ByteDance to sell TikTok to an American company.”
A vote for uninstructed delegation is a voter telling delegates to vote for whoever they think is best at August’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago, including Biden, said Derek Clinger, a senior staff attorney with the University of Wisconsin Law School’s State Democracy Research Initiative — provided that enough voters cast their ballots for the uncommitted option.
To Kurt Paulsen, a professor of urban planning at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, there’s no question the city faces a critical shortage of housing to meet the needs. Paulsen’s research focuses on housing and land use.
“It absolutely is accurate to call it a crisis,” he said. “It’s the basic facts: Jobs are growing really quickly. Lots of young people are moving here. All those things mean housing demand is off the charts.”
Includes interviews with Jeb Barzen, an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Planning and Landscape Architecture and Jessica Hua, an associate professor in forest and wildlife ecology, both at UW-Madison.
Dave Schroeder, a national security strategist and cybersecurity expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said Americans may be vulnerable because China has an app on millions of cell phones.
The content that can be pushed on TikTok is also a problem, he said, even if most of it is benign.
“There’s a concern there that the messages or the narratives that might be subtly pushed on TikTok are going to be those that are supported by the Chinese government,” he said.
Steve Vavrus, director of the Wisconsin State Climatology Office, said this winter was a “whopping” 2 degrees warmer than the previous record of 26.1 degrees set back in the winter of 2001-2002. He noted previous records were closer in the rankings.
Another factor is the state’s ongoing drought from last year, said Steve Vavrus, Wisconsin’s state climatologist and the assistant director at the University of Wisconsin Madison’s Center for Climatic Research. About 68 percent of Wisconsin is in a drought, according to the latest data from the United States Drought Monitor. With 18.5 percent in a “severe drought” or a level two out of four.
“The concern right now, is that we’re in a drought still from last year. In fact, the drought conditions have worsened quietly in the last few weeks,” Vavrus said. “If we get a few more of the really unseasonably warm days that we had (earlier this month) … there’s legitimate concerns surrounding the higher risk of fire in Wisconsin and elsewhere.”
One point right off the bat: The 2020 fiscal year ended in September 2020, which means the numbers include the last few months of former President Donald Trump’s time in office.
Overall, Hovde is “pretty close on the actual numbers,” said Menzie Chinn, a professor of public affairs and economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. However, Chinn said, “the basic point is that the numbers are meaningless.”
We talk with a Madison features editor about the winners, losers, and snubs from the weekend’s 96th Academy Awards. Then Ajay Sethi, a population health expert at UW-Madison, reviews the CDC’s new coronavirus isolation guidelines. And we learn the history of private equity firms taking over American newspapers.
Adult ticks, approximately half of whom are infected with the bacteria that causes Lyme disease, are ready to feed earlier than usual this year.
The Wisconsin Department of Health Services and the Midwest Center of Excellence for Vector-Borne Diseases at the University of Wisconsin-Madison started to look for ticks in February, almost two months ahead of schedule.
Fewer than one in five Wisconsinites supports a sandhill crane hunting season in the state, according to a study conducted by University of Wisconsin researchers. And approximately half of Badger State residents oppose such a hunt.
The data are part of an effort by the University of Wisconsin Survey Center to scientifically assess attitudes on hunting the large, long-legged birds.
Since the founding of the state of Israel in 1948, U.S. presidents have tried a variety of approaches to maintain balanced relations with Israel and the surrounding Arab states. In the years leading up to the Israeli-Hamas war, a series of conflicts have made the attempt particularly challenging. Interview with Daniel Hummel, director of The Lumen Center and a research fellow in the History Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Our early spring is one more reminder that our climate is changing. We look at how to still get good results in your garden despite changing temperatures and precipitation levels. We also look at how to correctly prune fruit trees. Interview with Vijai Pandian from University of Wisconsin-Extension.
The UniverCity alliance is a program that marshals the research capacity of UW-Madison students in service of the unique needs of cities, counties, villages, townships and others across the state of Wisconsin. The Alliance has helped some communities learn how government bodies can operate more efficiently, and others determine how to address needs like childcare in their local communities. Joining us on “Newsmakers” this week are Gavin Luter, Managing Director of the UniverCity Alliance; Max Hart of the Jackson County Board of Supervisors; and Doug McLeod, Professor of Journalism and Mass Communications at UW-Madison.
Menzie Chinn, a macroeconomist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the rise in state construction employment may be tied to a larger national construction boom. Chinn said about one-fifth of the change in employment for January and February is tied to nonresidential construction.
“There’s a big boom in the building of commercial (properties). Not commercial as in stores, but factories,” he said. “I don’t know how much of that is in Wisconsin, but nationwide, that’s a very big factor. There’s a lot of construction going on.”
Includes interview with Madeline Barger, the clinic coordinator in the Waisman Center Autism Treatment Programs at UW-Madison.
Includes interview with David Weimer, the Edwin E. Witte Professor of Political Economy.
Fertilization, which happens when the sperm and egg unite, is what most people refer to as “conception,” said Dr. Abigail Cutler, an OB-GYN at UW Health and assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
About five to 10 days after fertilization, the fertilized egg implants in the lining of the uterus. HCG is produced shortly afterward, Cutler said, first in low levels which rise rapidly over time. “The very earliest someone can confirm whether they are pregnant is following implantation, the timing of which varies but can take a week or more,” she said
Proper watering in spring when the soil is thawed helps wash salt off the plants and leach it into the soil away from plant roots. Dr. Laura Jull from the University of Wisconsin-Madison has more helpful information in her publication A3877, “Winter Salt Injury and Salt-tolerant Landscape Plants.”
Arnoldo Lopez-Hernandez grew up in Mexico and has a chemical engineering background. He became involved in cheese after he started teaching food science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He started judging at the world championships a decade ago.
Also from UW-Madison is John Jaeggi, whose grandfather immigrated from Switzerland in the 1920s and started a Swiss cheese plant in Monroe County. Jeaggi remembers sitting under a table as a 7-year-old “mesmerized” by the process and sneaking samples.
Scientists studying viruses at the University of Wisconsin-Madison recently opened their lab door for a tour, looking to shine a light on their work after being targeted by a Republican bill.
“Today’s decision appears to put an end to all the pending litigation in Wisconsin and other states seeking to remove Trump from the ballot based on the Fourteenth Amendment’s insurrection clause,” UW-Madison Law School associate law professor Rob Yablon said Monday. “The Court is quite categorical in saying that states do not have the power to enforce that provision against candidates for federal office.”
Paul Mitchell, director of the Renk Agribusiness Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said tight margins are the norm in agriculture.
“You’ve got to keep your costs under control, and hope for good yields and that the market prices for your crops or your livestock are still good,” he said.
While Steil’s seat appears relatively safe, it’s actually “rather competitive,” said University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor Barry Burden. Noting that Trump won the 1st District by two points in 2020 while losing the state by less than one point, “even a slight shift in political winds could bring the district into play,” he said.
“The year following a delivery is a very important year with huge life changes and where having adequate health care is absolutely essential,” said Dr. Lee Dresang, a family medicine doctor at UW Health and a professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
Of the patients he followed with postpartum depression, “exactly zero magically got better at 60 days after delivery,” he said during a legislative hearing.
PBS Wisconsin Education announces the launch of a new education series called The Look Back, which explores eras from Wisconsin’s history through artifacts. The Look Back was made in collaboration with the Wisconsin Historical Society, University of Wisconsin–Madison Libraries, UW–Madison’s Rebecca M. Blank Center for Campus History, Wisconsin educators and learners, and museums around the state.
Parties in the lawsuit over abortion law in Wisconsin want the state Supreme Court to take the case, bypassing the state’s appeals court — University of Wisconsin Law School professor Howard Schweber described how he thinks the court might consider the issues.
However, Madison’s recent wintertime high temperatures — some into the high 60s — are not directly linked to what’s to come this summer, said Steven Ackerman, emeritus professor for the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and the retired vice chancellor for research and graduate education at UW-Madison.
UW-Madison’s Andrew Stevens provides some perspective on the ongoing battle for Albertson’s and Kroger to merge.
Michael Childers, a business and labor education professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the news may be bigger than the agreement the United Auto Workers reached with major U.S. auto manufacturers late last year, ending a nearly two-month strike that had shut down multiple plants.
“Historically, the service sector has struggled in a huge way to successfully organize and bargain contracts,” Childers said. “This is really exciting news for … workers wanting a voice at work.”
Joe Lauer, who studies corn and silage production at UW-Madison’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, said Monday that Wisconsin typically receives most of its precipitation in April, May and June so the lack of snow could have a minimal negative impact on corn and soybeans.
Wisconsin ticks, which normally become active in April or May, are already on the move because of the unusually mild winter, said PJ Liesch, an entomologist and director of UW-Madison’s Insect Diagnostic Lab.
“Maybe there’s a reason some of us old people have kept our landlines,” said Barry Orton, telecommunications professor emeritus at University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Eric Ely, who teaches in the Information School at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has made some of his assignments more personal, asking students to write about topics that connect to their own lives. In a new assignment this semester, he has students engage with an AI chatbot and document the process. “Part of my job is to prepare students for life after college, right?” he said. “This is the world that we’re living in, and so I feel like I would be doing a disservice to students if I would not talk about this or limit or completely prohibit the use.”
For UW-Madison professor Dietram Scheufele, the big question isn’t what AI can — or cannot — do for college students. “What I’m much more concerned about is the fundamental disruption to our social system and how we prepare students for that,” said Scheufele, whose research includes technology policy, misinformation and social media. “The question for universities right now is why this degree will be worth something 40 years from now.”
John Zumbrunnen, the vice provost of teaching and learning at UW-Madison, said the most-asked question he gets about AI is whether the university has or will have a policy on it. UW-Madison does not, meaning students navigate at least four different class policies per semester. In some cases, individual assignments will have their own AI expectations. That’s why it’s important, he said, for instructors to offer grace in this new world.
“The answer in the teaching and learning space cannot be one-size-fits-all,” he said earlier this month at a UW Board of Regents meeting.
Miriam Seifter, professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Law, said similar cases have been brought before state supreme courts across the country since the U.S. Supreme Court ended federal abortion protections in their 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
“At least a dozen state high courts have expressly held that these types of provisions protect abortion, at least to some extent,” Seifter said. “There are a number of others that have reached those types of rulings at the lower court level, but haven’t fully resolved them in the high courts yet.”
As political battles churn over funding for diversity, equity and inclusion at the Universities of Wisconsin, changing demographics influence how K-12 educators prepare new generations of college students.
Joe Biden and Donald Trump would be the two oldest candidates to ever be nominated for President. We talk to Allison Prasch, a political rhetoric professor from UW-Madison, about how age plays in the race and how previous candidates have faced similar questions.
Barbara Bowers, a UW-Madison nursing school expert, explains why nursing homes in Wisconsin would benefit from bigger changes to how they operate, in addition to simply complying with a new federal requirement to increase staff size.
UW-Madison’s new Sustainability Research Hub is scheduled to launch this spring – as part of a campus-wide initiative Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin announced earlier this month.
The initiative’s stated goals range from promoting collaborative research to achieving net-zero emissions by 2048. WORT News Producer Faye Parks spoke to Missy Nergard, UW-Madison’s director of sustainability, and Paul Robbins, dean of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, to learn more.
LB Klein, an LGBTQ+ Health Expert & Associate Professor at UW-Madison, says, statistically, society sees a lot of LGBTQ+ community members who face depression and anxiety. Klein believes this isn’t because they’re a part of the LGBTQ+ community, but because they’re living in cultures where people are trying to change who they are.
“If we provide access for folks to have supportive therapies, and to live in on a state local level, in a way where they’re affirmed and supported, we actually see those disparities around health and mental health go away,” Klein said.
Includes interview with Ted Gerber, a UW-Madison sociology professor, regarding the latest news on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Includes interview with Yoshiko Herrera, a professor of political science.
Karen Oberhauser is the founder and director of the Monarch Larva Monitoring Project and former director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum. To put 2.2 acres in perspective, she said that’s less than two football fields.
“So that means that all of the monarchs from this huge area in the northern part of the United States — imagine the northeastern quarter of the United States — all of those butterflies are in an area in Mexico right now smaller than two football fields,” Oberhauser told WPR’s “The Morning Show.”
Menzie Chinn, a professor of public affairs and economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the GOP calculations seem to be right, except for one aspect:
“They calculate numbers for ‘a household’ when it’s unclear how many people are in a household,” Chinn said in an email. Chinn previously analyzed the report for a Wisconsin Watch fact-check of an ad that said Wisconsinites are spending $10,000 more per year compared to 2021.
Several systems govern our body’s sense of balance: the muscles, joints, inner ears and more. Our physical therapists are back. They’ll share the exercises you can do to bolster your balance and decrease your risk of falling. Interview with Jill Thein-Nissenbaum, a professor in the Physical Therapy Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Lori Thein Brody, a physical therapist at UW Health Spine Physical Therapy Clinic.
UW Health Distinguished Psychologist Dr. Shilagh Mirgain says spending time with loved ones – family and friends alike – can reduce stress and anxiety, lower blood pressure and may even improve our cardiovascular health.
“There has not been a line in terms of what modifications are okay,” said Dietram Scheufele, who studies misinformation and social media at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Public opinion about what’s acceptable in altering content has changed, such as editing photos of ourselves on Instagram or LinkedIn, he said.
“If some deepfake comes out of Biden falling down repeatedly right before the election in key states, and it all turns out to be fake five days later, that’s completely irrelevant,” Scheufele said. “We don’t have video-assisted review like we have in in football, which means the game will have ended and the result will stand.”
Now that Evers has signed the new maps into law, one of the parties involved in the court case could ask the court to dismiss the case as moot, UW-Madison Law School associate professor Robert Yablon said.
Michigan and Minnesota — two Midwestern states where Democrats took control in 2022 for the first time in many years — could serve as examples of what Wisconsin Democrats would do with a legislative majority, said Barry Burden, a political science professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison and director of the university’s Elections Research Center.
Democrats in those states have “eagerly legislated in new directions on issues such as criminal justice and environmental protection,” Burden said. Given the chance, Wisconsin Democrats would likely pursue a variety of policy changes unavailable to them under GOP control, he said.
Kyle Cranmer, a professor of physics and the director of the Data Science Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the emergence of Chat GPT has certainly sparked a major increase in artificial intelligence.
Barbara Bowers, a professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Nursing who has studied the long-term care industry, also said innovation is needed. Bowers said her research has found that the majority of resident concerns center around the lack of staff at facilities. On top of being short-staffed, she said the typical nursing home model is “stuck in the past,” with nurses and aides working separately instead of utilizing a team approach to patient care.
“If we had more staffing just by itself and didn’t do anything else, I don’t think we’d see the improvements we’re looking for,” she said.
Conducted by the UW Survey Center and analyzed by UW-Madison’s La Follette School of Public Affairs, the survey went to around 3,500 people across the state. Researchers compared the responses of participants who have children under age 6 with those who don’t.
None of those findings are really “huge surprises,” said La Follette School professor Sarah Halpern-Meekin, who analyzed the results.
“If you say, ‘I have a fear of return,’ it triggers a protection under our laws that ensures that a government official will review your case to see if you are likely to be successful with qualifying for asylum in the U.S.,” said Erin Barbato, director of the Immigrant Justice Clinic at the University of Wisconsin.
Steve Vavrus, a senior scientist at UW-Madison and the state’s climatologist, said the weather is already causing economic impact, especially on the tourism industry in northern Wisconsin.
“They depend on snow and ice for skiing and skating and ice fishing and so forth,” Vavrus said. “There’s been closed snowmobile trails. There’s been winter festivals that have been canceled, unsafe ice conditions for fishing and so on.”
Although the recent avoidance of a U.S. recession has surprised many economists, a downturn could still occur in the coming months. That’s the view of UW-Madison economics professor Menzie Chinn.
Slightly more Wisconsin farmers reported taking steps to protect soil and water quality in 2022. They planted nearly 754,000 acres of cover crops — plants that protect the soil and keep it in place during the offseason — about a 23% increase from 2017. The number of acres that were not tilled also increased, from about 2.2 million in 2017 to about 2.4 million in 2022. No-till practices reduce soil disturbance.
Those acres are still just a small portion of Wisconsin’s total farmed acres. “I would have hoped to see that pick up a bit faster,” said Erin Silva, a professor of organic and sustainable agriculture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
If Evers signs the proposal into law, one of the parties involved in the court case could ask the court to dismiss the case as moot, UW-Madison Law School associate professor Robert Yablon said.
