UW-Madison in the Media

A selection of media coverage about the university and its people.

• Health Law Debate Will Probably Last Years New York Times Dec. 16, 2010 Noted: This is precisely what happened to the catastrophic-insurance program that a Democratic Congress and President Ronald Reagan added to Medicare 1988. Opponents in both parties succeeded in repealing the program within 18 months, as older Americans who hadn’t yet warmed to the entitlement railed against the higher costs. “There’s a case where the window was open, and the opposition slammed it shut,” says Byron Shafer, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin.
• Healthy lifestyle, healthy eyes in old age Reuters Dec. 16, 2010 Exercise and diet were each linked to a lower risk of age-related degenerative changes in the eyes, but both combined, along with a lack of smoking, caused a "particularly profound lowering" of the risk -- by more than 70 percent, study author Dr. Julie Mares of the University of Wisconsin in Madison told Reuters Health.
• Air Quality In Bars Improves Dramatically After Smoking Ban WISC-TV 3 Dec. 16, 2010 A new report shows the air quality at bars and restaurants that had been found to have unhealthy air has improved 92 percent since Wisconsin enacted a smoking ban statewide more than five months ago, according to state officials. The Department of Health Services joined the University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center in looking at the air quality of 200 bars and restaurants before the smoking ban and after.
• Second University Research Park will dwarf the original Wisconsin State Journal Dec. 14, 2010 At University Research Park 2, a ribbon of concrete curb curls toward the grove of hardy trees, and graders have smoothed out paths that will become the business park’s main roads.Infrastructure work has begun at the Far Southwest Side site of what officials hope will become another engine of opportunity for the Madison area. Even though building construction probably won’t start until 2012, the 270-acre site bordered by Mineral Point and Pleasant View roads and Highway M could eventually have as many as 10,000 employees, plus houses, shops and restaurants, and a total value that could top $400 million, said research park director Mark Bugher.
• Out-of-towners coming for Rose Bowl game are expected to boost Southern California tourism Los Angeles Times Dec. 10, 2010 When the Rose Parade winds down and the football game begins at the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day, no Pac-10 team will be on the field. But don’t cry for Pasadena, the host city of the historic game.
• Survey maps the life of a generation Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Dec. 8, 2010 Carol and Gregory Schill flip through their high school yearbooks and an entire era comes roaring back to life, Bermuda shorts and saddle shoes, rock ’n’ roll on the radio and quiz shows on TV.
• U.S. study shows schooling equates to health Reuters Dec. 8, 2010 What you learn in school appears to be critical to your health, according to a study released on Tuesday.The long-term study of more than 10,000 Wisconsin residents who graduated from high school in 1957 concluded that the higher a participant’s school rank was, the lower the probability of worsening health as they approached retirement age four decades later. "We already know (schooling) matters for things like your work and your earnings, but this proves it also matters for your health," said Pamela Herd, an associate professor of public affairs and sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
• Why religion breeds happiness: Friends CNN.com Dec. 7, 2010 As important as your religious beliefs may be to you, they don’t necessarily make you happier, a new study in the American Sociological Review finds. What does make you more satisfied with your life, the study finds, is having friends at your congregation and a strong religious identity. "Those are the people who give you the sense of belonging," said lead study author Chaeyoon Lim, of the Department of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Lim conducted the study with Robert Putnam, author of "Bowling Alone" and "American Grace."
• Philanthropists John, Tashia Morgridge donate hundreds of millions to Wisconsin causes Capital Times Dec. 1, 2010 Kevin Reilly had just pulled into the parking lot of a local retailer to take care of some holiday shopping three years ago when his cell phone rang. John Morgridge was on the line.
• Farrier has big shoes to fix Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Nov. 30, 2010 Story examines the unique work of Dean Johanningmeier, farrier at the UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine.
• High hopes for Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery Wisconsin State Journal Nov. 29, 2010 High hopes rest on UW-Madison’s shining new research building. Rising up from the center of campus, the glass-plated Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery could be the site of important medical breakthroughs — the newest treatment for cancer or insights into genetic diseases. But officials also want it to be a place for the public to come and learn about science, a symbol of scientific discovery for the entire campus. "The building is unlike anything we’ve built before," said John Wiley, former UW-Madison chancellor and interim director of one arm of the institutes. "In fact, I don’t think there’s anything like it anywhere."
• UW Breaks Ground On Clean Energy Research Facility WISC-TV 3 Nov. 29, 2010 Gov. Jim Doyle and University of Wisconsin-Madison officials were on hand on Wednesday as workers broke ground on what they hope will be a groundbreaking research facility pursuing clean energy technology.
• Olga Kotelko, the 91-Year-Old Track Star New York Times Nov. 29, 2010 Quoted: Inflammation, which produces that good kind of soreness weekend warriors are familiar with, “also damages a lot of healthy tissue around it,” notes Li Li Ji, an exercise physiologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “That’s why I usually discourage older people from being too ambitious.”
• Looking at local food solutions MSNBC.com Nov. 27, 2010 Quoted: Alphonso Morales, professor of  urban and regional planning at UW-Madison.
• Epilepsy’s Big, Fat Miracle New York Times Nov. 22, 2010 Quoted: The success of the pediatric diet seems to have made it easier for keto scientists to get money for this basic research. “Before Helen’s study, we all had a clear sense that keto worked,” says Carl Stafstrom, the head of pediatric neurology at the University of Wisconsin, “but we couldn’t say in a grant proposal that the diet has been proven to be effective. Now we can.” There are recently financed studies, for example, exploring why the body resists ketosis and exploring compounds that might trigger the antiepileptic mechanism.
• Tours provide close-up look at UW sorority houses Wisconsin State Journal Nov. 22, 2010 Sorority members gave five tours of their houses on Langdon Street Sunday, most of them populated by five or six people, said Maria Lopez, who helped organize the event. "We’re starting out small, but we’re hoping to make it a bigger event next year."
• NSF funds UW under-ice South Pole telescope Daily Cardinal Nov. 23, 2010 At the South Pole, buried approximately 2,400 meters in an Antarctic ice sheet, is a telescope—a cubic kilometer in volume—operated by researchers from UW-Madison.
• Pregnant Mothers Primping for Childbirth Photos on Facebook and YouTube ABCNEWS.com Nov. 19, 2010 Quoted: Cameras came into labor and delivery rooms along with the fathers, beginning in the 1960s and especially in the 1970s, according to Judith Leavitt, author of "Make Room For Daddy" and University of Wisconsin medical historian.
• Professors (and Learners) of the Year Inside Higher Education Nov. 18, 2010 It’s probably not unusual for junior professors to hear they should devote their time to research rather than waste it on teaching. What may be more uncommon is for one of them to do the opposite. But that’s precisely what Teresa C. Balser did, and her students aren’t the only ones reaping the benefits. Today she is among four faculty members selected as U.S. Professors of the Year, an annual award handed out by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Balser’s determination illustrates a common theme among the four award-winners: a continual, active effort to learn themselves as they promote student learning.
• Why the Icelandic eruption caught us off guard The Irish Times Nov. 18, 2010 Scientists from Iceland, Sweden and the Netherlands have spent months pouring over older records and also data from 2009 and 2010 prior to the eruption. They believe they can now tell the full story of how Eyjafjallajökull woke from centuries of slumber to cause the biggest disruption to European air transport since the second World War. “If you watch a volcano for decades you can tell when it is getting restless,” stated co-author Dr Kurt Feigl of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Parts of the dormant volcano began to swell, a sure sign that liquid rock or magma was percolating into chambers under the mountain.
• How Icelandic volcano issued warnings months before its eruption Guardian (UK) Nov. 18, 2010 Geological events leading up to the eruption have been documented, and they show that the volcano had been rumbling for many months before it blew its top. Kurt Feigl, a professor of geosciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a co-author of the study, said the volcano had been showing signs of restlessness.
• UW helps stabilize local economy SmartMoney.com Nov. 17, 2010 Madison hasn’t felt the downturn as intensely as Midwestern neighbors like Milwaukee or Detroit, leading some to declare the city recessionproof. “It’s not,” says Stephen Malpezzi, a real estate professor at the University of Wisconsin. “We just didn’t boom and bust as much.” Part of that is due to Madison’s economic anchor—the 42,000-student University of Wisconsin.
• 35th Anniversary of the Edmund Fitzgerald: UW tests rogue wave detection system WDIO-TV (Duluth) Nov. 10, 2010 The intense and dangerous wind storm and accompanying high waves the Great Lakes states experienced in late October is thought to be the same kind of storm that occurred on Lake Superior causing the fatal wreck of the ship Edmund Fitzgerald 35 years ago on Wednesday. A University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute-funded researcher is studying extreme waves in hopes of preventing future tragedies. Freak waves are exceptionally large, steep and asymmetric and often occur in the Great Lakes, according to University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher Chin-Hsien Wu. He is currently investigating the conditions and locations prone to producing the dangerous waves, which can take down a vessel like the Edmund Fitzgerald.
• Poaching of bear leaves fate of cubs up in air Fond Du Lac Reporter Nov. 10, 2010 One of those bears was a sow that set up house in Marathon County between Rib Mountain and Mosinee and became one of the stars of doctoral student Karl Malcom’s five-year project studying bear movements. She gave birth to four cubs in 2009 and again this year, giving the University of Wisconsin-Madison student a perfect opportunity to follow the young bears as they grew to adulthood and set out on their own.
• NYC marathon: Two Badgers finish in Top 20 Madison.com Nov. 9, 2010 Former University of Wisconsin runners Tim Nelson and Matt Downin posted Top-20 finishes at the New York City Marathon on Sunday, while ex-Badger Simon Bairu dropped out in his high-profile debut.
• Wisconsin Crayfish Hunters Eat Their Fill of What They Kill Wall Street Journal Nov. 4, 2010 A tradition of Cajun cooking has emerged deep in the Northwoods of Wisconsin, spurred by the battle against the rusty crayfish. For years, students from the state university working with the department of natural resources have been hauling countless buckets of rusties from the waters of Sparkling Lake, five hours north of Milwaukee. "What else are you going to do with them but eat them?" says Jake Vander Zanden, a University of Wisconsin, Madison, professor involved in the project.
• Paint The Ivory Tower Green Forbes Nov. 4, 2010 The Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 granted universities the rights to most of the ideas that are developed in their labs with federal funds. That should have stimulated profit-seeking behavior by the universities, but few, aside from MIT, Stanford and the University of Wisconsin, have displayed a flair for it. Professors who disdain the marketplace are to blame, but so are the technology transfer offices themselves.
• Wisconsin Electorate Takes a Hard Right Wall Street Journal Nov. 4, 2010 Quoted: "Wisconsin has historically been a battleground, so when a national tide comes in, the margins to flip things here are smaller," said David Canon, a political scientist at University of Wisconsin at Madison.
• Clearing tropical forests is a lose-lose New Scientist Nov. 2, 2010 Clearing tropical forests for farmland is bad for the climate – no surprises there. But now we’ve learned that it’s also an inefficient way to feed people. Paul West of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and colleagues worked out the potential yields of 175 different crops if they were planted in different parts of the world.
• UW study details trade-off of growing crops, climate change Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Nov. 2, 2010 A new study led by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison underscores the often conflicting goals of feeding a growing global population and combating climate change.