UW-Madison in the Media

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

  • Sizing Up Consciousness by Its Bits New York Times Sept. 21, 2010 One day in 2007, Dr. Giulio Tononi lay on a hospital stretcher as an anesthesiologist prepared him for surgery. For Dr. Tononi, it was a moment of intellectual exhilaration. He is a distinguished chair in consciousness science at the University of Wisconsin, and for much of his life he has been developing a theory of consciousness. Lying in the hospital, Dr. Tononi finally had a chance to become his own experiment.
  • Did the 1960 Presidential Debates Really Matter? History News Network Sept. 20, 2010 September 26 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the first of four debates between Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Vice President Richard M. Nixon. Never before had the two major party presidential candidates shared a forum. And they appeared on television, a medium that had only recently entered the American living room. “My God,” cried an excited CBS producer, Don Hewitt, “We could be making history.” An article by James Baughman, professor of journalism and mass communication at UW-Madison.
  • Recession Raises Poverty Rate to a 15-Year High New York Times Sept. 17, 2010 Quoted: “A lot of people would have been worse off if they didn’t have someone to move in with,” said Timothy M. Smeeding, director of the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin.
  • Obama Takes A Starring Role In GOP Campaign Ads (Morning Edition) National Public Radio Sept. 16, 2010 Quoted: Ken Goldstein of the University of Wisconsin, Madison says you can learn a lot by watching political ads — they’re what poker players call a "tell."
  • Noted NBC news anchor, Cardinal alum dies Daily Cardinal Sept. 16, 2010 Edwin Newman, distinguished UW-Madison alumnus, witty NBC anchor and former Daily Cardinal reporter, died of pneumonia at the age of 91 in Oxford, England. Newman died Aug. 13 but his death was not made public until Wednesday. Newman was born in Brooklyn on Jan. 25, 1919 and graduated from UW-Madison in 1940 with a degree in political science.
  • Carroll: Remarkable Creatures - Hybrids May Thrive Where Parent Species Fear to Tread New York Times Sept. 14, 2010 On May 15, 1985, trainers at Hawaii Sea Life Park were stunned when a 400- pound gray female bottlenose dolphin named Punahele gave birth to a dark-skinned calf that partly resembled the 2,000-pound male false killer whale with whom she shared a pool.
  • UW Professor Analyzes Statewide Primary Results WISC-TV 3 Sept. 15, 2010 University of Wisconsin professor Charles Franklin discusses the results of Tuesday night’s primaries. (Video.)
  • For true guilty pleasures, atonement is not required USA Today Sept. 14, 2010 Quoted: "We watch behaviors on TV we will never engage in," says Jonathan Gray, who studies media and culture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "Think of Steve Carell in The Office, George Costanza in Seinfeld, or Larry David. A huge part of ’cringe comedy’ —Sarah Silverman or South Park— is that we feel uncomfortable but we love it."
  • U.S. pressures the I.M.F. to give greater role to growing economies New York Times Sept. 10, 2010 Quoted: “The underlying problem is that the Europeans are overrepresented relative to the size of their economies, and the developing countries are underrepresented,” said Mark S. Copelovitch, a political scientist who studies the I.M.F. at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
  • Un-Natural Selection: Human Evolution's Next Steps National Public Radio Sept. 8, 2010 John Hawks, an anthropologist and geneticist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, says we’ve created a lifestyle that is at odds with the one natural selection provided us with. Consider, for example, what ate when we were hunter gatherers, long before we started farming.
  • UW-Madison Reaches Out to Student Veterans WUWM Sept. 8, 2010 UW-Madison is making the college experience easier for its student veterans, and that’s because of John Bechtol. He’s the Assistant Dean of Students at UW-Madison and a former professor of military science there.
  • Selig makes major gift to alma mater MLB.com Sept. 1, 2010 Major League Baseball Commissioner Allan H. "Bud" Selig made a major gift to the University of Wisconsin-Madison on Friday, establishing a chair in the history department that will focus on the relationship between sports and society.
  • Method to grade teachers provokes battles New York Times Sept. 1, 2010 Quoted: Douglas N. Harris, an education professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
  • Bucky in the New Millennium (by Chancellor Biddy Martin) Madison Magazine Aug. 20, 2010 A new “Badger Partnership” would provide a world-class education to even more students, reduce the burden on the state budget and maintain UW–Madison’s status as one of the best public universities in the world. A column by UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin.
  • Plants can survive without water: expert Sydney Morning Herald Aug. 24, 2010 US scientists have discovered 50 proteins that help plants survive without water, a crucial step toward one day engineering drought resistant crops. Nature provides a few examples of plants with an innate ability to survive drought conditions, including the resurrection plant that grows in desert climates in Texas and Arizona. Companies such as Monsanto have been working to design agricultural crops that can thrive in dry weather. "If we can figure out how to do that in crops that will be so important," said Michael R Sussman, a University of Wisconsin professor of biochemistry and senior author of a report describing the proteins in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published on Monday.
  • The 17 most innovative university presses and the books you will want from them Huffington Post Aug. 23, 2010 Following our spotlight of independent literary presses, here is a special feature devoted to the most exciting university presses in the country. For whatever shortsighted reasons, newspapers and mainstream media in general give short shrift to the vast output of our great university presses. University of Wisconsin Press is featured prominently.
  • Madison satellite center awarded $60 million grant Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Aug. 21, 2010 Volcanic ash from Iceland. Fires in Russia. Hurricanes over the Atlantic Ocean. Scientists at a 30-year-old Madison satellite institute have studied them all.Their work will continue under a new five-year, $60 million federal grant, the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies said Friday.
  • San Cristóbal De Rapaz Journal - High in the Andes, guardians of an Inca mystery New York Times Aug. 18, 2010 Quoted: Frank Salomon, an anthropologist at the University of Wisconsin who led a recent project to help Rapaz protect its khipus in an earthquake-resistant casing.
  • Damn lies and cat statistics San Francisco Chronicle Aug. 18, 2010 Quoted: Deborah Blum, a journalism professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
  • Nervous monkeys lend clues to childhood anxiety ABCNEWS.com Aug. 12, 2010 Scientists have identified two parts of the brain linked with severe anxiety in young monkeys, and they suspect these same areas may also play a role in children who develop anxiety disorders, offering new promise for treatment. Nervous monkeys in the study showed heightened brain activity in the amygdala and anterior hippocampus, a team from the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health reported on Wednesday in the journal Nature.
  • Consumers find ways to spend less and find happiness New York Times Aug. 11, 2010 Quotes research by Thomas DeLeire, an associate professor of public affairs, population, health and economics at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
  • Another risk for families dealing with autism spectrum disorder -- divorce Los Angeles Times Aug. 5, 2010 The researchers, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Georgia State University and Boston University, said they weren’t surprised that parents of ASD children were nearly twice as likely to divorce. Their results were in line with another study that found couples raising a child with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder were about twice as likely to split up compared to other couples.
  • When do stents triple your risk of dying? Orlando Sentinel July 29, 2010  Quoted: “The results made us very convinced that you should not have a stent procedure if you’re symptomatic,” says Dr. K. Craig Kent, chair of surgery at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
  • Expert focus on fish and climate change BBC News Online July 29, 2010 Noted: Fish that specifically favour temperature cold water habitats are already showing signs of the struggle with climate change. John Magnuson, University of Wisconsin, says that cold water fish like trout and charr are affected. "We already have evidence that they are beginning to show poor performance and in many streams in the European and North American area, we have major declines in the abundance and distribution of these cold water species."
  • Nike agrees to help laid-off workers in Honduras New York Times July 27, 2010 Facing pressure from universities and student groups, the apparel maker Nike announced on Monday that it would pay $1.54 million to help 1,800 workers in Honduras who lost their jobs when two subcontractors closed their factories.
  • Music review: A great pianist once more flies under the radar Los Angeles Times July 23, 2010 Christopher Taylor is the overpopulation pianist. He has a common name, which means he has a lot of company on Internet searches. His handful of obscure, independent recordings have such amateurish graphics that he would be easy to dismiss as a home hobbyist.
  • Gray wolf comeback worries Midwest Christian Science Monitor July 22, 2010 Quoted: "Wolf recovery has seen a gradual expansion of what we’ve defined as wolf habitat," says Adrian Treves, an environmental studies professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "They’re starting to form breeding packs in areas where we didn’t think, 20 or 30 years ago, that they could."
  • How to Spend Money So It Makes You Happy U.S. News and World Report July 22, 2010 Noted: By comparing consumption data from the national Health and Retirement Study, Thomas DeLeire of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Ariel Kalil of the University of Chicago found that spending money on leisure activities, which include vacations, movie theater tickets, and hobbies, improve happiness levels. (Happiness was measured by asking respondents to describe how they felt about their lives.)
  • A new type of tear-jerker BBC News Online July 16, 2010 Quoted: "In general, there’s some research to support the idea that going to the movies to ’have a good cry’ is a young person’s game - probably part of the developmental task of exploring intense feelings as well as a way to bond with your peers," says Prof Marie-Louise Mares, of the communication arts department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
  • Scientists Quantify Global Warming's Threat to Public Health Scientific American July 13, 2010 There is, however, a silver lining: Tackling global warming is also a public health opportunity, said Jonathan Patz, director of global environmental health at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who also participated in the UCS briefing.