UW-Madison in the Media

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

• Sixth-Grader Speaks Out Against Cyberbullying WISC-TV 3 Oct. 6, 2010 Quoted: Dr. Megan Moreno, an expert on cyberbullying with the University of Wisconsin, said what makes online bullying so serious is how public it becomes.
• Middle Class Slams Brakes on Spending Wall Street Journal Oct. 6, 2010 Quoted: "What you’re looking at here is people at the bottom trying to hang on," said Timothy Smeeding, public affairs professor and director of the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. "You can’t go below a certain level."
• Phys Ed: Free the Free Radicals New York Times Oct. 6, 2010 Noted: What these findings mean for those of us who work out regularly is still being determined by scientists. But one message is clear. ‘‘The evidence suggests that antioxidants are not needed’’ by most athletes, even those training strenuously, said Li Li Ji, a professor of exercise physiology and nutritional science at the University of Wisconsin and one of the authors of the rat study. ‘‘The body adapts,’’ he said, a process that can, it seems, be altered by antioxidant supplements.
• Wen Jiabao talks of democracy and freedom in CNN interview Guardian (UK) Oct. 4, 2010 Prof Edward Friedman, an expert on Chinese politics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said that many Chinese people sympathetic to the sentiments Wen was espousing also seemed doubtful of whether he was engaged in a political struggle for them, "or just setting out a position so he has a certain historical legacy".
• New cranberry products rolling out Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Oct. 1, 2010 Bucky Badger is capitalizing on a season kickoff that has nothing to do with football. To celebrate the cranberry season - the harvest began last week - a new ice cream flavor debuts this week at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Babcock Dairy store. It showcases a cranberry innovation called Berry Bits, a fresh cranberry with most of the tartness (acidity) removed.
• Obama Travels To Fire Up Young Voters Wall Street Journal Sept. 28, 2010 President Barack Obama swooped into this college town Tuesday evening, hoping to rekindle the youth vote that helped propel him to the White House for the benefit of Democrats in next month’s mid-term elections.
• Campus Visit by Obama Isn’t Simple New York Times Sept. 28, 2010 Would it be all right if the Leader of the Free World stopped by your campus for a little while?
• Dalai Lama Donates to Wisconsin Meditation Center New York Times Sept. 27, 2010 They say money can’t buy happiness — but it can finance the research.When Richard Davidson, then a psychology doctoral student in the 1970s, told his advisers at Harvard that he planned to study the power of meditation, the scholars winced.
• Science and society: A Pacific divide Nature Sept. 23, 2010 Quoted: Western respondents may have been less equivocal in their support for science and scientists because of political debate in their countries, says Dietram Scheufele, a science-communications and public-policy expert at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. "Particularly in the United States, dichotomies dominate political issues, like a sporting event with two sides. Dichotomies are prominent in discussions about climate change, stem cells and so on," he says. "And they can damage the debate."
• Stem cells: A legal round table (features law professor Alta Charo) Nature Sept. 23, 2010 Quoted: Alta Charo is the Warren P. Knowles Professor of Law & Bioethics at the University of Wisconsin Law School at Madison. She was a member of the NIH Human Embryo Research Panel and the National Bioethics Advisory Commission during the Clinton administration
• Looking beyond Europe for education, adventure CNN.com Sept. 22, 2010 "After college, I’ll go to Europe, but I’m not sure I would ever have the chance to live in a developing country," said Jessie Lavintman, a University of Wisconsin-Madison student who became familiar with bucket showers and malaria when she studied in Ghana.
• 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.