UW-Madison in the Media

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

• Seriously, Who Are These Undecided Voters? Time Nov. 3, 2008 Quoted: University of Wisconsin political science professor Charles Franklin has crunched early-October tracking poll data and found that Regina Hansley is pretty normal.
• Obama rules the TV ad airwaves BBC News Online Oct. 30, 2008 Noted: Analysis by the University of Wisconsin Advertising Project shows that both candidates have used negative ads, despite Mr Obama's accusation, in the final presidential debate, that Mr McCain had run a wholly negative campaign.
• Smith: Camp Randall tales MetroWest Daily News (Framingham, MA) Oct. 29, 2008 After the third year of taking our Smith family college football trip over Columbus Day weekend, it occurred to me that these trips are like children. You love them all, but you don't love one more than another, you just love them in different ways. Notre Dame two years ago was about time-honored tradition and LSU last year was about the religion known as football in the Deep South. This year's venue was the University of Wisconsin, and there was a lot to love about the city of Madison, Camp Randall Stadium and the whole University of Wisconsin football scene.
• Flu shots for children may be hard to get Philadelphia Inquirer Oct. 20, 2008 Quoted: Jonathan Temte - a family-medicine doctor at the University of Wisconsin and a member of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which made the new recommendation - said immunizing even 40 to 50 percent of children could have "very dramatic effects" on flu-transmission rates.
• Barack Obama has advantage of big bucks, a big name: Colin Powell Los Angeles Times Oct. 20, 2008 Quoted: "Presidential campaigns are about making tough decisions with limited resources," said University of Wisconsin political scientist Ken Goldstein, who tracks presidential campaign spending on television. "Obama doesn't need to make tough decisions."
• Campaign ads fail to find killer punch Financial Times Oct. 20, 2008 Quoted: Ken Goldstein, director of the Wisconsin Advertising Project at the University of Wisconsin-Madison,
• Beliefs - Exploring Religion, Shaped by the Enlightenment New York Times Oct. 14, 2008 Why can’t religion and the Enlightenment be friends? What’s that, you say? They were friends? Why didn’t anyone tell us? Well, David Sorkin has. A professor of history and Jewish studies at the University of Wisconsin, he argues in a new study that religion and the Enlightenment were even more than friends.
• Veterans see violence, but very few solutions Bangkok Post Oct. 14, 2008 Quoted: Former student leader Thongchai Winichakul, an historian at the University of Wisconsin, said he believes the PAD would try to provoke more violent confrontations so that it could provide a pretext for a military intervention, just as they did before the 2006 coup.
• Girls and math: It doesn't add up Los Angeles Times Oct. 14, 2008 Mamas, you might want to let your babies grow up to be mathematicians, especially if they’re girls. "We are wasting this valuable resource," said Janet Mertz, senior author and professor of oncology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in a news release. "Girls can excel in math at the very highest level. There are some truly phenomenal women mathematicians out there."
• Ohio being invaded by land and by air(waves) Columbus Dispatch Oct. 9, 2008 Quoted: Ken Goldstein, director of the project, said advertising by both candidates is ramping up as the election approaches.
• Obama holds advertising advantage over McCain Associated Press Oct. 9, 2008 With national and state polls showing him building a broader lead over McCain, Obama has switched to a more positive pitch. Last week, only 34 percent of his ads attacked McCain directly while virtually all of McCain's ads attacked Obama, according to a study by the Wisconsin Advertising Project at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
• Living with the rusty red menace Wisconsin Natural Resources Magazine Oct. 9, 2008 Quoted: Rusties are extremely aggressive and have huge appetites. They do the most damage by eating water plants. “The way I describe what rusty crayfish do, they are underwater lawnmowers,” says Jeff Maxted, an invasive species research specialist with the University of Wisconsin Center for Limnology in Madison.
• A breakthrough, then a surge, in stem cell research Chicago Tribune Oct. 9, 2008 Less than a year after a Wisconsin team helped discover a major alternative to human embryonic stem cells, the Madison scientists say more than 800 labs have begun using the approach, suggesting that many stem-cell researchers are starting to move beyond controversial embryonic sources for their work. Such shifts may reframe the emotionally fraught debate over stem cells—an issue that has ignited passions across the political spectrum. Both presidential candidates have indicated they would lift President George W. Bush's restrictions on research funding, though Sen. Barack Obama has been more adamant than Sen. John McCain.
• Beetles Grow Weed Killer Science News Oct. 3, 2008 Southern pine beetles get by with a little help from their friends, including a newly discovered bacterium that makes a weed killer. When the beetles burrow into trees to lay eggs, they leave behind spores that sprout into a garden of fungal baby food. Now electron microscopy, beetle sampling and lab tests suggest that the female beetles also mix in helpful strains of bacteria, says Jarrod Scott of the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
• New twist in brain obesity riddle BBC News Online Oct. 3, 2008 The discovery of another way in which the body appears to control how much it eats could shed fresh light on obesity. US researchers said poor diets may trigger a signalling system which prompts the body to consume even more. The latest "pathway" under investigation, by scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is normally associated with the immune system, and inflammation, one of the body's defence systems.
• Common cold virus 'could increase child's risk of asthma tenfold' The Telegraph (UK) Oct. 2, 2008 Youngsters close to the age of three who develop wheezing with the virus have a 30-fold risk of becoming asthmatic by the time they turn six. The older the toddlers are when they catch the virus, the greater their chance of developing the condition, which is called Rhinovirus, according to the research. Around 5 million people in Britain, including more than 1m children, suffer from asthma. Daniel Jackson, from the University of Wisconsin, who led the team which carried out the study, said that the Rhinovirus was a "significant predictor" that children would go on to become asthmatic.
• Psychoanalytic Therapy Wins Backing New York Times Oct. 1, 2008 Quoted: “But this review certainly does seem to contradict the notion that cognitive or other short-term therapies are better than any others,” said Bruce E. Wampold, chairman of the department of counseling psychology at the University of Wisconsin. “When it’s done well, psychodynamic therapy appears to be just as effective as any other for some patients, and this strikes me as a turning point” for such intensive therapy.
• McCain stem cell ad irks conservative Christians St. Louis Post-Dispatch Sept. 30, 2008 Quoted: Alta Charo, a professor of law and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin, said the ad was "designed to confuse voters."
• When will crisis sink in? Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Sept. 30, 2008 Quoted: Morris Davis, assistant professor of real estate and urban land economics at UW-Madison, said any government solution should address the ongoing concern of falling home prices.
• Knetter: Credit crisis: Making sense of the turmoil Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Sept. 29, 2008 For most of my professional life, I’ve felt that one of the most underappreciated “laws” of economics was J.B. Say’s maxim that supply creates its own demand. It seems that in projecting where the economy will go next, too many people focus on the trees that make up demand and not the forest that is supply.
• Why Earth's Magnetic Field Flip-Flops U.S. News and World Report Sept. 29, 2008 Earth's magnetic field is really two fields with two separate sources, argues paleomagnetist Kenneth Hoffman of California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo and geochronologist Brad Singer of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in a paper published in the Sept. 26 issue of the journal Science.
• Is civil conversation about politics even possible? The State (South Carolina) Sept. 25, 2008 Quoted: Katherine Cramer Walsh, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and the author of “Talking about Politics: Informal Groups and Social Identity in American Life.”
• Hours from death, inmate receives reprieve, with help from Innocence Project Wisconsin State Journal Sept. 25, 2008 When the U.S. Supreme Court gave a reprieve to a Georgia inmate less than two hours before his scheduled execution Tuesday, the relief was felt around the world and at the UW-Madison Law School, where Wisconsin Innocence Project co-director Keith Findley played a key role.
• Former UW student earns prize and a Smithsonian display with wax-paper dress Wisconsin State Journal Sept. 24, 2008 When art student Sarah Muehlbauer began work last spring on a wax-paper dress in an experimental textile class at UW-Madison, little did she know it would end up at the Smithsonian — and earn her a $20,000 cash prize.
• UW Hospital and Clinics gets kudos Wisconsin State Journal Sept. 24, 2008 A Madison organization has been named one of the best places to work in the country, according to Working Mother magazine. The list of 100 firms, released Tuesday, had three Wisconsin companies, including UW Hospital and Clinics, which was cited for its strong maternity leave program.
• Surgical tools not fit for smaller hands Chicago Tribune Sept. 24, 2008 Now that more doors are opening for women who want to be surgeons, it may be time to look at the equipment they are given at the operating table. A recent study finds that some devices commonly used in what was once a male bastion are too big to be comfortable for women. The study, which appears in Surgical Endoscopy, notes that women's hands tend to be smaller then men's, but that men with smaller hands also may find the equipment challenging. One of the report's authors, Dr. Peter Nichol of the University of Wisconsin medical school, said he had gotten the idea for the study while working with a resident and co-author, Dr. Danielle M. Adams.
• Many Wonder What Exactly Congressional Earmarks Are WISC-TV 3 Sept. 24, 2008 Quoted: "An earmark is just a specific appropriation for spending government dollars on a very specific project," said University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor David Canon
• Washington Wire: Florida Rep. Apologizes for Abramoff-Funded Trip in New Ad Wall Street Journal Sept. 24, 2008 Quoted: “Obviously, the ‘mea culpa’ ad is not a huge genre in American politics,” said Ken Goldstein, director of the Wisconsin Advertising Project, a University of Wisconsin project that collects and codes political ads. “If someone has done something bad enough that they think they need to apologize for it with a television ad, they’ve usually decided not to run.”
• Recent Parvo Outbreaks Worries Dog Community ABCNEWS.com Sept. 23, 2008 Quoted: Ronald Schultz is a professor and chair of the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine's pathobiological sciences department in Madison. He's also one of the nation's leading experts on vaccines.
• Really? - Does Grape Juice Have the Same Health Benefits as Red Wine? New York Times Sept. 23, 2008 Independent studies have found that like alcohol, grape juice can reduce the risk of blood clots and prevent LDL (“bad” cholesterol) from sticking to coronary arteries, among other cardiac benefits. One, conducted by scientists at the University of Wisconsin and published in the journal Circulation, looked at the effects of two servings of Concord grape juice a day in 15 people with coronary artery disease. After two weeks, the subjects had improved blood flow and reduced oxidation of LDL. Oxidized LDL can damage arteries.