UW-Madison in the Media

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

• Microbes Could Build 'Iron Man' Circuits Yahoo! News May 16, 2008 How is the Iron Man suit made? We admire the result in the movie (still number one this week at the box office); the comic book version states that the Iron Man suit circuits were created using a process called biological circuit fabrication: "Micro-Scale suit tiles fabricated by genetically engineered metal affinity bacteria which assemble themselves in specific orderly arrays, then expire, leaving behind various metallic deposits which form all the metal shapes and microscopic circuits." Now, a group of scientists led by Michael Sussman, director of University of Wisconsin, Madison's Biotechnology Center, and oceanography professor Virginia Armbrust of the University of Washington, are seeing if diatoms will help make even smaller integrated circuit chips by a similar process of biological fabrication.
• Summer in Antarctica -- a balmy -30 workday Morton Grove (Ill.) Champion May 15, 2008 The sun is constantly shining, the expanse of ice and snow stretching for miles in all directions is amazing -- but the walk to work through minus 30 degree temperatures at an altitude of nearly 10,000 feet is no picnic. In other words, it's just another summer day at the South Pole. For two Park Ridge natives, the icy, barren terrain of Antarctica doubled as home and office this past January during what is the Southern Hemisphere's summer season. Michelangelo D'Agostino, a physics Ph.D. student at the University of California at Berkeley, and Paul McGuire, an information technology specialist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, spent five weeks at the South Pole working on a scientific experiment called the IceCube Project. The project involves the construction of a telescope at the South Pole that will detect invisible subatomic particles from space called neutrinos. The data that is collected will be useful for astronomers in understanding more about the galaxy, D'Agostino said.
• UW Students Send Help To China WKOW-TV 27 May 15, 2008 Monday UW graduate student He Chang was in a panic. His family lives in Sichuan Province. 16 miles away from the earthquake's center. "I started to call my family, and I couldn't get to them. So I was worried," Chang says. After hours of frantic calls, he talked to his family who was scared, but safe. They described the chaos to him over the phone.
• UW grad on her way to food fame Milwaukee Journal Sentinel May 15, 2008 Dont envy Mary Nolan because shes articulate, assertive, athletic, attractive and had a job lined up at Gourmet magazine not quite a month after graduating from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Envy her because, at 26, she just got her own series on the Food Network.
• Brilliant Issue: Game Changers Conde Nast Portfolio May 12, 2008 Skin game: First James Thomson created a controversy; then he resolved it. In 1998, Thomson became the first scientist to isolate human stem cells, which can develop into any tissue in the body and thus have tremendous medical potential. Researchers are currently working to figure out how to "instruct" these cells to replace damaged tissues. But the science has been bogged down in controversy, because until recently the cells could be harvested only from embryos. Last fall, Thomson, 49, announced that he had caused a human skin cell to revert to a stem cell that was virtually identical to those found in embryos. The achievement could open the floodgates of investment. How soon might this bear fruit? "In my lifetime," Thomson says.
• Sky Vegetables proposal by UW-Madison students imagines fresh produce from the supermarket roof Wisconsin State Journal May 8, 2008 Imagine a grocery store in Wisconsin that doesn't get its produce from warmer states hundreds of miles away. Instead, fruits and vegetables are grown right on the supermarket's rooftop, making the produce as fresh as possible for consumers.
• How Wisconsin Student Investors Run $62 Million TheStreet.com May 2, 2008 Weighing in at $62 million, you would think that being the one of the world's largest student-run portfolios sets the University of Wisconsin's Applied Security Analysis Program (ASAP) apart from its peers. But ask its student managers what makes their program worth talking about, and size isn't the first thing that springs to mind. Here's a look at what does.
• A Too-Good-to-Be-True Nutrient? Washington Post April 29, 2008 Imagine a nutrient that could help prevent cancer, heart disease and tuberculosis, preserve bones, and thwart autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and juvenile diabetes. Sounds too good to be true, doesn't it? But that's the potential now being attributed to Vitamin D, whose usefulness was once thought to be limited to prevention of rickets in children and severe bone loss in adults. Known as the sunshine vitamin because it is produced when the skin is exposed to ultraviolet light, Vitamin D has been garnering increasing attention recently, because of what it may be able to do and because many people appear to be getting too little of it. "There are a lot of benefits to Vitamin D that have surfaced in the last 20 years," notes Hector DeLuca, a University of Wisconsin biochemist who has been a pioneer in Vitamin D research.
• UW textiles professor guides green carpet choice Wisconsin State Journal April 25, 2008 A passionate textiles professor in Madison helped a California college system insist on buying environmentally friendly carpeting for an $83 million contract. His work reflects growing interest in sustainable choices in carpeting, from homeowners to commercial contractors who want their buildings to be "green" from top to bottom. "My whole research agenda for the past 26 years" has been focused on textile manufacturing and recycling issues to protect the environment, said Majid Sarmadi, 54, a professor of textile science at UW-Madison.
• Tempest in a Hobbit Tooth ScienceNOW April 25, 2008 Quoted: Hobbit watcher John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, says he was initially intrigued by Henneberg's claim. "[The] hypothesis was reasonable based on the photos," he says.
• Can Climate Change Make Us Sicker? Time April 7, 2008 What do we talk about when we talk about global warming? It'll get hotter, that's a safe bet, polar ice caps will be melting and wildlife that can't adapt to warmer temperatures could be on the way out. But what does it really mean for the health of us, the human race? It's a question that remains surprisingly difficult to answer — research into climate change's impacts on human health have lagged behind other areas of climate science. But what we do know has scientists and doctors increasingly worried — a rising risk of death from heat waves, the spread of tropical diseases like malaria into previously untouched areas, worsened water-borne diseases. "When we think about climate change, we think about ice caps and biodiversity, but we forget about human health," says Dr. Jonathan Patz, a professor of environmental studies and population health sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "There are a huge number of health outcomes that are climate sensitive."
• UW astrophysicist left 'big footprint' on the stars Milwaukee Journal Sentinel April 7, 2008 Just because something couldn't be seen did not mean that it couldn't be mapped. William Kraushaar, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor and a pioneer in the field of high-energy astrophysics, developed experiments that created the first gamma ray map of the sky, showing gamma rays from both the Milky Way galaxy and beyond. He died on March 21.
• Learn to Be Kind Scientific American March 28, 2008 We’re in the midst of a revolution in brain science. The long-held dogma that brain connections are unchangeable after age five, is being usurped with findings that the brain is more plastic than we thought. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison published a study in PLoS One this week, showing that our capacity for empathy can be learned and mastered – as one might learn to play soccer or piano. The skill here comes from meditation. (Audio.)
• For Guard and His Fan, Strength in a Number Washington Post March 26, 2008 OMAHA -- Somewhere among the socks, shirts and toiletries Michael Flowers packed to take with him to the first and second rounds of the NCAA tournament is a No. 22 jersey. It is significantly smaller than the No. 22 jersey Flowers wears during games, the one with "Wisconsin" stitched across the front.
• Lab Notes : The Lotus and the Synapse Newsweek March 26, 2008 The scientist who has worked most closely with the Dalai Lama is Richard Davidson of the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Davidson first met the Dalai Lama in 1992, and since about 2000 has been investigating a question dear to the heart of the leader of Tibetan Buddhism: can mental training such as meditations change the brain in an enduring way?
• Springsteen 'in awe' of UW's Davis Capital Times March 20, 2008 Madison bass player Richard Davis is pretty nonchalant about his role Monday night on stage with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee. "We know each other from years ago," said Davis, 77, who has been a popular school of music professor at the UW-Madison for 31 years. ....His Wikipedia bio calls Davis one of the most widely recorded bassists of all time. He has worked in both jazz and classical music all over the world and has recorded extensively both as a leader and sideman.
• Scientists show up Michelangelo's faults Guardian (UK) March 19, 2008 Quoted: "Understanding structural properties of historical and cultural artefacts through computer simulations is often crucial to their preservation," said Prof Vadim Shapiro at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. At present this kind of analysis was expensive, time-consuming and error-prone, he said. "The 'scan and solve' technology promises to transform the simulation into a simple and fully automated process that can be applied routinely."
• Michelangelo's David has dodgy legs The Telegraph (UK) March 19, 2008 Quoted: Today, Vadim Shapiro of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Igor Tsukanov of Florida International University and their colleagues will present their latest results from their "Scan and Solve" computer technique at the International Conference on Computational and Experimental Engineering and Sciences in Honolulu, Hawaii.
• Another Problem with Biofuels? Time March 13, 2008 It's called the dead zone. Agricultural fertilizer byproducts like nitrogen are running off farms and into the Mississippi River, which then spills out into the Gulf of Mexico.
• More ethanol will expand Gulf of Mexico 'dead zone': report CBC News March 11, 2008 Ramping up ethanol production for alternative fuels will worsen the "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico, a stretch of water unable to support aquatic life, according to a report co-written by the University of British Columbia. The U.S. Senate's recently announced plan to triple production of ethanol made from corn starch by 2022 will increase the zone by 10 to 19 per cent from the 20,000-square-kilometres — an area roughly the size of New Jersey — it has recently occupied, the report said.
• UW-Madison professor fights cancer in her lab and life Wisconsin State Journal March 7, 2008 Patricia Keely is fighting cancer on two fronts: • In her lab, she and her colleagues at UW-Madison are discovering secrets of breast cancer, including why it occurs more often in dense breast tissue. • In her life, she volunteered for a clinical trial at the Mayo Clinic of a new drug in hopes of surviving her own cancer of the esophagus.
• Climate Study Links Atlantic Storms With African Dust Levels Voice of America March 7, 2008 Aided by satellite monitoring, scientists at the University of Wisconsin’s Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies have updated their study of cyclone formation in the eastern Atlantic Ocean off of Africa’s west coast. Their findings, released last moevels (Voice of America)nth, appeared about the same time as tropical Cyclone Ivan struck Madagascar in the Indian Ocean east of the African continent.
• Mathematics Explains Mysterious Midge Behavior New York Times March 7, 2008 Here’s a place that’s unlikely ever to be a vacation spot for Yankee pitcher Joba Chamberlain: Lake Myvatn, in Iceland. Myvatn, translating from Icelandic to English, means Midge Lake. During mating season, the air at Lake Myvatn can also be thick with male midges, each hovering, waiting for a female to join him. “It’s a like a fog, a brown dense fog that just rises around the lake,” said Anthony R. Ives, a professor of zoology at the University of Wisconsin.
• Groundbreaking Alzheimer's Research Happening At UW Hospital WISC-TV 3 March 4, 2008 MADISON, Wis. -- Some groundbreaking research being done at the UW could greatly affect those at risk for Alzheimer's disease. The goal of the research is to try to identify Alzheimer's disease before symptoms start occurring, and researchers believe to do that, you must look at the brain. That's exactly what Dr. Sterling Johnson is doing. He's been doing work where healthy people, both with a family history of Alzheimer's disease and without, have MRI's done while performing memory tasks.
• Kathy Walsh Nufer column: It's more than just baby talk Appleton Post-Crescent March 4, 2008 Parents, especially anxious first-timers who devour every baby book, might panic when their child shows no inclination to speak, even as toddlers playing nearby jabber away with abandon. Late talkers can cause many moms and dads fits but, in most cases, they need not worry, says brain investigator Susan Ellis Weismer, a professor of communicative disorders at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a principal researcher with UW's Waisman Center.
• Obama benefiting from shift in values Appleton Post-Crescent March 3, 2008 Quoted: Dhavan V. Shah, a journalism and political science professor at UW-Madison, points to a 20-year study by the Pew Research Center that looked at changes in public opinions and values for answers.
• Record numbers using the Quit line Wisconsin Radio Network March 3, 2008 The Wisconsin Tobacco Quit line has seen record numbers of callers this year. Rob Adsit is with the U-W Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention. He says the quit line has received 20,000 calls in January and February, compared 9,000 for an entire year typically. He attributes this unprecedented growth to several factors.
• The Nukes of October: Richard Nixon's Secret Plan to Bring Peace to Vietnam Wired.com Feb. 27, 2008 Historian Jeremi Suri wrote a column about a plan hatched by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger to end the conflict in Vietnam by pretending to launch a nuclear strike on the USSR.
• Taxi to the Dark Side highlights work of UW-Madison prof Alfred McCoy Isthmus Feb. 25, 2008 UW-Madison history professor Alfred McCoy describes viewing the Academy Awards Sunday night as a “euphoric moment." The winner of the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature award was Taxi to the Dark Side, a 106-minute film by Alex Gibney about the history of torture in American policy, centering on the death of an Afghan taxi driver named Diliwar who died in the custody of U.S. Army interrogators in December, 2002. McCoy is featured in the film, speaking about the findings in his 2006 book A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on
• Obama outspent Hillary 5-1 on WI TV MSNBC.com Feb. 25, 2008 One of the keys to Obama's 17-point Wisconsin win? Per a University of Wisconsin Advertising Project study, he outspent Clinton nearly 5-to-1 on TV ads in the state. Overall, the four Dem and GOP candidates aired more than 8,000 spots in the state, spending a combined $2.1 million.