UW-Madison in the Media

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

• Deconstructing an Obama Victory New York Times Feb. 25, 2008 Here’s further grist for the mill for anyone deconstructing how Senator Hillary Clinton lost so many states to Senator Barack Obama. The story is starting to sound the same everywhere: slow start and outspent, if not out-organized. These are the details from Wisconsin, as culled by Ken Goldstein, director of the Wisconsin Advertising Project, which analyzes political advertising across the country.
• How important is oratory to Obama and other politicians? Cleveland Plain Dealer Feb. 21, 2008 Quoted: Stephen Lucas, a professor of communications at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
• Nanotechnology Is Morally Unacceptable Wall Street Journal Feb. 21, 2008 If you don’t have a super-fast, super-small computer in a few years, blame the moral majority. It turns out that most Americans find nanotechnology, the scientific field most likely to produce such a breakthrough, morally unacceptable. That’s according to researchers at the University of Wisconsin who are studying people’s attitudes towards nanotechnology, an emerging scientific field that involves manipulating molecules and atoms. They found that just 29.5% of the 1,000-plus Americans surveyed said they thought nanotechnology research was morally acceptable.
• Obama, McCain add to victory streaks USA Today Feb. 20, 2008 Quoted: Barry Burden, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, likened the state's primary to the football competition that can consume campus. "It feels like the end of the regular season in Madison," he said, "and they'll be moving on to the championship games in Texas and Ohio."
• No one championed hockey in the U.S. more than "Badger" Bob ESPN.com Feb. 20, 2008 After the recent Hockey Weekend Across America, what better time to reminisce about one of the imperishable personalities and most influential people the game has ever seen or enjoyed? Because no one cared for the game itself and championed hockey in the United States more than "Badger" Bob Johnson.
• Americans Reject Morality of Nanotechnology on Religious Grounds Christian Post Feb. 19, 2008 Religion is said to be the driving influence behind Americans’ low moral opinion of nanotechnology, according to a researcher who surveyed public opinion on science and technology. Dietram Scheufele, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of life sciences, and a colleague found in their study that only 29.5 percent of respondents from a sample of 1,015 adult Americans agreed that nanotechnology was morally acceptable. When the survey was conducted in European countries, who are reportedly also key players in nanotechnology, the results were strikingly different.
• Study finds tutor plan lacking Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Feb. 18, 2008 Early reports from a University of Wisconsin-Madison study raise questions about the value of federally funded tutoring sessions for low-performing Milwaukee Public Schools students.
• A 'Fair Trade' Approach to Licensed College Gear New York Times Feb. 13, 2008 One day seven or eight years ago in Bangkok, Joe Falcone began to feel an uncomfortable sensation of futility. The grandson of garment workers, he had been working in Asia’s clothing factories for nearly a decade, making certain they complied with labor and environmental laws. The idea was to assure American consumers their apparel and shoes were not made in sweatshops. But, as Mr. Falcone recalled in a recent interview, he had come to wonder if the laws were strong enough. Quoted: Dawn Crim, a special assistant to the chancellor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, was one administrator persuaded by Mr. Falcone’s sales pitch. “Our chancellor has always said to find the best supplier who makes the best product in a fair way and give him a chance,” said Ms. Crim, whose responsibilities include licensing. “We’re always on the lookout for a company that can operate in an ethical way.”
• Are the Olympics evicting Vancouver's poor? CTV (Canada) Feb. 12, 2008 Quoted: Kris Olds, a professor of geography at the University of Wisconsin.
• Study tries to pin down state black bear population Appleton Post-Crescent Feb. 11, 2008 MADISON — A University of Wisconsin research biologist is taking a new look at Wisconsin's black bear population, and results of his work are likely to impact bear management in the state. "There are more bear now than there probably has been in 20 years," said Tim VanDeelen, assistant professor of wildlife ecology, who is overseeing a two-year study that is in its final year.
• Sprinting down the evolutionary highway Toronto Star Feb. 11, 2008 Think that we humans are a fait accompli, a done deal that hasn't changed over the eons? Think again. Evidence is accumulating that the species is still evolving, and doing so at an unprecedented rate. A major new study led by UW-Madison anthropologist John Hawks says that in the past 5,000 years, natural selection – gene mutations that spread because they're beneficial – has occurred 100 times faster than at any other period in human history.
• Startup Battles Botnets PC World Feb. 5, 2008 A startup with U.S. military backing will begin beta-testing a security appliance this month, which it argues could change the face of network security by automating and refining the generation of malware signatures. The startup, Nemean Networks, was co-founded by Paul Barford, a computer scientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and is named after the first of Hercules' 12 tasks - to kill the Nemean lion, a beast with an impenetrable coat.
• Democrats Flood States With Ads as Tuesday Nears New York Times Feb. 4, 2008 Quoted: Ken Goldstein, a political science professor and the director of the Wisconsin Advertising Project at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which just completed a study of campaign expenditures to date.
• Nature the tinkerer Guardian (UK) Feb. 4, 2008 Remember the old story about modern science: knowing more and more about less and less? It's not true any more. We are living in the age of the great biological synthesis. Both Neil Shubin and Sean B Carroll thrillingly show us how, in the last 10 years, work on fossils, on DNA sequencing and on embryological development have combined to piece together the story of how we got here.
• Little of candidates ad money shows in Feb. 5 states Los Angeles Times Feb. 4, 2008 Presidential contenders from both major parties spent a record $107 million through last Sunday to air more than 151,000 television ads -- but hardly any of the media dollars were used to buy air time in the more than 20 states holding nominating contests Tuesday. Reflecting the extraordinary focus placed on early primary and caucus states this election cycle, three times as much money was spent at New Hampshire television station WMUR -- about $10 million -- than had been spent in all of California. As of Sunday, ad buys in California totaled about $3 million, though that increased this week as some of the major candidates launched new TV spots in the state. At a similar point before the Iowa caucuses, $36 million had been spent there, said Kenneth Goldstein, director of the University of Wisconsin Advertising Project, which conducted the study. By the time the Jan. 3 caucuses were over, the candidates had spent $43 million on television ads in Iowa, or about $121 for every person who cast a ballot.
• Negative campaigning long a hallmark of American politics Providence Journal Jan. 29, 2008 Quoted: Kenneth Goldstein of the University of Wisconsin-Madison says negative campaigning informs voters
• Obama Makes `Defining Moment' With Rhetoric Evoking JFK, King Bloomberg News Jan. 29, 2008 Quoted: Stephen Lucas, professor of communication arts at University of Wisconsin at Madison and author of a soon-to-be- published anthology of the top 100 American speeches of the 20th century.
• Study Gives Key Role to Sleep in Helping Brain Learn Anew New York Times Jan. 29, 2008 Researchers who study the brain know that it’s far from an immutable object. “It’s much more plastic than most people think,” said Giulio Tononi, a psychiatrist at the University of Wisconsin. “It’s changing all the time.” One area of change is the synapses, the connections between neurons, which are altered as the brain receives stimuli. “What happens when you’re awake is you produce an overall strengthening of synapses,” Dr. Tononi said. “That’s good, because that’s how you learn.”
• UW Vets Perform Surgery On Exotic Tortoise WISC-TV 3 Jan. 28, 2008 MADISON, Wis. -- Doctors at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine performed a first-of-its-kind surgery on an exotic yellow-footed tortoise. The tortoise, named Baskin Robbins, lives at the Milwaukee County Zoo. His caretakers noticed that Baskin Robbins wasn't walking and appeared to be in pain, so they sent him to Madison for a checkup. "Baskin Robbins is here because he is lame, meaning he's not bearing weight on his front left leg, and we think it's because he had a problem with his humerus, which is the arm bone. Part of it has broken off, and that part needs to be removed so that he's not lame and in pain," said Dr. Gretchen Cole, a veterinarian at the UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine.
• Giuliani falls far, fast Los Angeles Times Jan. 24, 2008 Quoted: Charles H. Franklin, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin.
• 'Safe Ebola' created for research BBC News Online Jan. 22, 2008 Scientists have made the lethal virus Ebola harmless in the lab, potentially aiding research into a vaccine or cure. Taking a single gene from the virus stops it replicating, US scientists wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal. Ebola, currently handled in highly secure labs, kills up to 80% of those it infects.
• Disarmed Ebola virus to aid quest for vaccine The Times, UK Jan. 22, 2008 Scientists disarmed the Ebola virus by removing a single gene, providing a new laboratory tool that will help the development of drugs and vaccines against the lethal tropical disease. Efforts to find ways of treating Ebola, a haemorrhagic fever that kills between 50-90 per cent of the people it infects, have so far been greatly held up by its extreme virulence. The extreme health hazard posed by the virus means that it can be studied only in highly specialised laboratories equipped to biosafety level four (BSL 4), the highest category of containment facility.
• Algae could be key to computer chip breakthrough CBC News Jan. 22, 2008 A type of algae found in oceans, lakes and wet soil could be used to create a new, faster generation of computer chips, U.S. researchers suggest in a study released Monday. Marine diatoms, a unicellular algae, build their hard, patterned cell walls with microscopic lines of silica — a compound related to silicon, which is a key material for constructing computer chips and semiconductors. "If we can genetically control that process, we would have a whole new way of performing the nanofabrication used to make computer chips," lead researcher Michael Sussman, a University of Wisconsin-Madison biochemistry professor, said in a release.
• The man making the case for steroids Chicago Tribune Jan. 16, 2008 MADISON, Wis. -- How can the accomplishments of Bonds, McGwire, Sosa and others of the "steroid era" of baseball be compared to those of Aaron or Ruth? Can Major League Baseball and the National Football League and the others ever get drugs out of their systems? Will the athletes named as users in the Mitchell report face futures threatened by cancer, heart attack, stroke? What will come of the House committee hearings, now postponed until February? Is there any tarnish remover strong enough to put the shine back on sports in America? As the controversy over use of anabolic steroids by athletes swirls like a wind-whipped snowstorm, Norman Fost, professor of pediatric medicine and director of the Program in Bioethics at the University of Wisconsin, is a center of calm and certainty. He says, as he has for many years and virtually alone, that the maelstrom is nothing more than "the hypocrisy, bad facts, inconsistency and moral incoherence of anti-drug hysteria."
• Wisconsin students take a drive for environmental justice Brownsville Herald Jan. 14, 2008 Last week, a group of nine students from the University of Wisconsin — Madison drove 1,500 miles from the stiff 25-degree chill of the Midwest to Brownsville — but they didn’t come for the weather. “We came on a service learning trip,” said Cathy Collentine, a 21-year-old political science and Spanish double major at the university. “But we’re really down here for personal learning. Education is the only way to create change.” The group of students is part of an organization called Action Environmental Justice, which aims to create more equitable conditions for people living in areas under environmental distress.
• Davis: Explaining Rent-Home Price Ratios Wall Street Journal Jan. 8, 2008 Morris Davis, economist in the department of real estate and urban-land economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and until 2006 a staff economist at the Fed, is one of the authors of a study that finds homes overvalued compared to rents. He addressed questions about the study in this article. Let me start by providing some other background information on why the rent-price ratio for housing – which is like the dividend yield for housing as an asset – is a useful metric. (Subscription required.) In a world without uncertainty and with constant growth, the dividend yield of an asset has the simple expression of r-g, where r is the discount rate on future dividends and g is the growth rate of dividends. Thus, if the dividend yield falls, either the discount rate r has fallen or the expected growth rate of dividends g has increased or both.
• Turning Hope Into a Home: Wisconsin students make 9th trip to build Habitat house Palatka Daily News Jan. 8, 2008 On Monday morning, the hands of 20 University of Wisconsin students pushed up one wall of a house that will be nearly completed by week’s end. The ninth annual Putnam Habitat for Humanity Blitz build is on, said Jim Melfi, Putnam Habitat’s executive director. Student volunteers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Milwaukee are escaping subfreezing temperatures to help one Palatka family realize their dream of home ownership, he said.
• 2008 Best Value in Public Colleges Kiplinger's Personal Finance Jan. 7, 2008 It could just be the best public college you've never heard of, with prices so low that it's a steal even for out-of-state students. SUNY Geneseo, a small liberal arts college in western New York, boasts top students, a scenic campus, strong programs in both arts and sciences, and new dorms with -- drumroll, please -- washers and dryers on every floor. It adjoins a historic village with killer quaintness and puts students within 30 miles of Rochester, a major college town. UW-Madison is ranked 19 for in-state and 23rd for out of state.
• How old is too old to father a child? Chicago Daily Herald Jan. 7, 2008 Quoted: "In short, the biggest genetic threat to society may not be infertility but fertile old men," says University of Wisconsin in Madison geneticist James F. Crow.
• Study suggests lengthy home price decline Reuters Jan. 4, 2008 CHICAGO (Reuters) - Home prices could fall "considerably" over a number of years as a benchmark ratio of rents to prices slowly returns to its long-run average, according to a new study. "If the rent-price ratio were to rise from its level at the end of 2006 up to about its historical average value of 5 percent by mid-2012, house prices might fall by 3 percent per year," two Federal Reserve Board economists and a University of Wisconsin professor said.