UW-Madison in the Media

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

• UW men's basketball: For Flowers, game-winning shot pales to inspiration from cancer survivor Capital Times Jan. 2, 2008 ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Michael Flowers was sitting on the edge of the couch telling the story to a visitor Tuesday night when he stuck out his left arm and watched hundreds of goose bumps pop up from his elbow to his wrist. "Every time I think about it I get chills," said Flowers, whose gentle smile as he stared at his arm provided the perfect punctuation to the special story that took place in Austin, Texas, this past Saturday.
• Women play greater role in running farms Chicago Daily Herald Jan. 2, 2008 Quoted: Michael Bell, a rural sociology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences said there were 1,311 women enrolled last fall and 1,005 men, compared with 796 men and only 353 women during the 1977-1978 school year.
• Huckabee Shows Negative Spot After Pulling It From Television New York Times Jan. 2, 2008 Quoted: Ken Goldstein, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin, said the episode might backfire on Mr. Huckabee because it showed him as not ready for prime time. He has been falling in the polls since he stumbled a few days ago in talking about Pakistan, and he began unleashing a torrent of harsh words against Mr. Romney, whose once-sagging candidacy has appeared revived.
• Bhutto Killing Threatens Security, Vote ABCNEWS.com Dec. 28, 2007 The assassination of Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto is likely to call into question the future of democracy in Pakistan as well as the country's role in fighting terrorism in the region, several international policy experts told ABC News. "The fact that the election could be delayed and a major candidate has been killed makes it very difficult to go ahead with establishing the impression that Pakistan has at last returned to a democratic process," said Joe Elder, professor of sociology and a specialist on Pakistan at the University of Wisconsin. "This is a very serious blow to the democratic process in Pakistan."
• Study Quantifies Orphanage Link to I.Q. New York Times Dec. 27, 2007 Quoted: Seth Pollak, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin, who was not involved in the research.
• A Groovy Pad Full of Gods and Gurus New York Times Dec. 26, 2007 Families can be so embarrassing. Imagine the agonies of an adolescent girl whose house has become infested with India-besotted hippies from all over the globe, whose sarcastic father stumbles around in an alcoholic haze and whose mother kneels at the feet of every swami she meets. And let us not forget grandma, who holds long conversations with her cow and once met a 1,000-year-old cobra with a ruby in its forehead and a mustache on its albino face. Gods, gurus and eccentric relatives compete for primacy in Kirin Narayan’s enchanting memoir of her childhood in Bombay (present-day Mumbai). The title, which alludes to Gerald Durrell’s “My Family and Other Animals,” originated as an act of revenge. Ms. Narayan, fed up with the family penchant for ashrams and spiritual quests, turned to her mother and warned, “When I grow up I’m going to write a book called ‘My Family and Other Saints’ and put you in it.” And so she did. The adolescent anger is gone, but the child’s sense of wonder remains. Ms. Narayan, now a professor of cultural anthropology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, grew up in extraordinary circumstances, the daughter of a bohemian American mother and a deeply unhappy Indian father, an engineer by profession but an aesthete at heart.
• People Who Mattered: Junying Yu, James Thomson and Shinya Yamanaka Time Dec. 19, 2007 A fierce moral debate—whether the therapeutic potential of stem cells could justify destroying embryos to get them—appeared to vanish when scientists in Wisconsin and Japan announced that they had figured out how to convert adult skin cells into near-perfect copies of the wonder cells. More research remains to be done, but this might be the most delightful discovery since common bread mold birthed the age of antibiotics.
• Evolution getting faster by the millennium Sydney Morning Herald Dec. 12, 2007 NATURE'S race to create the perfect person has shifted into top gear, with humans evolving 100 times faster than at any time since the rise of man some 6 million years ago. That is the finding of researchers who have sifted through data collected by the international effort to map our genetic blueprint. The pace of human evolution in the past 5000 years was "immense … something nobody expected", John Hawks, a University of Wisconsin-Madison anthropologist, said yesterday.
• Study finds humans still evolving, and quickly Los Angeles Times Dec. 12, 2007 The pace of human evolution has been increasing at a stunning rate since our ancestors began spreading through Europe, Asia and Africa 40,000 years ago, quickening to 100 times historical levels after agriculture became widespread, according to a study published today. The advantage of all but about 100 of the genes remains a mystery, said University of Wisconsin-Madison anthropologist John Hawks, who led the study. But the research team was able to conclude that infectious diseases and the introduction of new foods were the primary reasons that some genes swept through populations with such speed.
• 40 years later, fans still love Otis Redding MSNBC.com Dec. 11, 2007 Quoted: Craig Werner, chair of the Afro-American Studies Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
• Researchers: Human evolution speeding up USA Today Dec. 11, 2007 By tracking the footprints of evolution along the human genome, a team of researchers on Monday reported for the first time that the pace of evolution is quickening with the passing generations. Lead author is John Hawks, Depts. of Anthropology and Zoology
• Solar power: California's latest gold rush Nature Dec. 6, 2007 Quoted: Gregory Nemet of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
• Gene Helps Turn Carbs Into Fat Scientific American Dec. 6, 2007 It’s no secret that there’s an obesity epidemic going on. Many researchers blame highly processed carbohydrates, such as high-fructose corn syrup and white flour. Now scientists at the University of Wisconsin in Madison have started to tease out the role of the liver in converting those calorie-rich foods into fat. The researchers isolated a gene in the liver called SCD-1. The gene codes for an enzyme that synthesizes fatty acids. Mice with the normal gene were fed a diet high in processed carbs. The mice converted those carbs into fat and stored that fat in the body. But mice that lacked that SCD-1 gene just burned all those carb calories. And stayed skinny. This finding reveals that the liver determines whether or not eating refined carbohydrates will lead to fat gain. The researchers say this system is a good example of a direct diet-gene interaction. But they also say that a drug to turn off that fat-making liver gene wouldn’t be a good idea. Without that gene, the mice could no longer make glucose. They ended up hypoglycemic—suffering from low blood sugar. So the solution is, sadly, what you already knew: eat fewer processed carbohydrates.
• The personal and political at the UW Collegiate Slam finals Isthmus Dec. 6, 2007 Poetry slams are intense. Filled with politics, hurt, laughter and always music, they have an energy and emotional involvement that can be compared to an amazing concert you just danced for hours at. And the finals for the inaugural UW Collegiate Slam on Tuesday night at the Wisconsin Union Theater were an impressive display of the young creative talent the state has to offer in a genre that is becoming more and more popular.
• Alan I. Leshner and James A. Thomson: Standing in the Way of Stem Cell Research Washington Post Dec. 3, 2007 A new way to trick skin cells into acting like embryos changes both everything and nothing at all. Being able to reprogram skin cells into multipurpose stem cells without harming embryos launches an exciting new line of research. It's important to remember, though, that we're at square one, uncertain at this early stage whether souped-up skin cells hold the same promise as their embryonic cousins do. Far from vindicating the current U.S. policy of withholding federal funds from many of those working to develop potentially lifesaving embryonic stem cells, recent papers in the journals Science and Cell described a breakthrough achieved despite political restrictions. In fact, work by both the U.S. and Japanese teams that reprogrammed skin cells depended entirely on previous embryonic stem cell research.
• The Graffiti of the Philanthropic Class New York Times Dec. 2, 2007 As The Associated Press reported last month, the dean at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business couldn’t find anyone to pony up a cool $50 million to get his or her name on the school. So the dean switched strategies and discovered that several givers were willing to chip in to ensure that, for 20 years at least, the school would not be personally branded, but would instead simply remain the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business (a long enough handle, surely). The non-naming fund eventually reached $85 million. “It is an unprecedented act of selfless philanthropy,” Terry W. Hartle, senior vice president for the American Council on Education, told The A.P. “I hope it is the start of a trend.”
• Native American sorority making an impact at UW-Madison Madison Times Nov. 29, 2007 Alpha Pi Omega, the first historically American Indian sorority in the nation, provides American Indian women on the collegiate level with confidence in their capability. Founded at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on Sept. 1, 1994, the sorority has spread to other universities around the country and currently has over 250 members. In 2001, the sorority began initiating women at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Twenty-two-year-old Sasanehsaeh “Suzi” Pyawasay, who was initiated in the spring of 2005, is one of five members of Alpha Pi Omega Sorority at the UW-Madison.
• Prion discovery surprises Wisconsin State Journal Nov. 27, 2007 Judd Aiken was pretty sure he knew what happens when prions, the misshapen proteins that cause chronic wasting disease in deer, bind to soil. The prions must become less infectious, he figured. But an experiment he conducted found the opposite -- big time: Soil-bound prions were 700 times more infectious than prions alone.
• China's ambitious plans in space CNN.com Nov. 27, 2007 Quoted: Professor Gerald Kulcinski, an expert in helium from the University of Wisconsin.
• UW men's basketball: Smith's dream becomes a reality Wisconsin State Journal Nov. 27, 2007 The e-mail popped into Wquinton Smith's University of Wisconsin account one day in late October, and was almost sent -- unread -- into the virtual wastebasket. "I was real close (to deleting it) and then I decided to read it because it said men's basketball," Smith said. "At first I thought it was just a flyer or something, and I kept reading it and I thought this was my chance to finally try to prove myself."
• On nanotechnology, experts see more risks than public AFP Nov. 26, 2007 In a surprising reversal of roles, nanotechnology scientists outrival the general public in seeing a cause for concern in some aspects of their work, according to a study published Sunday. Nanotechnology -- the science of making things measured in units 10,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair -- holds spectacular promise in virtually every sector. Hundreds of consumer products already contain nano materials, most of which are cosmetics, sunscreens and cleaning products with microscopic particles.
• Seabed project reveals quake, tsunami clues AFP Nov. 26, 2007 An ambitious international project to dig deeper into the Earth's surface than ever before has made a good start with scientists saying they have gained clues about how large earthquakes and tsunami occur. The experiment, using the Japanese government's 57,500-tonne, 60-billion-yen ($550-million) deep-sea drilling vessel Chikyu, is probing a trench in waters off the Pacific coast of Japan where two tectonic plates meet. A team of 16 scientists from six countries have been seeking clues about how seismic activity can shake the planet's foundations
• A Swashbuckling Tale of 10th-century Adventure Time Nov. 16, 2007 Quoted: Muhammad Memon, professor of literature and Islamic studies at the University of Wisconsin.
• Life was harsh back in ye olde "Beowulf" days (AP) Seattle Times Nov. 14, 2007 Quoted: John Niles, who teaches medieval literature at University of Wisconsin-Madison.
• A Computer Scientist Battles Botnets Chronicle of Higher Education Nov. 13, 2007 Computer-security analysts have long since learned to hate “botnets”: clusters of computers, infected with worms or Trojan-horse programs, that are taken over by outside users. After all, botnets can do plenty of awful things: They trawl for passwords and credit-card numbers, fire off spam, and propagate automatically. But now Paul Barford, a computer scientist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, says he may soon be able to stop botnets in their tracks.
• Wisconsin's Twist on the Name Game BusinessWeek Nov. 9, 2007 University of Wisconsin-Madison business alums are taking their famous Badger pride to new heights, issuing an unusual—and lucrative—mandate to the school: "Keep That Name." In an unusual twist in the business school naming game—generally, a wealthy donor gives a multimillion-dollar gift to get his name on the school—the school formally known as Wisconsin School of Business has received an $85 million group donation from alumni that will allow the school to keep its current name for the next 20 years.
• What's in a name? CNN.com Nov. 13, 2007 LONDON, England (CNN) -- It is a common way for business schools to secure their future: In exchange for a substantial bequest from a former student or other benefactor the school is re-named in their honor. Big checks were written -- but the Wisconsin School's donors did not want a name change. However, in a unique twist to this practice, the Wisconsin School of Business has just been given $85 million by a group of alumni on one condition -- it keeps its name exactly the same.
• Study pinpoints factors for early sex USA Today Nov. 13, 2007 There's a "recipe" that raises the odds of a teen starting sex early, and the more risky ingredients in a child's life — for example, not feeling close to parents, low self-esteem and lots of TV — the more likely he is to be sexually active by age 15, suggests a study released over the weekend. "It isn't any one thing. It's cumulative, and the more risks there are, the greater the chances that they'll begin sex early," says Janet Shibley Hyde, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She and co-author Myeshia Price reported on their two-year study of 273 children at the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality meeting in Indianapolis.
• Graphics chips rev up research results BBC News Online Nov. 12, 2007 Professor Susan Hagness from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has turned to graphics cards to quickly analyse breast scans to spot cancer in its early stages. Dr Hagness said official figures suggest x-rays missed 20% of the cancers that were present when a woman underwent screening. "There's clearly impetus to develop complementary technologies that can provide better and more robust tools to look for cancer," she said.
• UW Admissions Myths NBC-15 Nov. 8, 2007 Madison: As the Director of Admisssions, Rob Seltzer spends a lot of time staring at his computer, trying to decide if the resume on his screen is good enough for the University of Wisconsin. "His test scores are somewhat lower than our freshman class average, which would be a little bit of concern to me," says Seltzer, looking at one prospective student's applications. Seltzer says while the admissions process isn't an exact science, it's also not a mystery. They've gone as far as producing a fact sheet. "We do a lot of myth busting."