UW-Madison in the Media

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

• The Sciences: Greening The World CBSNews.com March 30, 2007 Jonathan Foley, head of the University of Wisconsin's Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment, or SAGE, cites the launch of Earth Day in 1970 as the original catalyst. But until recently, he says, "we've had an artificial separation" between the study of the natural environment and our human impact on it. Sustainability studies views the two as an inextricably connected whole. It addresses predicaments whose impact can be felt both locally (Greenland's melting ice field, in one well-known example) and globally (the resulting potential for rising water levels and changing ocean currents).
• 100-Year Forecast: New Climate Zones Humans Have Never Seen Scientific American March 27, 2007 If global warming continues unabated, many of the world's climate zones may disappear by 2100, leaving new ones in their place unlike any that exist today, according to a new study. Researchers compared existing patterns of temperature and precipitation with those that may exist at the turn of the century, based on scenarios put forth in the recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). They found that if greenhouse gas emissions continue rising at the same rate, up to 39 percent of Earth's continental surface may experience totally new climates, primarily in the tropics and adjacent latitudes as warmer temperatures spread toward the poles.
• A non-nostalgic history of mass-consumption TV Philadelphia Inquirer April 11, 2007 In "Same Time, Same Station," James L. Baughman, a professor of journalism and mass communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, explains the evolution of network television. Baughman tells a familiar story - commerce crushes cultural aspiration - but he adds fresh and fascinating details from behind the scenes at the television networks. And he avoids nostalgia for a "golden age" of television that never was.
• Dark chocolate lovers get more sweet news Milwaukee Journal Sentinel March 26, 2007 Feeding chocolate to a bunch of middle-age, overweight people for weeks on end might not be as unhealthy as it seems. Researchers found that six weeks of daily consumption of a dark chocolate cocoa mix significantly improved the blood vessel health of those who participated in the study. The study is the latest in a growing number that link reduced heart disease risk to flavonoids in dark chocolate and other food and beverages, such as red wine, green tea and dark-colored fruits and vegetables. "There are hundreds, if not thousands, of flavonoids in every plant substance we eat," said James Stein, director of preventive cardiology at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. "This is a very hot area. This study confirms what other investigators have found."