L&S News

When plants are wounded, they send out warning signals that spread to other leaves, raising the alarm and activating defense mechanisms for the undamaged areas.

Weather and climate are two very different things. Basically, weather is what happens today or tomorrow or this week, while climate happens over many years.

University of Wisconsin–Madison researchers secured three grants totaling $3 million to advance high-risk, high-reward and interdisciplinary research into quantum physics and technology, the National Science Foundation announced today, Sept. 24.

Jessica Weeks is fascinated by the “dark side” of international relations: dictatorships. But her award-winning research combats the black-and-white view of authoritarian regimes and democracies. Dictators at War and Peace, published in 2014, classifies regimes to better understand them: bosses/strongmen, with an unchecked personalist leader; juntas, with influential military elites; and machines, with influential political elites. Weeks, a UW associate professor of political science, spoke to members of the U.S. intelligence community in Washington, DC, last year as they grappled with how to contain North Korea.

During more than four decades as a photographer, Michael Kienitz ’74 has worked in some of the most beautiful spots in the world — from Peru to the Hindu Kush mountain range near the Afghanistan–Pakistan border. But his camera was always focused on people at the center of armed conflicts, not their environments. The scenery was merely background.

Washburn overlooks Lake Mendota and sits atop Observatory Hill, where students like to sled on campus dining hall trays.

She brings a focus on transportation planning, policy and design to the Department of Planning and Landscape Architecture. 

In July 2012, scientists at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Geneva, Switzerland, announced the discovery of a fundamental particle critical to our understanding of the universe: the Higgs boson.

Each summer, hundreds of UW–Madison students spread out across the globe for internships. They gain vital job skills — that’s a given. They also explore new cities, discover foreign cultures, and have a lot of fun. We caught up with seven students to learn a little more about their experiences.