Big win validates UW-Madison's science focus

The UW-Madison celebrating an evolutionary biologist's award is a good time to remember that the sitting GOP Assembly speaker had this to say not too long ago as the administration moved towards a $250 million cut that 'savages' the UW system and additionally degraded science in Department of Natural Resources staffing and programming: 

“Of course I want research, but I want to have research done in a way that focuses on growing our economy, not on ancient mating habits of whatever,” said [Robin] Vos. “So we want to try to have priorities that are focused on growing our economy.”

More, here.

And these UW-Madison successes are piling up:

Breakthrough UW-Madison science advances our understanding of a changing climate and its implications, as reported by the College of Letters and Science:

“Over the next of 80 years, we could be dealing with another foot of sea level rise around the world,” says Tristan L’Ecuyer, professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and co-author of the study. “Parts of Miami and New York City are less than two feet above sea level; another foot of sea level rise and suddenly you have water in the city.” 

The study, published today in Nature Communications and led by the University of Leuven in Belgium, shows that clouds are raising the temperature of the Greenland Ice Sheet by 2 to 3 degrees compared to cloudless skies and accounting for as much 30 percent of the ice sheet melt.