Adaptive management
Lake experiments explore roles of fish, computers, alum and more
|
The Yahara watershed is crawling with scientists who keep trying new ways to clean up the lakes.
Environment
Coast Guard tests new methods for heavy oil recovery
|
In 2011, the Coast Guard tested, off New Jersey’s shoreline, three prototypes for finding, mapping and recovering submerged oil, from three companies that each spent a year on the problem.
Department of Health Services
Photos: Inside Sand Ridge, where the sexually violent are treated
|
Center reporter Nora Hertel and Wisconsin Public Radio reporter Gilman Halsted were the first journalists since 2007 to tour Sand Ridge Secure Treatment Center, the Mauston facility that houses sex offenders who have been committed to the state.
Affordable Care Act
Wisconsin family braces for a transition
|
In Lisa Nerenhausen’s house, the consequences of the state of Wisconsin’s approach to the Affordable Care Act are mixed.
Health & Welfare
Changes ease Minnesota family’s worries
|
Eleta Pierce has been on and off MinnesotaCare, a program for working low-income people. Beginning Jan. 1, Pierce and her family will be eligible for Medicaid coverage.
Environment
Overview: Endocrine disruptors in the environment
|
Scientists have learned that some chemicals may mimic or disrupt the hormones of people and wildlife, with potentially health-damaging results. They can be natural, like the estrogens produced by plants or cows, or synthetic, like birth control pills. They are known to be widespread in the nation’s waters, and to a lesser extent have turned up in groundwater. Sidebar to story on estrogenic wells in northeastern Wisconsin’s karst region.
Bill Hafs
Expert: Managing manure keeps emerging pollutants out of water
|
“A well-managed place is not going to get manure into the groundwater,” said Laurence Shore, a physiologist in Israel who studies the fate of hormones in the environment. With a video tour of an anaerobic digester at the two-dairy, 8,000-cow Holsum Dairies in Calumet County.
endocrine disruptors
Refresher: What’s the endocrine system?
|
The endocrine system is one of the body’s main systems for communicating, controlling and coordinating the body’s work.
Justice & Safety
Sidebar: California case prompts policy reforms
|
Revelations from jailhouse informant Leslie Vernon White prompted a mass review of cases spanning an entire decade in which jailhouse testimony had been used to secure a criminal conviction. And it led Los Angeles County to adopt what one expert calls some “of the best jailhouse snitch protections in the country.”
Justice & Safety
Sidebar: Cases raise concerns about informant testimony
|
Several Wisconsin cases from the The National Registry of Exonerations show how incentivized testimony can contribute to wrongful convictions. Each involves testimony from informants that was later proven false.
Affordable Care Act
Obamacare could help released offenders
|
The state Department of Corrections hopes the federal Affordable Care Act will help released offenders get Medicaid. Starting next year, all Wisconsin residents below the poverty line will be eligible for BadgerCare Plus.
Campaign Finance
Supreme Court justices and their attorney donors: About the analysis
|
How the Center analyzed the relationship between campaign finance data and Wisconsin Supreme Court case outcomes, and a summary of the main findings showing that justices tended to favor their attorney donors.