University of Wisconsin–Madison

Month: March 2017

When It Comes to Biological Extremes, Expect the Unexpected

MADISON – Human beings are familiar with the idea of extreme events. Meteorologists keep us up to date on hurricanes, floods and high temperatures. Economists watch the stock market for signs of crashes or rallies. We spend a lot of time trying to better predict these events, yet are often surprised when they occur. But, …

What Lies Beneath: Sudden Invasion of a Wisconsin Lake Wasn’t So Sudden After All

In the fall of 2009, a tiny aquatic creature known as the spiny water flea showed up in a lake where it had never before been seen. At first, students in the UW-Madison undergraduate limnology class didn’t know what they were pulling up from Lake Mendota in their plankton nets. But professor Jake Vander Zanden …

Video: Searching for Spring’s Spawning Suckers

Happy Fish Fry Day! Just like many Wisconsin restaurants, we’ve got fish on the menu today. The special? Suckers with a side of steelhead. Watch as CFL graduate student, John Rodstrom, and post-doc, Allison Moody, search for suckers in a Lake Michigan tributary and talk about why free flowing water matters. Editor’s Note: This video …

Fish Fry Day: “Save Yourselves!” Fish Under Attack Sound The Alarm to Others

Happy Fish Fry Day folks! You’ll find perch and walleye specials at our fair state’s eateries today, but here on the blog we’ve got a tiny little martyr on the menu – the blacknose shiner. We’re working our way through the epic 13-foot long “Fishes of Wisconsin Poster” hanging in our hallway and, well, when …

1st Ever Science on Tap-Madison! Can We Have Clean Lakes & Ice Cream, Too?

Join us Monday, March 20th for an early celebration of World Water Day at Madison brewery, Ale Asylum. There will be no lecture, no PowerPoint, just a conversation with UW-Madison researchers about water quality and policy in Wisconsin and an excellent selection of excellent brews. See you at Science on Tap-Madison! 

Steve Carpenter On “Fake Facts,” Trust in Science and Hope For the Future

The following “Know Your Madisonian” profile ran in today in the Wisconsin State Journal Know Your Madisonian: UW-Madison’s Stephen Carpenter makes Madison, state lakes his laboratory by Karen Rivedal, Wisconsin State Journal As an antidote to a proliferation of “fake facts,” Stephen Carpenter offers repeatable, observable, measurable science that is provably fact-filled. Carpenter, a zoology …