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, …
Since the ice is off our lakes early this year and the sun is now (sometimes) shining on the water, it’s time to start thinking about spring spawning. As water temperatures start to warm, a trigger is tripped in many species of fishes that tells them to go make babies. And, since it’s Fish Fry …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Yesterday morning I brought breakfast to my daughters at our dining room table, glanced out the window and did a double take. The waters of Lake Monona were a churning mass of brownish bluish green. What had only the night before been a flat sheet of late-winter ice had disappeared, broken up by the unusually …
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!
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 …
Wisconsin governor, Scott Walker, recently unveiled a budget plan that would put an end to Wisconsin Natural Resources Magazine. The publication has existed for nearly 100 years in one form or another and serves to inform Wisconsin residents, hunters, anglers and visitors about how their tax dollars and license fees are being used by the …
Happy Valentine’s Day! Considering we’re still talking about a certain wall two years after we first published this, we thought it was time to reshare the tale of a fish that builds walls – for love! (originally posted Jan. 27, 2017) — Maybe it’s too soon for jokes about walls but, hey, it’s Fish Fry …