University of Wisconsin–Madison

Month: January 2018

Guest Post: How Do Fish Handle Cold Water?

Each winter people ask us what, exactly, is everything doing down under that ice? As those ice fishing shanties dotting the frozen surface of our lakes attest, fish are still active. So how, exactly, do fish get through winter? Brandon Peoples, one of our friends over at The Fisheries Blog recently answered the question of …

Special Delivery: Shiny Piece of Scientific History Finds Its Way Home

At the end of last year, the Center for Limnology received a very special Christmas gift all the way from Corvallis, Oregon. To be more precise, our recently retired director, Steve Carpenter, got a package in the mail. Inside was a small brown case about four inches high and the width and length of a …

(Cold) Blast from the Past: According to Science, We’re Losing Something Magical.

(This article was originally published January 22, 2018 and has been updated with photos from January 2022) by Adam Hinterthuer – Two weeks ago, I walked down the hill from my house to do something I’d never done before. On the shoreline of Lake Monona, in the time it took my wife to get herself …

Blame It On The Rain: Study Ties Nutrient Loading in Lakes to Extreme Precipitation Events

While April showers might bring May flowers, they also contribute to toxic bacteria blooms, dead zones and declining water quality in U.S. lakes, reservoirs and coastal waters, says a new study published online by the journal Limnology and Oceanography. In the Midwest, the problem is largely caused by phosphorus, a key element in fertilizers that …

Learning from Our Mistakes: A Silver-Lining Spin on the Science of Invasive Species

by Jake Walsh There is a fortunate silver-lining to those of us prone to making mistakes – they can be a powerful teaching tool. At a minimum, our mistakes teach us things we shouldn’t be doing. In the best cases, they help us better understand ourselves and how we work. Scientists are no strangers to …

Holidays Are Over, 2018 Has Begun and Lake Mendota is Frozen

Welcome back to our blog! We’ve got big plans in store for 2018, but first wanted to touch base on something that happened way back in 2017 – December 27th, to be exact. If you were in the Madison area and ventured out along the shoreline of our beautiful lakes, you would’ve seen that Lake …