Author: hinterthuer

Muckraking Mendota: What Do We Mean By “Clean?”

by Emily Hilts When I worked at Trout Lake Station, I usually went running after a day in the field and then jumped in the lake – not only to cool off but to get clean. After all, Trout Lake is gorgeously clear, and the stink of the day washed right off. Showers were reserved for …

Notes from the Northwoods: The Trout Lake Experience

by Aisha Liebenow This last week was one heck of a week for Trout Lake Station. On Monday, we had our curtain removal at Little Rock Lake, reuniting the two halves of the lake and ending thirty-years’ worth of ground-breaking research. It was a huge undertaking, one that couldn’t have been done without all of …

Another Year Opening Our Doors

We here at the Center for Limnology don’t like to keep people in the dark. That’s what, every year, we host public open houses at both our lab in Madison and our research station in northern Wisconsin. This year, nearly 500 people turned out to tour our labs, talk with our researchers and get a …

Muckraking Mendota: The Color of Water

By Emily Hilts This week I had the privilege of returning to Trout Lake Station to help with the annual public open house. Sitting on the dock felt like coming home, and I let out a deep sigh of happiness at the sight of one of my favorite lakes. Why? I guess because Trout just …

Notes from the Northwoods: Blueberries and a side of “Survivalism”

By Aisha Liebenow The Restless Weasels made their way to Trout Lake Station on Tuesday, a great ol’ group of stand-up men. They are retired but, as they put it, “we are restless, and we get into everything.” The group came for a talk on research at Trout Lake Station, but, after they’d gone, I …

Muckraking Mendota: Of Shrimp and Glaciers

By Emily Hilts Lakes transform when the sun goes down. The once-familiar shoreline becomes unrecognizable and water takes on an inhospitable chill, making an after-hours trip a notch more exciting. So, when graduate student Jake Walsh (who studies zooplankton in the Vander Zanden lab) invited me to come along for a night of sampling, I …

Muckraking Mendota: The Chironomid Connection

by Emily Hilts “There is absolutely nothing graceful about this,: I thought as I swirled my hand through a bucket of mucky sediment. I was trying to filter organisms out of a hunk of sludge from the bottom of Lake Mendota. The sample was pulled up by an Ekman dredge, a contraption consisting of a metal …

Limnology in Action: Long-term Research, Long-term Learning

By Aisha Liebenow Whether you’ve graduated from high school, have a B.A, or spent several years plugging away at a PhD, I hope your education didn’t stop with your degree. Active learning is so important in keeping your mind at the top of its game, and that’s why I admire the Wisconsin Alumni Association (WAA), and …

CFL in the News

Your trusty blog editor is taking an ill-advised road trip to Portland for a wedding this week, so we apologize for the delay in programming. In the last couple of weeks, though, we’ve seen a flurry of great coverage of limnology in the news. Below are some excellent examples: 30 Years of Research Winds Down …

Muckraking Mendota: The Water/Land Interface

by Emily Hilts So far this summer, I’ve either stayed below the surface of Mendota’s waters or perched on top of the lake in a boat. Which means, of course, that I’ve been missing big pieces of the overall puzzle of this aquatic ecosystem. To fill in some of the gaps, it was time to …