Explore the Unknown!
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WN@TL begins at 7:00pm Central
For June 16, 2021
Hi WN@TL Fans,
In mid August 1970 my family moved from 118 College Avenue to 1724 West Third Street, both in Dixon IL. It was a neighborhood new to me but familiar to my Mom: our next door neighbors were Mac and Esther Katie McBride, who happened to be the parents of one of my Mom’s best friends from high school, DHS Class of 1946.
The McBrides were my grandparents’ age, in their early 70’s in the early ‘70s. My Mom’s Mom had died in 1968 of a heart attack, and my Mom’s Dad died in 1973 of lung cancer. Living next door to the McBrides kept us connected with the generation born in the McKinley administration. The path between the two back doors was well worn. The McBrides’ back yard was the center field of our whiffle-ball park.
As the years accrued, Mac slowed a bit but remained sharp. On the other hand, Esther Katie, always a wisp of a lady, started to slip into a dementia that in an earlier time we called senility, and by about this time we were calling Alzheimer’s disease. My Mom, who turned 50 in 1978, had to adjust and adapt as Esther Katie’s memory and cognition diminished.
My Mom had lost her parents to heart disease and lung cancer, but it was the specter of Alzheimer’s that she feared the most as she herself grew older. Thankfully she, like her neighbor Mac a generation before, remained sharp into her early 80’s. But it is that shadow, that fear, that I remember and that drove home for me the fact that you don’t necessarily have to suffer the disease to suffer from the disease.
Tonight we get to hear steps we can take to reduce our risks of Alzheimer’s, even if it’s a disease we can not yet fully walk away from.
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On June 16 Nathaniel Chin of the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center will lay out for us “Six Ways to Reduce Your Risks for Alzheimer’s Disease.”
Bio: Dr. Nathaniel Chin serves as medical director for the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (ADRC) and the Wisconsin Registry for Alzheimer’s Prevention (WRAP). Dr. Chin grew up in Watertown, Wisconsin, and earned undergraduate and medical degrees from UW-Madison. While completing his internal medicine residency at the University of California, San Diego, Dr. Chin’s father was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease (AD). His father’s condition influenced the way he began to look at his own career, and Dr. Chin decided to pursue a career as a geriatrician and scientist focused on dementia, specifically Alzheimer’s disease. Dr. Chin sees patients in the UW Health Memory Clinic three half-days a week.
Dr. Chin is the host of the Wisconsin ADRC’s podcast, “Dementia Matters.” In each bi-weekly episode, he interviews local and national Alzheimer’s disease experts about research advances and caregiver strategies.
Dr. Chin studies modifiable risk factors and biomarker disclosure within the Wisconsin ADRC and WRAP study. He collaborates with many of the researchers at the WI ADRC and oversees the clinical care provided to the research participants.
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Margaret Mooney (left) and Dixie Burbank
Next week on June 23 Margaret Mooney from NOAA’s Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS) joins with Dixie Burbank of Dixie J. Digital to share insights into how researchers and sky gazers can view the Northern Lights from earth and from the heavens. They will compare and contrast the photographer’s perspective with satellite imagery of the Aurora Borealis.
Bio: Margaret Mooney works for NOAA’s Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellites (CIMSS) at the UW-Madison. A favorite part of her workday is checking whether satellites captured the aurora overnight!
Bio: Dixie Burbank is a photographer who specializes on images of the night sky, with a focus on the Aurora Borealis.
This talk is part of the annual collaboration between CIMMS and Wednesday Nite @ The Lab, in coordination with the yearly CIMSS Weather Camp for students from all across the US.
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For the fifth Wednesday this June, on the 30th, Adam Bechle of Wisconsin Sea Grant will describe the drivers and impacts of the fluctuating water-levels of the Great Lakes.
Description: “Adapting to a Changing Great Lakes Coast” Great Lakes water levels have been well above average for several years, with some lakes setting all-time record highs. These high water conditions, in combination with coastal storms, have caused flooding and erosion throughout the region. Under a changing climate, lake levels may reach even higher highs as well as lower lows. This talk will discuss the current high water conditions on the Great Lakes and the actions communities are taking to adapt to a changing coast.
Bio: Adam Bechle is a coastal engineering specialist with Wisconsin Sea Grant. In this role Adam helps Great Lakes communities build resilience to coastal hazards by communicating the latest hazard research and data, developing education and outreach products on best management practices, and providing local governments guidance to identify opportunities to better plan and prepare for coastal hazards. Adam holds a PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of Wisconsin Madison.
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Remember, we continue to meet by Zoom, since we can’t gather all in one room.
Hope to see you soon at Wednesday Nite @ The Lab!
Tom Zinnen
Biotechnology Center & Division of Extension, Wisconsin 4-H
UW-Madison