Sharing Science With Wisconsin
For February 28, 2018 Starting our 13th Year Hi WN@TL Fans, I can think of only a few domesticated animals that provide us daily food without slaughter. If the squeal were a meal, we could count on the pig; but it’s not. Perhaps the bee and its honey, although daily collection of honey would require …
For February 21, 2018 Hi WN@TL Fans, One of the most impressive scientific outcomes of the Lewis & Clark Expedition was the hand-drawn, hand-annotated map William Clark made in 1810 of part of the continent of North America, especially the Missouri and Columbia River basins. That map was the bedrock for this printed version produced in 1814. Clark’s 1810 …
For February 14, 2018 Hi WN@TL Fans, Wow. Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday on the same day. Celebrating the carnal on the day after Carnival. Sometimes even the most familiar stuff can surprise you. And what can be more familiar than meiosis, our reduction-division friend we all met back in high school biology? Metaphase I, Crossing Over, Anaphase …
For February 7, 2018 Hi WN@TL Fans, John Muir, our university’s leading light among its pantheon of drop-outs, spent much of his adult life working to save some of our nation’s most splendid places. Among his greatest achievements was the creation in 1890 of Yosemite National Park. Yet the status of Yosemite as a national …
For January 31, 2018 Hi WN@TL Fans, In my next life, perhaps I’ll come back as an otolaryngologist of cranes. Between the beak and the neck, I’d have plenty to work with. But there’s more to the health of a crane than any particular part, just as there’s more to the well-being of a flock …
For January 24, 2018 Hi WN@TL Fans, Prometheus gave great gifts to humanity, including fire, hope, and forethought. His generosity so pissed off Zeus that he had Prometheus chained to a rock. Every day an eagle came to dine on Prometheus’s liver and, marvelously, every night the liver grew back. It’s astonishing to me that …
For January 17, 2018 Hi WN@TL Fans, Let me go a little long tonight, please. It’s a tale four centuries in the making. In 1579, Thomas Gresham—financial agent to Henry VIII and to his son Edward VI, and to his daughter Mary I, and to his other daughter Elizabeth I— died. Based on his will and …
For January 10, 2018 Hi WN@TL Fans, An aria is often the high point of an opera, but malaria is often associated with low-lying land. It’s not just the air that’s bad, it’s the mosquitoes buzzing through it, which like to breed in the still waters of the low land. Mosquitoes don’t bark but their …
For January 3, 2018 Hi WN@TL Fans, Because I grew up in northwest Illinois not too far from Galena, and because I went to school at UW-Platteville, when I think of mining in Wisconsin I first think of lead and zinc, Henry Dodge and Father Mazzuchelli, Mineral Point and New Diggings. But there’s also iron, the ferrous of …
Farewell, 2017 Hi WN@TL Fans, In the last few minutes of 2017, I’d like to thank all of you for participating in Wednesday Nite @ The Lab and for being an affirmative, appreciate audience to the splendid array of researchers & outreachers who shared their science and insights with us this year. I’ve copied the …