Author: jnweaver

It weighs 600 pounds, was built at UW-Madison, has visited space aboard the Hubble Space Telescope and is now comfortably retired on the South Side after about 535 million miles of travel. Now, the public can see this instrument, called the High Speed Photometer, at Space Place, 2300 S. Park St. in the Villager Mall. It is exhibited among other Wisconsin-built instruments and telescopes that tell a story of the university?s role in space exploration going back to the 1950s.

A: The answer is unclear, said Katherine McMahon, an associate professor of civil engineering at UW-Madison, and an expert on cyanobacteria, as the blue-green algae are known to science. “This is the bazillion dollar question,” she said. “Certain cyanobacteria simply don?t have the genes to make toxins, while others have the genes, but don?t always make the toxins.”

A: A reader wondered whether his perception that it has become windier in southern Wisconsin over the past couple of decades has anything to do with the shorter Lake Superior ice season during the same time. Though it has been demonstrated by recent research by our UW Atmospheric and Oceanic Science colleagues, Dr. Ankur Desai and Galen McKinley, that the shorter ice season on Lake Superior has led to warmer water in the summer and stronger winds locally near the lake ? which, in turn change the currents in the lake itself ? these effects are confined to the near vicinity of the lake.

If you?re concerned the heavy rains that hit some parts of the Madison area last week might put our previously mosquito-free summer in jeopardy, stop worrying. ?I?ve been asked about mosquitoes, and honestly I find that question a little silly from my standpoint,? says Phil Pellitteri, a distinguished faculty associate with UW-Madison?s Insect Diagnostic Lab. ?We?re just not holding water.?

Researchers with UW-Madison are not only adding to our understanding of the strange and ancient life form but also coming up with better ways to detect its lethal presence.

“Now, public health officials just look at the water and, if it looks blue-green, they close a beach or post a warning near a waterway,” said Katherine McMahon, a UW-Madison microbiologist and engineer. Now, however, using funding from the Sea Grant Institute at UW-Madison, McMahon has worked with Ph.D. student Lucas Beversdorf and the School of Freshwater Sciences’ Matthew Smith to build and test an automated sampler that can monitor bloom conditions around the clock.

Is your lawn crunchy? Mine is….?We?re in a serious situation right now,? says Tom Schwab, superintendent of the O.J. Noer Turfgrass Research and Education Facility at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Schwab told me Monday that the Madison area was closing in on 50 days without significant rainfall and that turf grass can remain dormant for 60 to 75 days and recover the following growing season. At least that?s what the textbooks say.

Those white-, blue- and yellow-flowered plants popping up amid the dormant Kentucky bluegrass in parks and medians, for example, include Queen Anne?s lace, chicory and bird?s-foot trefoil, according to UW-Madison plant pathologist and turf specialist Jim Kerns and outreach specialist Eileen Nelson, who were nice enough to listen to my inexpert descriptions and play ?name that plant? with me. UW Extension turf specialist Doug Soldat said ?prairie-type plantings will remain greener longer than lawns,? but warned they require a lot of maintenance, don?t allow for the same types of human recreation, and ?should not be considered replacements for lawns.?

A: With another wave of dangerous heat upon us, it is of interest to consider how the last heat wave rates alongside other memorable heat waves. First of all, each day from July 4-6, Madison?s high temperature was more than 100 degrees with the 104 on July 5 ranking as third highest of all time. Moreover, we set record high temperatures for five consecutive days from July 2-6.

A: Depending on the ingredients, sunscreen works like a mirror or by sacrificing itself to the marauding rays of the sun. According to Yaohui “Gloria” Xu, dermatology professor at UW?Madison, the compounds in sunscreen come in two types: physical and chemical.

Two independent teams of physicists working at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva, Switzerland made a surprising announcement early on the morning of July 4. The announcement: They had discovered a new particle, and it might help explain why things have mass….The University of Wisconsin-Madison played an important role as two Wisconsin scientists have been right on the front lines. Professors Sau Lan Wu and Wesley Smith, both in the UW-Madison physics department, played critical roles in designing the experiments and analyzing the data that led to the July 4 announcement.