University of Wisconsin–Madison

Category: Research

research related stories

The Eyes Are a Gateway to Evolution… of Daddy Longlegs at Least.

Congratulations to Dr. Guilherme Gainett, former iBio graduate student, and Professor Prashant Sharma on their paper published last week in the Journal Current Biology. They report that a living species of daddy longlegs has two additional sets of underdeveloped eyes as embryos, implying that the species diversified earlier in the evolutionary tree than scientists believed. …

Re-creation of the glass invertebrate models for teaching at UW–Madison

UW–Madison’s Zoological Museum was established at the very first UW Board of Regents meeting in 1848. After the first Science Hall burned, Edward A. Birge — professor of zoology, later UW–Madison president — started purchasing specimens to replace ones lost in the fire, including a collection of glass invertebrate models created by German glassblowers Leopold …

New integrative biology researcher studies the links between the cognitive functions of birds and humans

Farrah Madison studies the neural plasticity of songbirds, particularly different species of finches and canaries, trying to track the way their brains change in response to varying hormone concentrations and social environments. Those changes can offer clues to how songbirds navigate their environment in addition to providing some insight into similar mechanisms in the human …