College of Letters & Science
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 …
The discovery could help researchers better understand how the toxic fungus is successfully invading California and open the door for new drug discovery pathways. Read the full article at: https://news.wisc.edu/death-cap-mushrooms-invasion-success-may-be-linked-to-newly-documented-variability-of-toxin-genes/
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 …
A new report out of Olaf Jensen’s lab was published today in Global Change Biology. Read more about it here.
Ashley Trudeau, member of Olaf Jensen’s Lab, writes on the increase in fishing license sales in Wisconsin just after the COVID pandemic began.
Professors Ellen Damschen and John Orrock speak about their study on the long-term value of targeted land management in efforts to restore and repair landscapes impacted by humans.
For faculty and graduate students in the Department of Integrative Biology who are studying how the brain works, zebrafish make ideal research subjects. These slim fish are almost perfectly transparent, making it easy to observe their brain activity. L&S undergraduate student, Ella Ruder, gets the scoop in a video interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1s9Yjk9kyUM.