Madison Science Mystery Tour

Trout Lake Station is a lake ecology research station in the Northwoods of Wisconsin operated by the University of Wisconsin Madison’s Center for Limnology. Limnology is the study of lakes and inland waters. I’m working up here this summer as a science communications intern and am surrounded by scientists, so what better place to do an episode than under my bed?! Gretchen Gerrish is the director of Trout Lake Station. She also researches Zooplankton, tiny ocean floaters, among many other projects. Carol Warden is a scientist who works on the Long Term Ecological Research project (LTER). This program has been monitoring various ecosystems around the world for more than forty years, including lakes in Wisconsin. For more information on the LTER project, visit their website here.For more on Trout Lake Station, visit their homepage.

Rob Anex is an environmental engineer and the co-founder of a startup that traps carbon into cement, a major source of global CO2 emissions. The resulting product not only captures carbon, but also is stronger than regular cement. Rob’s curiosity didn’t start or end with saving the planet; he’s built bombs, written pieces on recycling, and currently teaches a rotating carousel of classes at UW Madison.To see Rob's startup website and other sources that were used to research the episode, click here.

Trina McMahon is a civic engineer and microbiologist. She studies microbial communities in lake water and wastewater treatment plants and tends to approach problems from an engineering perspective. There is some discussion in this episode about the “Super Bowl Halftime Flush,” the phenomenon of thousands of Americans flushing the toilet during halftime, with the potential to damage municipal water pipes with the sheer volume of sudden water consumption. Though the halftime does incur significant peaks of water usage, the damage is unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) an urban legend. Water treatment plants generally have bigger fish to fry than the Super Flush. Like morning showers and flooding. Click here to read more about Trina’s work.

Research specialist Celeste Mezera wears many hats. Like a beekeeping hat. Or a cute crocheted strawberry. She’s also worked in outreach, and currently works at the Wisconsin Energy Institute, where she keeps a lab running day to day.The paper and graphics discussed in this episode are linked here.

Third year PhD student Sam Davison studies isobutanol, a jet-grade fuel fermented by the same yeast that puts the bubbles in bread and the ethanol in wine. This episode is perfectly on topic as we discuss brewing, gorillas, ocean acidification, and Pokémon.To read more about Sam Davison’s work, and the work of other researchers at the Wisconsin Energy Institute, visit the WEI website. His gorilla paper is linked here. P.S.: There’s some confusion in this episode about the term “bird focal.” Turns out it probably refers to the practice of choosing bird species representative of the overall ecosystem. Read more about it here.

Greetings from the past! This interview with professor and researcher Edward Hubbard was recorded last year, but busting neuromyths is always relevant. Edward works at the intersection of neuroscience, cognitive psychology, and educational policy. He came into the studio with plenty of stories about phonics and hamburgers and even taught me fraction division off the cuff.More reading on the topics discussed and information on Professor Hubbard’s labs can be found here.

Welcome to 2026! We’re ringing in the new year with an episode featuring environmental science undergraduate Devin Guthrie. Devin’s full of ideas about collaborative world building and scientific solutions designed with and for the communities they’re implemented in. His passion for urban ecology and environmental science has led him to watch pollinators amongst the hydrangeas of Chicago, operate telescopes, start a science fiction club, and do much, much, MUCH more.

Researcher, assistant professor, and host of the Neuro Network podcast Nick Burgraff studies opioid overdoses and how to prevent them. He’s here to answer all our host’s questions about naloxone (brand name: Narcan), the autonomic nervous system, and goat treats. He might even walk away with the prize for best science name mentioned before the year is over (hint: it’s a region of the brain a bunch of scientists named over a bottle of wine).If you want to know what things were used to research this episode, a list of sources can be found here.

Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) are commonly used to treat depression and other brain chemical imbalances, but how does that affect the other 90% of serotonin floating around the body? What about a developing body? PhD student McKenna Crossen talks about her work studying different ways SSRIs might affect placental and fetal development in mice.If you want to know what things were used to research this episode, a list of sources can be found here.For more information on the Hernandez lab where McKenna works, visit this website.

Spooky scary skeletons send shivers down your spine and regulate your blood calcium levels. Professor and Principal Investigator of the Weaver lab Samantha Weaver answers all the questions you didn’t know you had about dairy cows, pac man, and osteoporosisThe background for this episode was all taken from my biocore unit on the endocrine system taught by Professor Weaver herself. If Professor Weaver’s work intrigues you, please read up all about it on her lab website.

All Alzheimer’s is dementia, but not all dementia is Alzheimer’s. Nalina Cherr and biochemical major Matteo Meyer attempt to unravel the tangle of neurons and brain glue that causes this neurological disease.For more on the Pehar lab, where Matteo works, you can visit the lab website here.If you want to know what things were used to research this episode, a list of sources can be found here.

From dog guts to flower gardens, worms are everywhere. But how did they get there? Should they even be there? Host Nalina Cherr and biological systems engineering undergraduate student Claire Foote discuss the biology of worms, invasive worms, and whether worms can live underwater.For more on Claire’s mentor, Bradley Herrick, and further readings on jumping worms, you can find a list of his publications on the subject here.If you want to know what things were used to research this episode, a list of sources can be found here.