Photo: Jeff Miller

When a young woman dressed as reality TV fixture Kim Kardashian says she’s never worked harder in her life, she’s not kidding.

By the time opening night arrives for Humorology each April, UW–Madison students from campus Greek organizations have racked up more than one hundred and fifty hours rehearsing for the musical-comedy show. Now in its sixty-sixth year, Humorology is the largest student-run, nonprofit philanthropic organization in Wisconsin. It raised $20,000 for local and national charities last year.

Pop culture icons and characters from childhood stories and games frequently populate the stage during a half-dozen mini-musicals tied to a central, broad theme. Students write, direct, and choreograph the productions, in addition to building sets and making costumes. Fun fact: Humorology is where Steven Levitan ’84, co-creator of the award-winning TV series Modern Family, got his start in comedy. If the songs sound familiar, it’s because the students borrow melodies from pop singers, such as Katy Perry, and classic Broadway shows, such as A Chorus Line, to accompany original lyrics.

While many of the performers are not necessarily trained in acting, dancing, or singing, they compensate with raw enthusiasm. The “let’s put on a show” attitude is infectious, and even if a few jokes fall flat, the energy level on stage never lets up. The performers are matched beat for beat by the audience, which is filled with hollering fraternity brothers and sorority sisters rooting for their houses with homemade signs and T-shirts bearing Greek letters.

That rowdy atmosphere is fueled by Humorology also being a competition, which begins when groups audition during the fall semester for a spot on the final bill. A slew of awards are handed out on Humorology’s third and final night, with honors for the best and funniest shows and standout performers, including best villain.

Most of the students on stage are freshmen and sophomores, drawn by the desire to meet new people on a big campus. When the last bows have been taken, the actors, dancers, and singers emerge with strong friendships and an experience in the spotlight they’ll not soon forget.

Bobbie Kelsey brings a new style of play and a championship attitude to her role as head UW women’s basketball coach. Photo: UW Athletics Communications.

The Badger women’s basketball coach has a game plan for building a contender.

Sitting on a bookshelf inside Bobbie Kelsey’s Kohl Center office are two watches encased in finely polished wood. One is engraved with the words 2008 Final Four; the other says 2009 Final Four. They are mementos from her past and symbols of where she’s looking to take the Badger women’s basketball team in the future.

As the new UW head coach — the sixth overall in the school’s history — Kelsey has work to do before she starts clearing space for another watch. But she’s confident in her ability to build a national contender. “All I know is success,” she said when she was hired.

In her four seasons as an assistant at Stanford, the Cardinal compiled a record of 137 wins and 14 losses (a winning percentage of .907). The team won 69 of 72 Pac-10 conference games and advanced to the NCAA tournament’s Final Four each year. Prior to coaching, Kelsey played at Stanford from 1992 to 1996, and she helped the Cardinal to three Final Four appearances and the 1992 national championship.

As a first-time head coach, Kelsey’s biggest challenge so far has been implementing a completely new style of play for the Badgers. Her predecessor, Lisa Stone, had preached a methodical approach, slowing down the pace of the game and walking the ball up the court.

“We want to play a faster tempo,” Kelsey says.

That may not translate to quick success, however, because even though the current crop of players has embraced the coaching change, they hadn’t previously been conditioned to play such an aggressive style — one in which they’re asked to score and be an offensive threat.

“This is an aggressive person’s game,” Kelsey emphasizes. “If you’re going to make a mistake, do it because you’re being aggressive. I can live with that. When you’re passive and timid, and then you make a mistake, I can’t play you.”

And while defensive-minded teams are in vogue now, Kelsey believes that “scoring’s where it’s at. … You need playmakers and people who can create their own shot and shots for others.”

So, what type of player is Kelsey looking for when her assistants are out on the recruiting trail? “You’ve got to have skill. That’s the X factor. I’d take size second. [Even] if you’re slow … but big and skilled, you’re going to get the job done.”

In her first year, Kelsey’s squad has struggled, with a record of nine wins and twenty losses. But she says that she expects improvement next season, after she’s had a full year to drill into her players what she expects of them.

“We can’t work out with the kids during the summer, but we’ll be able to adjust their workouts beforehand so they’ll be better prepared when they come back in the fall.”

And once everything’s in place, Kelsey hopes to make one more adjustment: to get a larger bookshelf.

Photo: Bryce Richter

In a sport known for its child prodigies, Jessie Gerry x’12 stands out for a different reason. She never set foot on a golf green until high school, and even then, golfing was never meant to become her destiny.

“I always played a ton of different sports. I played soccer in the fall, basketball in the winter, and I [thought], ‘What am I going to do in the spring?’ ’’ she says. Options at the private school she attended in Madison were limited, so she joined the boys’ golf team with no expectations beyond learning a new sport. “It was either golf or track and field,” she recalls, “and I’m not a huge fan of running.”

Apparently, she’s a quick study. She distinguished herself as a top UW golfer only four years later, winning the 2008 Badger Invitational as a freshman. That’s an impressive feat in itself, as many golfers never record an individual win during their careers. But Gerry takes low scores to another level: during the last four years, she has set school records for 9, 18, 36, and 54 holes, three of which still stand.

The discipline that brings success on the golf course also helps balance Gerry’s academic life. Despite traveling frequently to tournaments for up to five days at a time, in 2011 she earned Academic All-Big Ten honors, awarded to student athletes with a GPA of 3.0 or higher. Currently studying physical education in the kinesiology program, Gerry plans to pursue playing in the Ladies Professional Golf Association after graduating in December. Regardless of what the future brings, she says she plans to never stop playing the sport she loves.

“There’s just something about the game,” she says, “something about stepping on the first tee every day and knowing that, ‘Hey, I could go out and shoot the lowest round I’ve ever shot today.’ It’s mentally challenging, it’s physically tough … and those are all aspects that I really enjoy.”

Barry Roal Carlsen

I was applying for a passport at my suburban Houston post office when the postal agent reviewing my paperwork leaned over the counter, squinted conspiratorially, and asked, just above a whisper, “Do you know what a bubbler is?”

I realize that national security has tightened, but this seemed like an odd question nonetheless. Perhaps the State Department had instituted some obscure appraisal of intellect. If so, ask me something more challenging, such as what sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia means.

Then he smiled.

“I see you were born in Wisconsin. I’m from Waupun myself,” he explained.

Better than a secret handshake, more reliable than SSL encryption, for those of us no longer living in the state, knowledge of the word bubbler seems to be a secret code for, “Yes, I’m from Wisconsin.”

I didn’t even know there was another word for bubbler — A drinking fountain? Really? — until I went to the UW and met a bunch of Minnesotans who could never seem to tell me where the bubbler was, because they didn’t know what the bubbler was. I mean, what is your problem? You live right next door to Wisconsin; hasn’t the word ever leaked across the border?

A quick read of the source for all that is true and trustworthy today — Wikipedia — tells me that a bubbler is actually a Bubbler, a trademarked name for a product invented in 1888 by what is now Kohler Company. Apparently, the original Bubbler shot water one inch straight into the air, creating the bubbling phenomenon that gave the product its name. After several years, it was redesigned to cause the water to arc, which made drinking from it easier. There’s an original Kohler Bubbler in front of the Wisconsin state capitol — well, at least there is according to Wikipedia, which shows two photos, one of the Bubbler alone and a second showing it in use.

I remember as a child lining up for the Bubbler each day after recess. The promise of a cool, refreshing drink was often dashed, however, by the reality of a tepid sip, with the teacher warning us not to put our mouths on the nozzle, the apparent ground zero for pestilence in Appleton.

Like other displaced Badgers, I usually ask people who say they’re from Wisconsin if they know what a Bubbler is. Until recently, the positive response rate was 100 percent. Then I met two women from Eau Claire at a conference. They appeared to be in their thirties, and they seemed normal in every way, except, much to my surprise, they didn’t know what a Bubbler was.

I prodded: have you lived in Wisconsin all of your life? Are your parents from Wisconsin? H’mm. Is it possible that the term only exists in eastern Wisconsin, and I have a lot of apologizing to do to those circa late-1970s Minnesotans? What’s next: Milwaukee being pronounced as if it has three syllables?

Worse than being a factor of geography, it seems that Bubbler awareness is related to age. A website I found by clicking around one night said that it’s an “old school” term used by aging Badgers. (I can’t recall the source, but I certainly remember the slur.)

I’ve lived in Texas for twenty-five years, and I suppose that’s long enough to have stopped calling the drinking fountain a Bubbler. But if Badgers by nature are cantankerous — I mean fierce — time isn’t likely to make us more mellow, is it? So now, I absolutely refuse to refer to the Bubbler as anything else (which may result in my being thirsty in unfamiliar public places, but that’s a small sacrifice for principle). I trained my native Texan children early in their lives to call it a Bubbler as well, at least when they’re with me. If they can say y’all instead of you guys, put things up instead of away, and have a test over rather than about a subject, they can accede to this.

Like the Rio Grande to Texans or the Mississippi to those who live along its banks, the Bubbler is not just a drinking fountain — it’s a watery symbol of my Wisconsin heritage. It says who I am and, I now know, my approximate age.

If only I could find the Bubbler of Youth.

Barbara Belzer Adams resides in Houston, Texas.

Concern about influenza research performed on ferrets at UW–Madison and in Holland led to an almost unprecedented sixty-day pause in research in January, allowing international scientists to weigh benefits versus risks and identify the best path forward.

The two studies have explored genetic changes that would enable avian flu to spread in mammals. Public health officials and scientists have been closely watching the influenza virus, which is capable of rapid genetic change. H5N1 flu has been circulating among birds since 1997; in the 578 documented human cases, of which nearly 60 percent were fatal, most victims were infected via direct contact with birds. Person-to-person transmission has not been observed.

One of the two studies now on hold was directed by Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a UW professor of pathobiological sciences in the School of Veterinary Medicine, with funding from the National Institutes of Health. For more than ten years, Kawaoka has done groundbreaking influenza work; this project was intended to identify whether genetic changes that occur in nature could lead to viruses capable of transmitting among people. The study was performed with full federal approval in a modern biosafety laboratory at the UW.

Jeff Miller

Publication of both studies was delayed at the recommendation of the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, amid concerns that the techniques, virus, or genetic data could help terrorists.

Kawaoka, in his first public comments, published in Nature on January 25, warned of influenza’s potential to spread among people, writing, “To fully assess the risk of an H5N1 pandemic and support pandemic preparedness, we needed a better understanding of the changes in the virus that would enable it to transmit in mammals.”

He called the research “urgent,” noting that some of these genetic factors are already present in wild viruses in birds. He also said that the virus strain derived in his lab responds to both an anti-viral medicine and a vaccine, and that — unlike the virus developed in Holland — it was not deadly to the ferrets.

Conservators restored murals by John Steuart Curry that are part of the new Biochemistry Building on Henry Mall. Contractors worked around the paintings during renovations to prevent additional damage. Photo: Jeff Miller

Vintage Curry murals are given new life in a new space.

The renovated Biochemistry Building on Henry Mall is a blend of past and present, with the original 1912 exteriors enveloping a modern space. As the building was gutted and rebuilt, the university found a way to preserve an artistic treasure within: 1940s vintage murals by John Steuart Curry.

Contractors worked gently in adjacent spaces as they removed old walls and building materials, and a special heating-and-ventilation system was developed to shield and insulate the murals from the elements during the winter. During construction, all water pipes were routed around the murals, avoiding leaks that had damaged them in earlier decades.

The floor-to-ceiling paintings depicting the societal value of advances in science were given new life as conservators from the Midwest Art Conservation Center, a nonprofit, regional organization based in Minneapolis, meticulously stabilized, cleaned, and restored them, square inch by square inch.

“We cleaned a lot of dirt off of the surface,” says Joan Gorman, senior paintings conservator at the center. “We did that with dry-cleaning techniques and a very light aqueous cleaning, being careful not to use too much of our cleaning solutions.”

Curry was one member of an influential triad of American regionalist painters that included Grant Wood and Thomas Hart Benton. Born in Dunavant, Kansas, in 1897, Curry worked as an illustrator for Boys’ Life and the Saturday Evening Post. Eventually, he made his way to the UW as an artist-in-residence and painted the murals in the Biochemistry Building from 1941 to 1943.

Curry died in 1946, but left a rich legacy.

Marvin Moriarty/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The curious case of the expiring bats is one step closer to a solution, thanks to work done by UW–Madison researchers. For several years, scientists were baffled by falling bat populations in North America, as the flying mammals died due to a mysterious ailment called white-nose syndrome. But a team led by School of Veterinary Medicine honorary fellow David Blehert has proven that the animals are victims of a fungus called Geomyces destructans. In a controlled study, the group took several dozen little brown bats and divided them into three groups. The first had no contact with G. destructans; the second was infected with the fungus; and the third was not infected directly but was exposed to the bats that had the fungus. By the end of the study, the bats in the first group remained healthy, while nearly all the bats in the other two groups showed signs of white-nose syndrome. But the mystery isn’t completely solved, notes Jeff Lorch ’05, PhDx’12, lead author of the study. G. destructans is widespread in Europe, yet doesn’t seem to be killing bats there. “We can now continue to look at both the fungus and North American bats to try to find out what about the fungus makes it so deadly here,” he says.

Courtesy of the School of Veterinary Medicine.

Staff Sergeant Lindsy Pfenniger and Sergeant Renee Hintz, part of the fifty-eight-member Wisconsin National Guard Agribusiness Development Team, work together to trim a sheep’s hoof inside the UW Stock Pavilion. The soldiers completed forty hours of “Ag 101” training on the UW campus and at Arlington Agriculture Research Station last summer to prepare for their deployment to Afghanistan this spring. The team will work with farmers in Kunar Province, teaching them effective farming and herding techniques in an ongoing effort to fight poverty in the country.