For all tours, contact Nancy in the Madison Conference Office at isss2008@union.wisc.edu to book a tour option.
TOUR ONE
WISCONSIN ECOLOGY FIELD TRIP
PROFESSOR TIM ALLEN
COST $15
Leaves Memorial Union at 13:30 prompt
PLEASE BRING EXTRA BOTTLED WATER FOR THIS TRIP!
Wisconsin is one of the best described vegetations in the world, thanks to the work of Curtis and his students four decades ago and a continuing research effort. Our trip will walk some 2 miles to Hemlock draw in the Baraboo hills, one of the oldest ranges in the world (1.5 billion years). That region was unglaciated. Southern Wisconsin is now too warm for Hemlock (Tsuga canadensis) but populations from glacial times survive on cool north facing slopes deep in the forest, hundreds of miles south of the species' normal present habitat. We will see new forests on Southern slopes and cool moist northern forests on north slopes. We will see sea stack cliffs a billion years old, remerged from the being buried in sedimentary rocks. Recent storm damage is impressive but Hemlock Draw remains a spiritual place. We will also see a historic shot tower, and a sand prairie near conservationist Aldo Leopold's shack (Sand County Almanac is his classic work).
Timothy F. H. Allen
Botany Dept, 430 Lincoln Drive
University of Wisconsin
Madison WI 53706-1381
tfallen@wisc.edu for additional details.
TOUR TWO
TALIESIN: TOUR OF FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT’S HOUSE AND PERSONAL STUDIO
COST $75
Meet outside the Memorial Union front doors no later than 12:25 p.m. to travel by air-conditioned coach to Taliesin. The cost covers the coach travel and tour tickets. Box lunches should be picked up from the Buffet area before coming to the coach. Be prompt, the coach will leave on time at 12:30 p.m. to make sure we meet the timing for the Taliesin tour schedule.
Your group will travel scenic rural roads as they tour Frank Lloyd Wright’s home, underscored with lively commentary from a professional, knowledgeable guide. Taliesin, the most personal of Wright’s masterpieces, was constructed of simple, inexpensive materials – limestone and sandstone quarried nearby, plaster, and wood. Wright built the house over 48 years, and never stopped adding to it or changing it until he died. Often described as more of a village on a hill than a home, the house seems to grow from the site, with vistas of the surrounding countryside to the east and an intimate hill garden to the west. The tour at Taliesin takes two hours.
One of the many highlights your group will enjoy is the 28’x36’ living room, a masterful interplay of vertical and horizontal spaces, flooded with light from banks of windows overlooking the valley and water gardens below. Next to the house, connected to it by a covered breezeway, is Wright’s 24’x30’ personal studio.
What to Expect: This fascinating tour winds through a picturesque rural estate and has some unique characteristics. We share this information so that all guests will understand what to expect during the course of the tour.
- Your coach will have to park at the base of a hill and your group must climb a gravel driveway to the House.
- The tour entails a significant amount of STANDING, STAIR CLIMBING, and WALKING on uneven terrain.
- The tour is up to 2 hours of mostly standing and walking with no opportunity to leave the group should you wish to stay behind.
Dress: The tour goes on, rain or shine. Please dress appropriately for the weather. Wear comfortable walking shoes.
Further details from isssoffice@dsl.pipex.com
TOUR THREE
GENOMICS LAB VISIT
LED BY: PROFESSOR DAVID SCHWARTZ
There is no cost for this tour.
Meet in the Memorial Union, Main Lounge, to be escorted over at 13:30.
We have the opportunity for up to 15 people to visit the Laboratory for Molecular and Computational Genomics, right on the campus at Madison, hosted by David C. Schwartz, the Director and Principle Investigator.
The human genome is formidably complex, consisting of over 3 billion basepairs. Efforts to sequence and to ultimately understand the function of all 100,000 genes has been a major focus of the Human Genome Initiative. Only recently has the genomics community come to grips with the need to analyze in detail, large numbers of individuals in terms of detailed sequence information and careful annotation. Unfortunately, the physical and computational means to accomplish these goals are rather nascent.
Our laboratory is developing genome analysis approaches based on using individual DNA molecules as the main substrate for our analysis. Remarkably, single DNA molecules can be readily imaged using fluorescence microscopy. Developments in our laboratory have enabled the biochemical analysis of individual DNA molecules that we fix in large numbers to positively charged surfaces. An automated system combining image analysis and map construction algorithms (Optical Mapping), enables construction of high-resolution restriction maps from a variety of DNA sources. Using large DNA molecules directly extracted from genomes, Optical mapping generated whole genome maps of several microorganisms, including Deinocccus radiodurans, Plasmodium falciparum, and several strains of E. coli.
Recent accomplishments have included the mapping of over 60% of the human genome. Such maps are useful scaffolds for sequence assembly, and point the way to large-scale genome analysis of large populations.
Further details from isssoffice@dsl.pipex.com
