The tiny deer tick is an incredibly effective vector for disease. It's made Wisconsin one of North America's hotspots for Lyme disease, and is spreading several other pathogens dangerous to people.
In a state where the landscape tends towards low-lying swamps, flat fields and rolling hills, northern Wisconsin's Penokee Range of mountains are a dramatic outlier.
Although Wisconsin's winters are inhospitable to the species of mosquitoes known to transmit deadly viruses, scientists from across the state are leading the fight against mosquito-borne disease around the world.
As Wisconsin struggles to grow private-sector jobs, there is potential to expand telecommuting work outside urbanized areas of the state by improving broadband connections.
Up to 60 percent of sampled wells in a Kewaunee County study contained fecal microbes, many of which are capable of making people and calves sick, two scientists told hundreds of local residents gathered at a public meeting on June 7.
An international group of geneticists, epidemiologists and public health researchers based in Australia, France and the U.S. teamed up to study a pathogen after it caused a small but deadly outbreak of illnesses in Wisconsin.