🔭 A UW-Madison professor’s ‘Nobel’ effort

💥 Wrecking Ball May Be Coming For Wonder Bar: Having been denied landmark status, the Madison Plan Commission approved the Wonder Bar Steakhouse for demolition to make way for a mixed-used development. Some residents objected to the destruction of the Olin Avenue bar, saying its history as a ‘20s speakeasy gives it cultural significance.

• The Wonder Bar has inspired some colorful stories. Some of them may even be true! [WKOW, City Cast Madison]

🚌 Madison Schools Get First Electric Buses: The first of 30 electric school buses have arrived in Madison, but they won’t be in service until spring. First Student, the company that operates the buses, needs several months to build charging stations for the buses.

• Meanwhile, Madison school officials are considering building a new elementary school on the east side and a new middle school on the west side to handle expected population growth in those neighborhoods. [🔒WSJ, Cap Times]

🌧️ ‘Resilience Hubs’ Will Help in Weather Emergencies: Madison officials are creating a network of “community resilience hubs,” defined as trusted community spaces that can expand their services during emergencies such as extreme weather. The first two spaces are Boys & Girls Clubs of Dane County’s Allied Family Center and Wisconsin Youth Company’s Elver Park Community Spaces, where volunteers can distribute supplies and offer relief from the elements during weather events. [City of Madison]

🥼 Fed Reports Show Mistreatment at UW Primate Center: Documents from the United States Department of Agriculture show multiple violations at UW-Madison’s National Primate Research Center, according to an animal rights group. The National Anti-Vivisection Society said that in 2025 primates at the center received inadequate veterinary care, suffered painful procedures without adequate relief, and lived under unsafe and unsanitary conditions. [WPR]

🗳️ Vote For Us! We’ve been nominated for the 2026 Social Media Marketing Awards in both Best Podcast and Best Email Newsletter! But hurry, voting closes Oct. 10! [Social Media Breakfast Madison]

🧑‍💼 Why Were 1000s of Disabled Job Seekers Waitlisted? In her recent cover story for the Cap Times, Opinion Editor Natalie Eilbert reported on how the Wisconsin Division of Vocational Rehabilitation put thousands of disabled job seekers on a waitlist because of funding cuts. Eilbert is on the City Cast Madison podcast today to talk to host Bianca Martin about the real-world implications of such cuts on the state’s disabled workforce. [Cap Times, 🎧 City Cast Madison]

UW-Madison Professor Receives Nobel Prize in Physics

Over 9,100 miles separates the UW-Madison campus from the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole, but there’s a strong connection between the two. On Tuesday, UW-Madison professor Francis Halzen received a Nobel Prize in physics at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm for pioneering the telescope.

“The success of this project involved some luck,” Halzen said in a statement. “I was fortunate to be at UW, where unconventional ideas can thrive and where I had the support of a remarkable community.”

Here’s the backstory on Halzen and the scientific breakthroughs that have made IceCube such a hot topic in physics and astronomy. [UW-Madison News]

Who Is Francis Halzen?

The Belgian-born Halzen, now 82, joined the faculty at UW-Madison in 1972 and has received multiple awards for research over the last half-century. He began researching deep Antarctic ice and in 1987 started the Antarctic Muon And Neutrino Detector Array, known as AMANDA, which is considered an ancestor of the IceCube project. [ 🔒WSJ]

What Is IceCube?

IceCube is not a traditional telescope like you’d peer through at UW-Madison’s Washburn Observatory. Instead, it’s embedded deep within a cubic kilometer of Antarctic ice, using thousands of light sensors to survey the universe for ghostly particles called high-energy neutrinos.

⬆️ Last Week’s Photo

It’s located on the south wall of Hot ‘n’ Spicy on Monona Drive!

🎉 Congratulations to Kristin M., Tess R., and Susan L. (who met the artist!) for being the first three people to guess right!

⬇️ This Week’s Photo

Do you know where this photo was taken? A few clues:

• It’s on Park Street
• It’s taken from the patio of a bar known for its eclectic beer list
• If you get the name right you’re a “stone”-cold genius!