2011-10-01
- In the not-too-distant future, people might be able to walk into their local pharmacy, pluck a box off the shelf, and after a 10-minute test determine whether it’s possible that they have cancer.LAS researchers have laid the groundwork for such a remarkable scenario by adapting the common glucose meter to test for all kinds of substances, from lead in water and pesticides on our vegetables to...
2011-10-01 - The four alumni award winners in 2011 share local and regional proximity, with two of them coming from the Champaign-Urbana area and the other two hailing from the Great Lakes region. But all of them have made ripples well beyond their hometowns, making their mark on the national and even international stage. The three alumni achievement award winners include one of the top physicians in the...
2011-10-01 - When A. Mark Neuman (BS, '85, economics) first visited the small West African country of Burkina Faso in 2006, he says he was “blown away. I found women owning and controlling cooperatives that grew high-quality, rain-fed, pesticide-free cotton, and the women controlled the money they earned.” But Neuman says he also discovered something shocking. Although the money they made was their own, it...
2011-10-01 - Grant Krafft (PhD, '80, chemistry) found something completely unexpected while using his lab’s atomic force microscope back in 1995. As his lab probed the causes of Alzheimer’s disease, they examined samples of toxic amyloid proteins, linked to the devastating disease, and they expected to see long, skinny fibrils. What they saw instead were little round structures, like microscopic...
2011-10-01 - Sidney Ribeau (AM, '73, speech communication; PhD, '79, speech) had no plans to ever become an administrator. “I didn’t even own a suit and tie at the time. I was a faculty member of the ’70s through and through,” says Ribeau, who was a professor at California State University-Los Angeles, when he was suddenly asked to serve as temporary chair of the Pan-African Studies Department....
2011-10-01 - It begins with an incision in the armpit, creating a hole about 3 inches wide. This opening enables Julie Freischlag (BS, '76, biology) to remove the rib closest to the patient’s collarbone, bringing much-needed relief. In such cases, the rib usually has been compressing nerves, arteries, or veins, creating chronic pain in the shoulder, numbness in the fingers, or other symptoms. Freischlag...
2011-09-01 - Dave the Potter was openly breaking state law when he inscribed his name, along with poetry and Bible verses, in the pottery he created in South Carolina. That’s because it was illegal in the early 19th century for a slave like Dave to read or write, let alone propagate simple inscribed rhymes such as: I wonder where is all my relation Friendship to all—and, every nation”...
2011-09-01 - “One person, one vote” is often the rallying cry for democratic reform, suggesting everyone should get an equal say in their government.Yet in some of the oldest and largest democracies, some votes are worth far more than others by design. A Wyoming voter, for instance, is significantly overrepresented compared with a California voter. Each state has two U.S. senators, but California has 66 times...
2011-09-01 - Darkness truly ruled the night in the Europe of 1500.People feared almost everything about the hours after sunset, says U of I historian Craig Koslofsky.Artificial light was limited and the night was a time of real and imagined danger, of evil, demons, and suspect activity, a “primal force” over which people had little control, Koslofsky says. Cities...
2011-09-01 - Capturing action on camera is difficult. Just ask any sports photographer who has tried to capture a frozen moment in football. But trying to take action shots on the microscopic level, with atom-by-atom detail, has been beyond the current technology—until now. U or I researchers, working with scientists in Germany, have found a way to take the first detailed picture of a ribosome in action.“We...
2011-09-01 - Genetics research has been heralded for its potential to fight disease and understand human history. Since scientists mapped the human genome in 2003, however, the hard part has been building relationships in which people are comfortable turning over their DNA for research.This was the catalyst behind the U of I’s Summer Internship for Native Americans, a week-long workshop exposing participants...
2011-09-01 - You’re chopping wood when the ax slips and you suddenly find yourself staring in shock at a deep gash in your leg. While you call for medical help, your body is already in emergency mode on a microscopic level, ringing its own version of 911 to stop the bleeding. The muscles around your blood vessels contract, attempting to choke off the bleeding. Platelets also become activated and they form a...
2011-05-01 - Most people have trouble telling them apart, but bumble bees, honey bees, stingless bees, and solitary bees have home lives that are as different from one another as a monarch’s palace is from a hippy commune or a hermit’s cabin in the woods. A new study of these bees offers a first look at the genetic underpinnings of their differences in lifestyle. The study focuses on the evolution of “...
2011-05-01 - You can now own a piece of the building that has schooled the last century of Illini. Bring home a slate tile from Lincoln Hall’s roof—and your donation will support student scholarships!Tile Engraved with Column I:$50 donation($20 goes to student scholarships and $30 covers the cost of engraving)Plain Tile$10 donation(100% goes to student scholarships)Of course...
2011-05-01 - After a long winter you may shudder to hear this, but much learning remains to be done in the lands of ice and snow. Thanks to a budding partnership at the University of Illinois, however, that task is getting more exciting, and it leads through Sweden. Researchers and educators across campus are expecting valuable opportunities to rise from a trans-Atlantic collaboration with KTH Royal...
2011-05-01 - Philip Sarnecki never imagined he would have anything to do with an illegal poker tournament run by an Amish farmer in rural Indiana. Granted, the illegal tournament is pure fiction; it’s the central plot point of the recently released screwball comedy, Hitting the Nuts. But Sarnecki never imagined he would be involved in movies either. After...
2011-05-01 - Just as the fall 2010 semester was winding down, junior Andrew McFadden got an email from a friend, alerting him to a video contest on campus. The challenge: Make a short film showing what the world might be like devoid of humanities and the arts. “When I first saw it, I thought, ‘Wow, I never really thought about that,’” McFadden says. “Then I found out that it was kind of a pressing issue.”...
2011-05-01 - Kenneth Suslick, a professor of chemistry in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, was one of two U of I professors to receive Guggenheim Foundation Fellowships. He is among 180 award recipients selected from the almost 3,000 scientists, artists, and scholars who applied.Suslick, the Marvin T. Schmidt professor of chemistry, works at the...-
2011-05-01 - University of Illinois junior Justin Kopinsky’s studies in math and computer science and numerous qualifications have added up to equal one Barry M. Goldwater scholarship for 2010-2011. The scholarship—awarded to highly qualified sophomores and juniors in the fields of science, mathematics, and engineering who intend to pursue careers in these fields—covers the cost of tuition, fees, books, and...
2011-05-01 - They were called “night commuters.” Thousands of children in Uganda would walk for miles every single night to reach the safety of the nearest town, where they could sleep with less risk of abduction. When daylight came, the children would hike back home, and the next night the search for safety would begin all over again. They had good reason for fear: Children as young as eight years old were...
2011-04-01 - Taking a 60 percent pay cut to move 14,000 miles to a place where lizards crawl into your refrigerator doesn’t exactly sound like a big break. And eight months after arriving in Vietnam, Emma Swift will admit that her new job has required some, well, cultural adjustment.Yet for someone developing a career in higher education administration, few places are as interesting as Vietnam, as the country...
2011-04-01 - For some plants, it pays to be devoured. When certain herbs are eaten down to the ground, they re-grow even larger, producing significantly more biomass, flowers, fruits, and seeds than plants of the same species that were not eaten. Now, LAS researchers may know the reason why, for they discovered what might be one mechanism behind these comeback plants. Remarkably, these plants increase their...
2011-04-01 - May Berenbaum still recalls how people would come up to her and ask her to sign their “Bambi Berenbaum” collector card from the popular sci-fi television show The X-Files. Bambi Berenbaum was the gorgeous X-Files entomologist that Agent Mulder took a fancy to, and she just happened to be named after May Berenbaum, the head of the University of Illinois...
2011-04-01 - University of Illinois chemistry professor Ryan C. Bailey has been selected to receive a 2011 Sloan Research Fellowship from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.Bailey is one of 118 early career scientists and researchers from 54 colleges and universities chosen for a two-year fellowship. In keeping with its goal of recognizing potential groundbreaking...
2011-04-01 - It’s official. Coffee breaks can increase performance at work.Actually, any kind of brief break can improve concentration on tasks that require focused concentration, according to research from LAS psychology professor Alejandro Lleras. The University of Illinois study zeroes in on a phenomenon known to anyone who’s ever had trouble doing...