2013-01-01
- Want a happy retirement? You might start by getting in touch with your personality.
Psychologists at the University of Illinois report that changes in social well-being are closely tied to one’s personality, with positive changes in one corresponding to similar changes in the other....
LAS News Archive
2013-01-01 - For almost a century archaeologists have believed that a treasure-trove of 2,000-year-old Native American pipes unearthed in southern Ohio came from local stone. A new study at the University of Illinois, however, concludes that most stone for the pipes—and perhaps even the finished pipes...
2013-01-01 - Carl Woese, the microbiology professor credited with the discovery of a “third domain” of life, died Sunday, Dec. 30, 2012, at his home in Urbana, Ill., after a nearly half-century career at the University of Illinois. He was 84. Woese...
2013-01-01 - When polar bear drills are part of the class schedule, you know that studying abroad has just been taken to a new extreme. And it has—the University of Illinois is bringing students and faculty to the Arctic Circle. Faculty are organizing a second class in the land of ice and never-setting sun...
2012-12-01 - For most of us, ant control might be accomplished with the bottom of a shoe or maybe a few traps. Tasked with helping prevent infestations across an entire 2,000-mile national border, however, researchers at the U of I turned to the Internet. They created Antkey, an...
2012-12-01 - Four professors from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences have been named fellows to the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2012. Neal Cohen, professor of psychology, So Hirata, professor of...
2012-12-01 - You might say that Bill Taber was tailor-made for his role in what’s becoming humanity’s most significant deep space exploration yet. The first book he ever recalls reading was about the solar system. And then there was the connection he saw early on between math and life. “You could discover...
2012-12-01 - Who is Ana Peso? If you’re a fan of Jeopardy!, you’ll find out on December 31 when the U of I alum appears on the iconic television game show to match her knowledge—and buzzer speed—against other contestants in a moment she’s dreamed about for years.“I’ve always wanted to be on the show...
2012-12-01 - Since the early part of the 20th century, many scientists have pictured the first microbial life on Earth as a fully formed cell that emerged from a “primordial soup” of simple organic compounds. However, a more complete picture of the origin of life might be that of a “primordial Internet.”...
2012-12-01 - Several departments within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences are in the final planning stages of a classroom initiative that they believe could reform the way many college courses are taught on campus. Called the LAS Top Ten Innovation Initiative, the project is focused on bringing more...
2012-11-01 - Learning occurs when you are introduced to a new fact or discovery. But you also learn when a familiar topic is presented to you from a new angle, which is the idea behind a new, non-traditional course initiative in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences that brings together typically separate...
2012-11-01 - Some like it hot—very, very hot. One such creature is the archaea, which have been described as among the strangest forms of life on the planet. University of Illinois researchers are studying archaea that live near volcanoes in Naples, Italy, trying to unlock the mystery of how some forms of these...
2012-11-01 - There’s nothing like a beautiful outdoor dinner with hors d’oeuvres, refreshments, lively conversation, and several million bats. In the 1990s, when David Schmidly was educating the public on the importance of bats, his Texas A & M-Galveston department would sponsor conservation fundraisers,...
2012-11-01 - Ameena Matthews, a petite African American woman, is surrounded by over a dozen men who tower over her. She holds up the picture of a young boy, slain by Chicago’s gang violence, and declares, “This is unacceptable for me to be holding this young man’s obituary!” All remain silent as she spins...
2012-11-01 - Life in all of its forms is represented in the work of the 2012 LAS alumni award winners—everything from ground squirrels, bats, and whales to rivers, plants, and people. The three LAS Alumni Achievement Award winners include a leading paleobotanist, renowned for his work on the evolution of...
2012-11-01 - When describing an online course to his parents, LAS junior Maxwell Norris told them to imagine that they are in front of a professor in a lecture hall. “But, instead, the professor is now on your computer screen,” he explained. When the University of Illinois decided earlier this year to partner...
2012-11-01 - LAS alum Karl Niklas recalls one of the early scenes in the movie Jurassic Park, when paleobotanist Ellie Sattler is sitting in a jeep and staring at an enormous leaf. “This species of vermiform has been extinct since the Cretaceous period,” Ellie exclaims. Suddenly, she looks up and is...
2012-11-01 - The year was 1970, and Yale University had just broken from its centuries-old all-male tradition by accepting its first female undergraduates. There was only one catch. The Yale president said the institution could not start recruiting freshmen women until there was a woman on the...
2012-11-01 - Douglas Barnes was visiting a remote village in southern India in the 1990s when he ducked into a small thatched-roof house and found a woman sitting on the earthen floor and lighting a wood fire on a traditional stove made of clay. Smoke filled the entire two-room house, and Barnes suddenly...
2012-11-01 - Research in the humanities is often an independent endeavor. A new initiative originating at the University of Illinois, however, is designed to expand scholarship in the liberal arts by inspiring cross-university collaboration. “Humanities Without Walls” brings together the scholarship of liberal...
2012-10-01 - When Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation almost 150 years ago, he made ending slavery a Union goal in the Civil War, then more than a year and a half old. Less widely understood is how the demands of war also were destroying slavery from within and dramatically upending southern...
2012-10-01 - Finey Ruan knows she’ll have to work hard to become a doctor. Not that it’ll be a new concept—in order to attend college she’s been working every summer since the eighth grade. Finey (pronounced “Finnie”), now in her freshman year at the U of I, grew up in the Chinatown district of Chicago. Her...
2012-10-01 - A dozen years after the end of her storied racing career, a visit with Jean Driscoll feels like a Sunday drive. Amidst lots of laughing and reflections on kayaking in Wisconsin, she jokes that anyone who saw a story about her now would ask, “Who?” That’s doubtful. A person who’s won the Boston...
2012-10-01 - Yes, there is such a thing as obese mice—and recently they have helped scientists take a step toward reversing the ill effects of obesity in humans. A study led at the University of Illinois identified a key molecular player in a chain of events that can lead to fatty liver disease, Type II...
2012-09-01 - Timothy Wedig was in Rwanda this past June, walking through the capital city of Kigali, when he spotted a man by the side of the road, swinging a machete. “I instinctively thought, ‘Oh my God, what is he doing?’” says Wedig, an LAS lecturer in ...