2012-05-01
- “Every two seconds, an area of forest the size of a football field is clear-cut by illegal loggers around the globe,” says a World Bank report just released in March. The report went on to say that “forestry’s criminal justice system is broken. Despite compelling data and evidence showing that...
LAS News Archive
2012-05-01 - Does hearing that you are a member of an elite group—of chess players, say, or scholars—enhance your performance on tasks related to your alleged area of expertise? Not necessarily, say researchers who tested how sweeping pronouncements about the skills or likely success of social groups can...
2012-05-01 - 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...
2012-05-01 - LAS junior Jacob Becraft is one of two University of Illinois students awarded Barry M. Goldwater scholarships for 2012-13. The scholarship—awarded to highly qualified sophomores and juniors in science, mathematics, and engineering who intend to pursue careers in those fields—covers the cost of...
2012-05-01 - When Sri Mulyani Indrawati came to U of I in 1988 to obtain her PhD in economics, the world was still gripped by the Cold War and emerging economic giants such as Brazil, Russia, India, and China—the so-called BRIC countries—had no voice in world...
2012-05-01 - Joanna Chromik, a junior double majoring in communication and English at the University of Illinois, has been awarded a Beinecke Scholarship, which awards $34,000 for future graduate study in the...
2012-04-01 - Researchers from LAS are fitting contributors for an ongoing art exhibition linking science, communities, and art. Images in the exhibit, called The Art of Science: Images from the Institute for Genomic Biology 2.0, are derived from research at the U of I that addresses issues in the environment,...
2012-04-01 - In the wake of the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, authorities initially searched for a second bomber working with the perpetrator Timothy McVeigh. The manhunt was triggered when a key eyewitness claimed that another person was with McVeigh when he rented the truck that...
2012-04-01 - The Irish were essentially America’s first ethnic group, with more than 3 million flooding into the United States between 1840 and 1890. By 1900, in fact, there were more Irish in America than in Ireland.The Irish also became the model for other ethnic groups that followed, says University of...
2012-04-01 - A new study describes how bacteria use a previously unknown means to defeat an antibiotic. The researchers found that the bacteria have modified a common “housekeeping” enzyme in a way that enables the enzyme to recognize and disarm the antibiotic.The study appears in the Proceedings of the...
2012-03-01 - Each year the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences recognizes a handful of staff members and academic professionals for their outstanding contributions to the college and service to others. These individuals, who were nominated by members of the campus community, demonstrate excellence and enhance...
2012-03-01 - Talk about jumping into the deep end. Dana Fager was having the time of her life, immersing herself in the Japanese language and culture in Kobe, Japan, during her sophomore year at Illinois. But when a friend signed her up to learn how to scuba dive in the ocean, her language skills were put to...
2012-03-01 - A new study in Science suggests that thrill-seeking is not limited to humans and other vertebrates. Some honey bees, too, are more likely than others to seek adventure. The brains of these novelty-seeking bees exhibit distinct patterns of gene activity in molecular pathways known to be...
2012-03-01 - Osteoporosis drugs strengthen bones, but it looks like they can also be modified to strengthen the body’s defenses against malaria. The parasite that causes malaria has a knack for evolving resistance to the drugs used to combat it, so scientists are always on the hunt for new weapons against this...
2012-03-01 - Not that long ago in a hot spring in Kamchatka, Russia, two groups of genetically indistinguishable microbes parted ways. They began evolving into different species—despite the fact that they still encountered one another in their acidic, boiling habitat and even exchanged some genes from time to...
2012-02-01 - Daniel Simons stayed well out of view behind a giant sign depicting the famous Las Vegas magician, David Copperfield, while the hidden cameras rolled. Simons watched, and so did the camera, as people were recruited from the casino crowd and taken to a counter to sign an agreement to appear on a...
2012-02-01 - When Idun Reiten was only 12 years old, a radio show from the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation held a math competition, presenting 10 problem sets over a span of 10 weeks. Only five people in all of Norway solved every single problem set, and 12-year-old Reiten was one of them. Her 16-year-old...
2012-02-01 - What in the world does the decision-making process of a blind, cannibalistic sea slug have to do with the kind of decisions made by an out-of-control gambler burning through cash in Las Vegas, a shopaholic off on a spending spree, or an addict snorting cocaine?Sea slugs are shedding light on what’s...
2012-02-01 - The lessons of Arab Spring keep rewriting themselves. In Egypt, the elation following the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak has been followed by reports of tension between Islamists and the military over the redrawing of power. And while some dictators fell like a deck of cards, the Syrian regime...
2012-01-01 - Those making land use decisions to reduce the harmful effects of climate change have focused almost exclusively on greenhouse gases—analyzing, for example, how much carbon dioxide is released when a forest is cleared to grow crops. A new study led by U of I researchers aims to present a more...
2012-01-01 - Convincing people that this country needs more attorneys is the least of James Rowader Jr.’s problems. After all, Rowader is talking about Hispanic attorneys, and plenty of statistics indicate that they’re underrepresented in the law profession. The real problem is finding the formula that puts...
2012-01-01 - Researchers have developed a bandage that stimulates and directs blood vessel growth on the surface of a wound. The bandage, called a “microvascular stamp,” contains living cells that deliver growth factors to damaged tissues in a defined pattern. After a week, the pattern of the stamp “is written...
2011-12-01 - The lineage of every Greek god and every Roman god, along with the complex connections among them, was first spelled out in a set of 15 books written more than 600 years ago. Called Genealogia deorum gentilium, the massive compendium of more than 700 deities was assembled at the request of...
2011-12-01 - A professor credited for technological breakthroughs in materials and electronic components has won one of the world’s largest single cash prizes for invention. John A. Rogers, the Lee J. Flory-Founder Chair in Engineering, with a joint appointment in the...
2011-12-01 - An analysis of the remains of ancient midges—tiny non-biting insects closely related to mosquitoes—opens a new window on the past with a detailed view of the surprising regional variability that accompanied climate warming during the early Holocene epoch, 10,000 to 5,500 years ago. Researchers at...