2010-10-01
- “It’s going to be twins” can be shocking news for parents, but not so much for astronomers. Binary stars—or twin stars—are much more common than single stars, says Leslie Looney, an LAS astronomer. What’s more, he says they now have the first observational evidence supporting the theory that an irregularly shaped cloud of dust in space stands a good...
2010-10-01 - It was just another night of homework for one of Susan Davis’ students when he sat down to watch a scary movie with his friends. He got out his school supplies—pizza, pop, and popcorn—and after the movie ended, led a legend-telling session, taking notes on the various campus myths swapped by his friends. While many students associate homework with a night holed up in the library or alone in their...
2010-10-01 - If you thought that things such as population growth, war, natural disasters, and drought were root causes of world hunger, think again. Researchers at the U of I have created a new way of looking at the problem that suggests some old assumptions may be misguided. Geography professor Thomas Bassett and agricultural and consumer economics professor Alex...
2010-10-01 - Serious photographers spend countless waking hours thinking about light. Nancy Crase, however, had one of her more successful ideas during sleeping hours as she stood in her backyard in her pajamas puzzling over how to photograph desert flowers at night. Crase (BS ’69, microbiology), a freelance photographer and stringer for the New York Times who lives in Phoenix, Ariz., was intrigued...
2010-10-01 - A three-spined stickleback, a fish only about one-and-a-quarter inches long, slowly approaches a pike, an aggressive predator several feet in length. The stickleback swims within inches of the pike’s mouth, an audacious move for such a small fish. Meanwhile, in another part of the tank, another stickleback hides behind a plant, for it is not about to be caught out in the open with a killer in the...
2010-10-01 - Keith Westcott (MS, '78; PhD, '80, biochemistry) arrived at Amgen in 1986, just three years before this small, upstart biotechnology company started producing Epogen, a genetically engineered drug that boosts red blood cell counts in patients suffering from anemia. After Epogen hit the market, the company soared, and today it is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. Besides...
2010-10-01 - Scientific expeditions, both large and small, have had a way of becoming defining moments in the life of Margaret Leinen (BS, '69, geology). A muddy field trip along the Sangamon River during her undergraduate years at Illinois first put her on the path of studying geology. And her coordination of far-reaching scientific expeditions brought out her unique ability to manage large groups of...
2010-10-01 - Richard Powers (AB, '78; MA, '80, English) nearly drove off the road, he was so taken aback. As he sped through the flatlands of Nebraska along Interstate 80, he thought at first that he was hallucinating. But what he was seeing turned out to be thousands of sandhill cranes, three feet tall, lifting up into the air and spreading out in all directions. “The sight was absolutely thrilling, partly...
2010-10-01 - The infamous blown-out British Petroleum well, which spewed over 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico throughout 2010, has finally been declared “dead.” But Linda Birnbaum’s work on the spill is only just beginning. Birnbaum (MS, '69; PhD, '72, microbiology) is the first woman and first toxicologist to direct the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), an...
2010-09-01 - The inside of a living cell contains microscopic traffic jams that would rival the Los Angeles interstate system in congestion. And among the busiest cellular highways are the strands of DNA, which contain the blueprints for life.Maria Spies, an LAS biochemist, is tracking the movement of traffic along this nanoscale highway,...
2010-09-01 - A caution to nature-loving idealists everywhere: At the intersection of politics and nature, politics usually wins, even over the best intentions, says political scientist Robert Pahre. “Politics screws up outcomes that everybody says they want,” says Pahre, a U of I professor whose environmental research and teaching has focused on national parks and...
2010-09-01 - You can now own a piece of the building that has schooled the last century of Illini. For only $10, you can bring home a slate tile from Lincoln Hall’s roof—and 100% of your purchase will support student scholarships!Of course it’s a nostalgic souvenir, but what else can you do with an old slate tile? Welcome sign :) Stepping stones along your gardenChalkboard for your home or officeTrivet for...
2010-09-01 - This coming April, the campus will host an All-Campus Career Fair. For the first time, LAS students will enjoy full access to recruiters and the career opportunities that they represent. The fair will mark the beginning of a new, expanded college effort to provide full career training and preparation for our students.We need your help identifying potential recruiters.The college...
2010-09-01 - Hurricanes and kangaroos have more in common than you might suppose.Like baby kangaroos, embryonic hurricanes can develop in wave “pouches.” These are regions of closed “Lagrangian circulation” in which storms are nurtured, transforming them from weak tropical waves into intense tropical cyclones, says Zhuo Wang, an assistant professor in atmospheric...
2010-09-01 - A trip abroad will open your mind to new ideas. But as one University of Illinois class found in Peru, nothing brings you to the root of distant cultures like getting some foreign soil under your fingernails. Two dozen students spent their winter break building stoves and water filters for residents living in the Andes Mountains. For two weeks they worked in the morning and attended class in the...
2010-09-01 - Driving while talking on a cell phone is roughly the equivalent of driving while under the influence of alcohol. But perhaps even more surprising, hands-free cell phones do not make you any safer, says Daniel Simons, an LAS psychology professor who specializes in visual perception. Simons and his colleague, Christopher Chabris at Union College in New...
2010-09-01 - Dr. Paul Kinsinger’s mind moves a mile a minute. Who else could read about a home remedy for toenail fungus and come up with something called Piggy Paste? Or how about this: When a patient said his carpel tunnel syndrome was making it difficult to operate a buffer at an auto body shop because of the equipment’s vibrations, Kinsinger came up with a vibration inhibitor that wowed the engineers at...
2010-08-01 - The renovated Lincoln Hall will include a new memorial statue to Abraham Lincoln when it reopens in 2012. In light of coincidence, however, the addition should feel right at home. Earlier this summer, the family of the deceased Albert Triebel Jr. (BS ’37, accountancy) donated his “Seated Lincoln” statue to Lincoln Hall for display when the renovation is complete. The bronze sculpture (roughly 26¼...
2010-06-01 - Another academic year has ended, and you know what that means: It’s time to be regaled with stories of college graduates so outstanding that, unless you’re their parents or grandparents, you might simply choose not to believe it. How, you might ask, does someone major in mathematics and linguistics, preside over Honors Student Council, create a student peace organization, get promoted to student...
2010-05-01 - News travels fast, even among those who prefer travel without the benefit of gasoline. The University of Illinois had only just fenced off Lincoln Hall for renovation when a team of “Green Riders” from California announced plans to stop at the construction site in June during a cross-country electric bicycle trip to highlight acts of environmental sustainability. Oliver Bock, 55, of Palo Alto,...
2010-05-01 - American Indians invented the game of baseball—at least according to Ezol Day, a time-traveling Native American woman. “Base-and-ball” was played by Natives all over North and South America long before white people ever arrived in the New World, says Ezol, a character in the novel Miko Kings. Their ancient ball fields “had two intersecting lines that crossed at the mound where the...
2010-05-01 - Those who value excellence and hard work generally do better than others on specific tasks when they are reminded of those values. But when a task is presented as fun, researchers report, the same individuals often will do worse than those who say they are less motivated to achieve.The findings suggest that two students may respond quite differently to a teacher’s exhortation that they strive for...-
2010-05-01 - A University of Illinois professor has earned national distinction for his original contributions in the field of microbiology, the American Society of Microbiology has announced. William Metcalf, a microbial geneticist in the Department of Microbiology and the Institute for Genomic Biology, has been elected to Fellowship in the...
2010-05-01 - You might think that a sports story is near its end when an athlete settles into a wheelchair, but this is not a normal sports story. Cerebral palsy redefines normal. Linda Mastandrea became a world-class athlete only after she started using her arms to move. By the time she retired from competition in 1999, the University of Illinois alum had won 15 gold and five silver medals in international...
2010-05-01 - Researchers report that Helicobacter pylori, the only bacterium known to survive in the harsh environment of the human stomach, directly activates an enzyme in host cells that has been associated with several types of cancer, including gastric cancer. Chronic infection with H. pylori is a well-documented risk factor for several forms of gastric cancer, but researchers have not...