LAS News Archive

2010-01-01 - For the first time in the University of Illinois’ 142-year history, it has had to implement mandatory furloughs and other severe cost-saving measures in order to meet payroll in coming months. The measures are the result of a cash crisis that stems from a $436 million backlog in unpaid...

2010-01-01 - Even if you set aside the drug trade and terrorism, the prospects of democracy taking root in the rugged mountains and plains of Afghanistan are “not good,” according to a U of I political scientist. Democracies are generally short-lived anyway, with a...

2010-01-01 - A new study provides “incontrovertible evidence” that the volcanic super-eruption of Toba on the island of Sumatra about 73,000 years ago deforested much of central India, some 3,000 miles from the epicenter, researchers report.The volcano ejected an estimated 800 cubic kilometers of ash into the...

2010-01-01 - Six faculty members of the University of Illinois, all in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, have been awarded the distinction of AAAS Fellow by the American Association for the Advancement of Science: Gary S. Dell, Andrew A. Gewirth, Donald R. Ort, Thomas B. Rauchfuss, Philippe Tondeur, and...

2010-01-01 - Origami is the ancient art of folding paper into delicate, intricate creations. But in University of Illinois labs, origami is also a science. Illinois researchers have found a way to fold microscopically thin slices of silicon into all kinds of useful shapes, which could have applications in many...

2009-12-01 - A proposed federal prison in northwest Illinois would lock up a double dose of much-needed cash to chip away at the state’s gaping budget hole, a University of Illinois economist says.J. Fred Giertz says money from selling the largely unused state lockup and the thousands of jobs that would follow...

2009-12-01 - John Gaffaney was a 56-year-old psychiatric nurse preparing for deployment to Iraq, where he planned to help soldiers cope with the trauma of war. Before he even left U.S. soil, however, he was gunned down in the November massacre at Fort Hood in Texas—one of 13 victims. In a cruel irony, the...

2009-12-01 - A grade-schooler caught concealing a knife explains, “You get or be got.” A principal wrestles with a child throwing a temper tantrum so violent that they call 9-1-1. A young boy talks about heaven after his classmate is killed by an ambulance. If school administration sounds the least bit dull to...

2009-12-01 - Scaling back mail delivery from six days a week to five may be the best bet to stem mounting U.S. Postal Service losses, but could still be a gamble, says a University of Illinois economist who has studied the agency’s persistent financial decline....

2009-12-01 - Gov. Pat Quinn made a recent stop to the University of Illinois campus to share good news—that the Lincoln Hall renovation project will be ready to bid to contractors in approximately 30 days, moving along a roughly $63 million effort to turn the nearly century-old landmark into a 21st-century...

2009-12-01 - For much of her day, Youyon Liang’s world is limited to her chemical and biomolecular engineering lab, where she is hunting for ways to multiply liver cells outside of the body—all part of a quest to discover new treatments for liver failure. To reach this goal, however, her world is much bigger...

2009-11-01 - Prior to 1989 you rarely saw photos of the Berlin Wall’s east face. There were plenty of pictures of the western side, what with all the graffiti and Pink Floyd lyrics splayed across it, but the opposite side rarely made the news. For one thing, people who could actually see the east side were...

2009-11-01 - There are many obstacles to success, but who would have thought that praise could be one of them? Psychologist Carol Dweck is so certain of it that she has devoted much of her career warning that a well-meant compliment could be dangerous to a child’s future. Not that there aren’t healthy forms of...

2009-11-01 - Papaya farmers can be a funny sort. Ask them if they’d rather have a boy or girl, and without hesitation every last one of them will say “hermaphrodite”—if they’re talking about papayas, of course. A plant biologist at U of I is working to grant them their wish. Papayas are male, female, or...

2009-11-01 - A recent study by U of I psychologists indicates that amphetamine abuse by adolescents can lead to potentially significant memory loss as adults even long after they’ve stopped taking the stimulant.In animal studies conducted by psychology professor...

2009-11-01 - One and one still make two, just like they did in the 1800s. The problem, say educators, is that some math classrooms still operate basically the same way they did in the 1800s, too. Enter Math Teacher Link, an LAS outreach program aimed toward bringing math teaching up-to-date with the computer...

2009-11-01 - Confetti filled the city’s skies when Rio de Janiero was named the host of the 2016 Olympics, breaking the hearts of Chicagoans and making Brazil the first South American country to host the games. But like so many things in Latin America, the Olympics raise both hopes and fears. “We are...

2009-11-01 - Months after the building closed, the class bells still ring in Lincoln Hall and students still wander in looking for instructors—workers turn back three or four of them a day—but the renovation is officially underway after a ceremony to honor the iconic structure’s past and describe its future. A...

2009-10-01 - Chemists at the University of Illinois have designed a small molecule that blocks an aberrant pathway associated with myotonic dystrophy type 1, the most common form of muscular dystrophy. The new compound, soon to be tested in cells, binds tightly to its target, an abnormally elongated RNA that...

2009-10-01 - Four LAS alums have each been recognized for his or her body of work—a full career of groundbreaking achievements. But in 2009, a common thread runs throughout these bodies of work—and that is the human body itself. Each of the winners of the 2009 LAS Alumni Achievement Award has delved into the...

2009-10-01 - For some people, wilderness might be any place that doesn’t provide a Wi-Fi connection or fresh towels in the morning. For others, if you even so much as come across another group of humans while hiking, you are not in the wilderness.Robert Pahre, LAS professor of...

2009-10-01 - Among the many surprises associated with the discovery of the oldest known, nearly complete skeleton of a hominid is the finding that this species took its first steps toward bipedalism not on the open, grassy savanna, as generations of scientists—going back to Charles Darwin—hypothesized, but in a...

2009-10-01 -   Ken Burns, director of such acclaimed documentaries as The Civil War and Baseball, has now focused his spotlight on America’s national park system through The National Parks: America’s Best Idea. The six-part documentary, spanning 12 hours, is a great work; but it...

2009-10-01 - Homecoming 2009 was a special one in historic Roger Adams Laboratory, as the weekend marked the completion of the first phase of a multimillion-dollar effort to revitalize laboratories and research support for biochemical research. A ribbon-cutting ceremony celebrated $8 million in upgrades that...

2009-10-01 - Eleven University of Illinois students were nearing the end of a seven-mile hike around Ribbon Lake in Yellowstone National Park. Under a steady drizzle, they had trudged through grassland and a spruce/fir forest—the “Mud March” they called it. They had even come uncomfortably close to a bison bull...