2007-11-01
- A University of Illinois professor famous for studying bees is asking state residents to help her latest endeavor: Tracking them.Entomology professor and department head May Berenbaum, who recently testified to Congress about bee colony collapse disorder, has launched the BeeSpotter website to build a better record of wild honey bees and...
2007-11-01 - A pilot takes his small plane in for a hard emergency landing, but in the process he hits his head and suffers a small cut. Within seconds, his body's skin begins the task of sending blood to the cut to begin the healing process. But what if the plane suffered a small crack during the landing? And what if the plane's body immediately began to heal the crack on its surface, much like the pilot's...
2007-11-01 - A small but perplexing monkeypox outbreak in the United States in 2003 faded quickly from the public eye, but not so at the University of Illinois. Scientists here traced the dangerous contagion to its roots in Africa and are now unveiling important discoveries about its scope and transmission.The U.S. government and other international experts are following the work of Thomas Gillespie, Joanna...
2007-11-01 - A senior from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is the first University of Illinois student in more than 10 years to be awarded a prestigious Marshall Scholarship for graduate study in the United Kingdom. Ian Clausen, a Wheaton, Ill., native majoring in religious studies and English, will begin studying in fall 2008 at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland to earn advanced degrees in...
2007-10-01 - More plants with less fertilizer? It's possible, according to University of Illinois researchers who have identified several proteins in plants that, if present in relatively higher concentrations, could almost double their growth efficiency.Their findings, which appeared in the October 2007 issue of Plant Physiology, came after the researchers used a computer model that mimicked the...
2007-10-01 - Eight LAS scientists share in the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, recently awarded to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), as well as to former vice president Al Gore.The IPCC was formed in 1988 with the task of probing the science of climate change. "For the University of Illinois to have eight scientists highly involved on the IPCC is really quite significant," says Don...-
2007-10-01 - National Universities: Top Public Schools University of California-Berkeley University of Virginia University of California-Los Angeles University of Michigan University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill College of William and Mary Georgia Institute of Technology University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign University of Wisconsin-Madison University of California-San Diego LAS Graduate...
2007-10-01 - Got a major? Need a minor? Come see displays on many of the 150 majors and minors available to you at U of I. It's a great opportunity to discover a field you may not have known existed yet is just right for you! Tuesday, October 9, 2007 2-4 p.m. Illini Union Rooms A, B, and C
2007-10-01 - LAS professors Arthur F. Kramer and Gene E. Robinson have been named Swanlund Chairs, the highest endowed titles at the University of Illinois.Kramer, a professor in the Department of Psychology, is part of the Beckman Institute's Human Perception and Performance Group and is co-chair of the Institute's Human-Computer Interaction research theme. Known internationally for his work...
2007-10-01 - Simulated relationships offer insight into real ones. Is it me, or are you a less than ideal partner? For psychologists studying how people manage romantic relationships, that's not an easy question to answer. What if one of the partners is deeply afraid of intimacy? Could they be acting in ways that undermine the relationship? Or is the partner contributing to the problem? Researchers at the...-
2007-10-01 - Homecoming Weekend Octber 27-28, 2007 Come for the football or any of the dozens of activities happening on campus, from now through October 28. Homecoming Post-Game Reception For two hours following the Homecoming football game Alice Campbell Alumni Center 601 S. Lincoln Ave., Urbana Free and open to the public. Event features entertainment, heavy hors d'oeuvres and cash bar...
2007-10-01 - From the very beginning of her college career, Ellen Dwyer has been amazed at the beauty of the body's immune system in battling disease. But not long after her fascination began, Dwyer found herself in a battle of her own-a fight against the autoimmune disease known as Undifferentiated Connective Tissue Disease.So it is only fitting that Dwyer would spend her summer in the prestigious Amgen...
2007-10-01 - The University of Illinois football team isn't the only program faring well in the rankings these days. When it comes to an undergraduate education, the U of I moved up two spots to being tied as the number eight public university in the country, according to the latest survey from U.S. News & World Report. Among all national universities, both public and private, the U of I moved...-
2007-10-01 - A lot of ingredients go into the U.S. News & World Report's America's Best Colleges undergraduate rankings. Here is a quick rundown on the key factors. Peer Assessment (25%) is the most controversial part of the survey, for it is the most subjective. A school's peer assessment score is determined by surveying the presidents, provosts, and deans of admissions (or...
2007-10-01 - Hopes have been raised, and dimmed, several times in recent years as to whether Lincoln Hall would receive an overdue restoration. They were raised in spring 2006 when the state released the second, and final, installment of funds for architectural studies and other planning work—usually an indication that the project is a priority for the state.Expectations dimmed in August when the state's long...
2007-10-01 - Whenever people talk about Dorothy Dilorio (BA, '49, Spanish), there is no shortage of adjectives. "Dorothy is gentle, open-minded, kind, and terribly bright," says Gail McClain, the former president of the College of LAS Alumni Board who recruited DiIorio to the board in 1997. "She is dependable and honorable, interesting and fun," adds Diane Gottlieb, the current College of LAS Board...
2007-10-01 - When Margaret Kosal (PhD, '01, chemistry) isn't throwing herself out of airplanes, she's throwing herself into her job with an equal amount of passion. Kosal has made over 1,000 jumps since 1997 when she first parachuted as a chemistry graduate student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Jumping is for fun, but it's also representative of the total commitment she brings to her...
2007-10-01 - Rachel Galun (PhD, '55, entomology) describes her work as "a bloody business." For more than 50 years, Galun has been one of the world's leading authorities on blood-feeding insects, which are behind some of the most devastating diseases on the globe. This research has taken her on more than 60 different trips to Africa, where she has helped fight tropical illnesses caused by mosquitoes, ticks,...
2007-10-01 - In 1984, researchers first isolated the HIV virus, the culprit behind the AIDS epidemic that was spreading panic across the United States. It was also the year that a group of scientists formed a small start-up company known as Agouron Pharmaceuticals—a company that would go on to develop one of the most effective drugs to battle the HIV virus. David Matthews (PhD, '71, chemistry) was the...
2007-09-01 - Fourteen students joined economics professor Richard Akresh on a 20-day trip to Burkina Faso in West Africa over the winter break. They returned with an entirely new perspective on that country, Africa as a whole, and their own society as well. In addition to economics majors, the diverse group ranged from physics and biology majors to...
2007-09-01 - A research team, led by University of Illinois biochemistry professor John A. Gerlt, has developed a way to determine the function of some of the hundreds of thousands of proteins for which amino acid sequence data are available, but whose structure and function remain unknown.The team is the first to use a computational approach to...
2007-09-01 - Richard Akresh, assistant professor of economics, returned from Burkina Faso with an unusual collection of "souvenirs." Six hundred pounds of paper, to be precise, which represents household survey data he collected over 18 months about social structure in that West African country. Akresh was introduced to the region after working in Togo for two...
2007-09-01 - Call it another successful graduate of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. The college's General Curriculum Center is moving on. It's not gone far. Relocated from its home on Fifth Street to a new Campus Center for Advising and Academic Services located in the Illini Union Bookstore Building's fifth floor, the staff now enjoys more space, opportunities for program expansion, and heightened...
2007-09-01 - The monastery Mont Saint-Michel rises out of the flat French landscape like something straight out of the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien. It was, in fact, an inspiration for Minas Tirith, the massive fortified city in the third Lord of the Rings movie. During the Hundred Years War, England could never conquer Mont Saint-Michel because of the abbey's imposing fortifications. But this past summer, 20...
2007-09-01 - "No one tests the depth of a river with both feet," says an old African proverb.However, when it came to learning an African language on the University of Illinois campus this summer, students jumped in with both feet. It's called the total immersion teaching method.Using this approach, students attending the Summer Cooperative African Language Institute...