2006-11-01
- A young poet and professor of poetry at the University of Illinois has won a prestigious literary award.Tyehimba Jess was one of 10 U.S. writers to win the 2006 Whiting Writers' Award. The award, given annually to "emerging writers of exceptional talent and promise," includes a cash prize of $40,000 to each winner. Jess, who joined the English department in 2005, won the 2004 National Poetry...
2006-11-01 - What is the only U.S. state that legally allows its residents to cast absentee ballots from outer space?If you had been at the sixth annual Globe-O-Mania, sponsored by the geography department in LAS, you would have discovered that the right answer to this question was Texas, home of the U.S. space program in Houston. What's more, you might have found yourself regularly exclaiming, "Houston, we...-
2006-11-01 - Seven faculty members of U. or I.'s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences have been awarded the distinction of AAAS Fellow by the American Association for the Advancement of Science: Stewart H. Berlocher, Sydney A. Cameron, Akira Chiba, James M. Lisy, Todd J. Martinez, Mark E. Nelson, and Olga Soffer.Election as a fellow is an honor bestowed upon members by their peers. This year 449 members were...
2006-11-01 - Researchers in LAS have developed a simple "dipstick" test for detecting cocaine and other drugs in saliva, urine, or blood serum. The test is based upon DNA-gold nanoparticle technology, and can be packaged in user-friendly kits similar to those used for home pregnancy tests. "Building upon our earlier work with lead (Pb) sensors, we constructed colorimetric sensors that are based on the...-
2006-10-01 - Two scientists in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences recently were commended by national organizations for their research in their respective fields.Donald R. Ort, professor of plant biology, was honored with the Charles F. Kettering Award for his work on plant photosynthesis. His research takes a hard look at how...
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2006-10-01 - Two scientists in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences recently were commended by national organizations for their research in their respective fields.Donald R. Ort, professor of plant biology, was honored with the Charles F. Kettering Award for his work on plant photosynthesis. His research takes a hard look at how...
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2006-10-01 - Four LAS faculty members from the Department of Chemistry recently received prestigious awards for their research. John A. Katzenellenbogen, Swanlund Professor of Chemistry, won the 2007 American Chemical Society E.B. Hershberg Award for Important Discoveries in Medicinally Active Products. This...
- 2006-10-01 - When William Clark (PhD, '64, geography) arrived in Florida in 1961, en route to the University of Illinois, he struck up a conversation with an African American woman at the train station. Clark, a New Zealand native, asked the woman to join him in a restaurant, but she politely declined. She could not go into the restaurant because of her skin color. New Zealand never had segregation laws, so...
2006-10-01 - With a name like "Houston," it almost seems like destiny that Dennis Houston (BS, '74, chemical engineering) would wind up in the oil business. However, a more likely reason for Houston's career choice was growing up in the shadow of three oil refineries in Wood River, Ill. It also didn't hurt that both of his parents, as well as his grandfather, worked in the oil industry. Today, Houston is...
2006-10-01 - With nearly 50 patents to his name and almost 50 years in the pharmaceutical industry, it might appear that William Wechter's (BS, '53; MS, '54, chemistry) major accomplishments are behind him. Not so. Wechter and a close-knit group of fellow scientists have quite literally made an encore performance in their careers by founding a dynamic new pharmaceutical company. What's more, they have been...
2006-10-01 - James Benson (BA, '68, finance) will never forget the young man with cerebral palsy who completed the final link in an around-the-world bike ride—a daunting stretch from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C. This man, Kevin Deegen, pedaled his oversized tricycle 3,000 miles using only his right hand, Benson says. But because the left side of Deegen's body did not function, he was constantly off-...
2006-09-01 - A professor emerita of linguistics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will receive the Presidential Award from the president of India.Yamuna Kachru traveled to the Presidential Palace in New Delhi on September 14 to receive her award, one of four to be presented by Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, the president of India. According to Abbas Benmamoun, head of the...
2006-09-01 - Recently, LAS English professor and director of the Center for Writing Studies Gail Hawisher sat down at her computer to type a departmental memo. Halfway through her task she was surprised to see that the tone she adopted for the message was wrong. As someone who has made a career studying the impact...
2006-09-01 - In case you have been on a space shuttle the last 10 years, you may not have heard that National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) and its estimated 75 million fans generate big money in local communities. Not only does NASCAR play large among its traditional southern base, but now the endorsement-laden racing industry is making an economic impact up north-Joliet, Ill., to be exact...
2006-09-01 - Only on Quad Day can you stroll past padded sword-fighting, a guy in a chicken suit, and the Marching Illini, all within yards of each other. As part of the University of Illinois' Welcome Week, this 35th annual event crowded the Quad with about 600 student organizations and community booths. While passing out handbills (or free magnets, cups, or CDs), groups were promoting and recruiting for...
2006-09-01 - When Douglas Brewer ventured deep into the Egyptian desert this year, he expected to find possibly 100 examples of "rock art"-evidence of ancient civilization. What he actually found were well over 1,000 examples-a treasure trove of rock art. The desert art, which was pecked or sometimes incised into large rock faces, depicted elephants, ostriches, giraffes, and many hunting scenes. But perhaps...
2006-09-01 - The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has been named the recipient of a $5 million grant to establish and support a program to improve achievement in chemical sciences and computational literacy among students in rural Illinois high schools.The National Science Foundation grant will be used to establish the Institute for Chemistry Literacy and Computational Sciences in secondary schools...
2006-09-01 - Yukari Sugiyana promotes the Japan Intercultural Network. Ian Schnack tosses a disc on the Quad with the Frolfing Illini disc golf club. Brittany Combs and Kelly Lusson demonstrate kicks with the Goshin Jitsu club. Illini Film and Video club's giant robot pauses passersby. The Society of Signers promote the awareness of sign language on campus. ...
2006-09-01 - English professor LeAnne Howe is taking her show on the road quite literally this fall, shifting her venue, if only temporarily, from the classroom to television and movie theaters.Howe, who is an enrolled citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma as well as an award-winning author, playwright, and scholar who teaches in LAS's American Indian Studies program...
2006-09-01 - Astronomers will get a clearer view of deep space and our universe's origins with the new radio telescope array high in the Inyo Mountains in eastern California. The recently dedicated telescope array, in which the University of Illinois plays a key role, "will be the most powerful telescope of its type for years to come," says Richard Crutcher, professor of...
2006-09-01 - A University of Illinois economist disputes a widely publicized academic study that claimed to find statistical evidence of point shaving among college basketball teams that are strongly favored by Las Vegas bookmakers. Dan Bernhardt, a professor of economics in U. of I.'s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and co-researcher Steven Heston, a...
2006-09-01 - Crisp air, hot dogs barbequing, bands playing, fans cheering—it's time for the 95th Annual Homecoming. Come home to the University of Illinois this fall and reconnect with friends, faculty, and the Illini spirit. Come back for the old memories and the new. Visit old haunts, reflect on the good times with classmates, and cheer on the Fighting Illini football team as it takes on Indiana. ...
2006-09-01 - Like "cold case" detectives digging up clues from the past, University of Illinois scientists sifted through the genetic clues in living spruce trees and have come closer to solving some of the mysteries of how trees adapt to climate change.LAS researchers analyzed chloroplast DNA from 24 spruce forests in Alaska and Canada. They have determined that trees cannot migrate in response to climate...-
2006-09-01 - The University of Illinois has received the unusual distinction of having all seven of its international regional studies programs named as National Resource Centers (NRC's) by the U.S. Department of Education. Five of those centers are in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.Competition for the NRC grants is intense because only 142 centers were funded nationally. With all seven U. of I....
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2006-09-01 - Two researchers in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences were among the 56 researchers named as recipients of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on young professionals at the outset of their careers. The award, which was presented at the White House this past July, went to ...