2008-02-01
- Chris Folkens began to dream of directing and producing films as a boy, after a brush with Hollywood. When he pursued that goal in earnest as a student at the University of Illinois, the Naperville, Ill., native saw the film industry's decidedly unglamorous, nitty-gritty side—and he still loved it....
LAS News Archive
2008-02-01 - Samuel Clemens had Mark Twain. Charles Dodgson used Lewis Carroll. And as was revealed recently by the online literary magazine McSweeney's, U of I English lecturer John Griswold has Oronte Churm. On its website, McSweeney's noted Griswold as the real person behind its periodic "...
2008-01-01 - If any ant could be said to have a Napoleon complex, it is the Argentine ant. These tiny, aggressive ants have a ferocious ability to conquer vast territories, devouring the larger native ants in their path. But they don't stop there. In a study in Rice Canyon in southern California, University of...
2008-01-01 - Margaret Lewis has been kicked by clients, hit over the head with a purse, and in one particularly tense moment had a gun aimed at her. It's certainly not what you would expect to happen to someone working in elder law. But as LAS alumna Lewis explains, "My clients are often suffering from...
2008-01-01 - Geography students in LAS have literally mapped the clothes on their backs to examine regional patterns in apparel manufacturing. So, what did they discover about where their jeans, sweatshirts, and socks were made? The top supplier of the students’ clothing...
2008-01-01 - When Donna Korol arrived at the University of Illinois in 2000, the move, she says, hit her "like a breath of fresh air." The spirit of cooperation and support among faculty struck her as unique. The assistant professor of psychology had worked at three universities prior to the U of I, but in...
2008-01-01 - Scientific American magazine recently named two LAS professors among its SciAM 50, which recognizes outstanding technological leadership by 50 individuals, teams, or companies in research, business, or policymaking each year. Jeffrey Moore, the the Murchison-Mallory Professor of...
2008-01-01 - Apparently the first humans to reach the New World took a while to get there. A geneticist at the University of Illinois believes that migrants from Asia lingered around a former land mass between Siberia and Alaska—called Beringia—for as long as 15,000 years before finally spreading south into the...
2008-01-01 - First came punk. Then came goth. Then came decades of goth, even as less enduring cultural phenomena of its period went the way of Sid Vicious and the Sex Pistols. Goth, it seems, in all its dark contrast to mainstream society, has a niche.That's the conclusion reached by Lauren Goodlad, a...
2007-12-01 - Susan Avery has spent years dealing with land and air. Now, she says, it's time to think some more about water. Avery, the first person to receive a doctorate in atmospheric sciences from the University of Illinois, in 1978, has been named the next...
2007-12-01 - One out of every four jobs will be IT-related by the year 2012, says the Bureau of Labor Statistics. With that trend in mind, the University of Illinois is offering an informatics minor to all of its students, beginning spring semester of 2008.Students from many disciplines report that as they...
2007-12-01 - When people think of deforestation of the Amazon rainforest, they usually picture clear-cutting, in which large swaths of trees are cut down in a single area. But LAS researchers have found that cutting down trees in a fishbone pattern has a surprisingly different impact than clear-cutting. Whether...
2007-12-01 - Want to help unravel the mysteries of the universe? A new distributed computing project designed by a University of Illinois researcher allows people around the world to participate in cutting-edge cosmology research by donating their unused computing cycles.The project is called...
2007-12-01 - Astronomers at the University of Illinois have found the first clear evidence for a cradle in space where planets and moons form. Using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, they've spotted a flattened envelope of gas and dust surrounding a young protostar that together, in theory, will someday form a...
2007-12-01 - Ann Abbott tells her students to recognize opportunity, and a few years ago she had these cards in hand: A frustration with classroom learning, plenty of undergrads, and word of a community aid organization that needed Spanish speakers. Her move, in fall 2004, was to create a test program in which...
2007-12-01 - When Jacquelyn Mitchard's young husband died of cancer in 1993, this mother of three, only in her 30s, says she could have easily withdrawn from the world. "I thought I would become one of those people who did not live life boldly," says Mitchard, an LAS alumna. "I was terrified that my kids would...
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...
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...
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...
2007-11-01 - Each year the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences recognizes a handful of its alumni for their outstanding accomplishments. These individuals, who were nominated by fellow alumni, are inspirations because of what they have accomplished in their lives and the honor they bring to their degree. We...
2007-11-01 - By the time someone is diagnosed with the deadly brain cancer known as glioblastoma multiforme, it is typically too late for treatment. Patients are usually dead within 12 months of the diagnosis. That's why LAS chemistry professor Ryan Bailey has...
2007-11-01 - Many colleges would envy the dilemma faced by U of I admissions offices. Rather than worrying about filling empty chairs, the University has been trying to find some.With more students than ever seeking—and accepting—admission to U of I, the University has faced record enrollments in each of the...
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...
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-...