2007-09-01
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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...
2007-06-01 - Just finishing his senior year at the University of Illinois, Don Ferguson would have been happy doing odd jobs on the movie set of Welcome to Tolono. Little did he know that he would be promoted six times, finally winding up as a producer on this movie, which was directed by a top television writer. Ferguson, a 2006 LAS graduate from U of I, also served as an assistant editor on Welcome to...
2007-06-01 - The camera clicks a photograph of a boy's hand. Then the computer inserts the photo of the boy's hand into a long lineup of hands of many colors. The lineup shows exactly where his skin color falls among hands of different shades, ranging from light to dark.This interactive museum feature, known as "The Colors We Are," underscores one of the primary themes of a new, acclaimed traveling exhibit...
2007-06-01 - Politicians are known for their fancy footwork, whether it's sidestepping questions or dancing around touchy issues. But Ulric Shannon prefers to tackle political issues head-on and saved the fancy footwork for House Arrest 2, the nationally known hip-hop dance group in which he performed.Shannon, who majored in political science and minored in...
2007-06-01 - For most organisms, survival comes down to a choice: energy either goes towards a longer life or the proliferation of their own genes. But the lucky queen bee enjoys both."The queen bee has her cake and eats it too," says entomologist Gene Robinson, the principal investigator of a study that is closing in on her secret. "She's an egg-laying...
2007-06-01 - The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences extends congratulations to Brian Heery, a past president of the LAS Alumni Association, who was named as one of the 2007 recipients of a University of Illinois Alumni Association Constituent Leadership Award on the Urbana campus. The award, which was established in 1984, recognizes an alumnus or alumna who has demonstrated extraordinary leadership and/or...
2007-05-01 - "Bio-fouling" is a problem that has been recorded as far back as 412 B.C. Even Christopher Columbus described the ways he battled bio-fouling-the growth of microorganisms, plants, algae, and animals on the bottom of ship hulls. Today, bio-fouling is also a nagging problem at water purification and desalination facilities, where growths can build up on membrane filters. However, LAS researchers...-
2007-05-01 - Renée Baillargeon, the University of Illinois Alumni Distinguished Professor of Psychology, has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She and the other 226 newly elected fellows will be honored at the annual Induction Ceremony on Oct. 6 at academy headquarters in Cambridge, Mass.Other...
2007-05-01 - Mookie Lee never thought that a glass of water, a couch, and a mattress could look so good. But after spending 30 days on a primitive island, licking water off of plants, sleeping on the ground, and fighting an army of mosquitoes and flies, "I really learned to appreciate the small things in life," says Lee, a 2003 LAS graduate in actuarial science.Lee had reached the Elite Eight in CBS's popular...
2007-05-01 - An early Native American writer who has been a largely forgotten figure is entering the canon and getting the recognition she has long deserved. Research by Robert Dale Parker brings out for the first time the remarkable body of writing of Jane Johnston Schoolcraft and the fascinating story of her life and work. Jane Johnston Schoolcraft (1800-1842) was an Ojibwe Indian from the Great Lakes...
2007-05-01 - What started as a secret society has spread to colleges and universities across the country and has now left its mark at the University of Illinois for 100 years. Phi Beta Kappa, the oldest and most distinguished national honor society for liberal arts students-and the first society to have a Greek-letter name-established a chapter at the U of I in 1907, so the group is celebrating its centennial...
2007-05-01 - The gross receipts tax proposed by Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, while a welcome step in tackling the state's budget shortfall, is a flawed approach to taxation, according to a University of Illinois expert. The proposed tax, which would be levied on transactions between businesses and between businesses and consumers, is a textbook case of an "inefficient tax" that penalizes smaller businesses...
2007-05-01 - To strengthen the collaboration between the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and its alumni, the LAS Alumni Association Board of Directors has added more members to its traditional dozen. The 2007-08 board is now 15 volunteers strong, including a new student representative position.Alice Faron (AB '70, sociology) of Champaign consults with Scherer Schneider Paulick...
2007-05-01 - When a plume of contaminated groundwater from a manufacturing plant near Las Vegas seeped into the Colorado River, the contaminant "perchlorate" spread throughout the Southwest. The cleanup could take decades. To aid with such catastrophic cleanups, LAS researchers from the University of Illinois have developed a new chemical catalyst that can help remove and destroy perchlorate in contaminated...-
2007-05-01 - In the Boston Marathon, the legendary "Heartbreak Hill" has broken many spirits with its grueling climb. For LAS student Amanda McGrory, however, it was the downhill portion of the race that posed the greatest challenge, as she finished second this April in the women's wheelchair division of the Boston Marathon. Going downhill, wheelchairs can reach breakneck speeds over 30 miles per...
2007-05-01 - Many forms of marine life have developed hard shells to protect themselves from predators. But these shells may be needing protection themselves, for they are under siege by increasing levels of acidity in our oceans, reports a new study by atmospheric scientists in LAS.Ocean acidity is rising as seawater absorbs more carbon dioxide, which is being released into the atmosphere by many sources,...
2007-05-01 - DNA necklaces were de rigueur at this spring's School of Molecular and Cellular Biology's (MCB) open house. You could get one by swishing a dash of Gatorade around your cheeks for 30 seconds, and then spitting it out into a solution of dish soap and ethanol. What emerged was a three-layered concoction: ethanol on top, Gatorade and dish soap solution on...
2007-04-01 - Thomas Jefferson believed that a country's constitution should be rewritten every 19 years. Instead, the U.S. Constitution, which Jefferson did not help to write (he was in Paris serving as U.S. minister to France when the Constitutional Convention was held in Philadelphia), has prevailed since 1789. "Jefferson thought the dead should not rule the living, thus constitutions should expire...
2007-04-01 - Sam Clemens led a rich and complex life-sometimes as Mark Twain, sometimes not. He usually is remembered as a journalist, stand-up comic, world traveler, philosopher, and literary giant.But even a resume like that doesn't tell the whole story or catch the most interesting dimension for our moment in time: Sam Clemens was obsessed with media technology, exhilarated by it, and boggled by it, says...
2007-04-01 - The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences gratefully acknowledges the following individuals for their excellence in teaching and advising in 2007. Their contributions are vital to maintaining LAS as a great college. Academic Advising Award Deneen DeMarie, Psychology Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching by Graduate Teaching Assistants...
2007-04-01 - Superbugs beware. LAS researchers have discovered a way of producing more effective "lantibiotics"-naturally occurring antibiotics that may be used to target drug-resistant bacterial "superbugs."The number of bacteria resistant to antibiotics has increased significantly in the last decade, making it "one of the world's most pressing public health problems," says the Centers for Disease Control...