blog posts

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  What if a single technology could boost future supplies of both water and energy?

  Feb 5, 2016 11:00 am0 views

  Gizmag (Feb. 4) - Researchers at Illinois have designed a new battery that not only relies on salt water to store and release electricity, but removes the salt ions from the water in the process.

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  Could Robert Mueller indict Trump? It would be the first indictment of a sitting president

  Feb 5, 2018 1:00 pm0 views

  Politico (Feb. 2) Mueller may lack the legal standing to bring those charges, says Ronald Rotunda, a professor emeritus of law at Illinois

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  'Insects run the planet, something most people don't know'

  Feb 5, 2020 1:00 pm0 views

  Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Feb. 4) Illinois professor May Berenbaum will deliver the keynote address, 'How humans affect insect evolution without even realizing it,' at a celebration of the life, works of Charles Darwin. 

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  One of the problems with bats, if you’re a robotics expert, is that they have so many joints.

  Feb 6, 2017 11:30 am0 views

  NPR (Feb. 3) That’s what robotics researchers at Illinois and the California Institute of Technology quickly learned when they set out to build a robot version of the flying mammal.

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  Who will pay for Americans to live to 100? The financial aspects have been ignored

  Feb 8, 2016 12:00 pm0 views

  Next Avenue (Feb. 8) - “As a society, we have to get serious about encouraging people to stay in the labor force longer and have longer careers,” says Illinois economist Jeffrey Brown. 

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  Washington Post (Feb. 5) - We're all susceptible to 'mis-remembering'

  Feb 9, 2015 1:45 pm0 views

  The Washington Post (Feb. 5) -- When we tell stories about our lives, most of us never have our memories questioned. NBC's Brian Williams, like other high-profile people in the past, is finding out what happens when someone does. Even scientists who specialize in memory research are susceptible to mis-remembering.

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  New medical school will train next generation of doctors to revolutionize health care

  Feb 9, 2018 1:45 pm0 views

  Chicago Tribune (Feb. 8) U of I's Carle Illinois College of Medicine bills itself as the nation's first medical program designed from inception to integrate engineering with medicine

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  NYT (Feb. 9) - Illinois governor acts to curb power of public sector unions

  Feb 10, 2015 10:00 am0 views

  NYT (Feb. 9) - Illinois professor Bob Bruno, director of the labor education program, said the governor’s action was an aggression against public unions in a state where organized labor’s influence runs deep. 

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  Research shows children's sibling relationships produce both postive and negative feelings

  Feb 10, 2017 12:45 pm0 views

  Chicago Tribune (Feb. 9) Illinois Professor Laurie Kramer says, 'Sibling relationships are very safe relationships for children to explore,' and  help children learn how to interact with people and conflict

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  U. of I. researchers study how information moves across social media, affecting people’s beliefs

  Feb 12, 2018 12:15 pm0 views

  Seattle Times (Feb. 11) Tarek Abdelzaher, a professor of computer science at Illinois, is leading a team that received a five-year grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. 

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  Trump expansion of land mine use may cause more civilian casualties, alienate allies

  Feb 12, 2020 1:30 pm0 views

  Los Angeles Times (Feb. 10) Illinois law professor Lesley Wexler writes about the implications of the Trump administration’s recently announced intent to expand the U.S. armed forces’ use of land mines.

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  Illlinois is finally getting a medical school. The twist?

  Feb 13, 2017 12:30 pm0 views

  Chicago Business Journal (Feb. 13) The Carle Illinois College of Medicine is being conceived as an engineering-based school of medicine.

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  Law Dean Vikram Amar co-writes op-ed on the Supreme Court vacancy

  Feb 16, 2016 2:15 pm0 views

  Los Angeles Times (Feb. 16) - The situation created by the death of Antonin Scalia mirrors a similar case 28 years ago.

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  Fungicides used to protect crops could be hurting honey bees

  Feb 16, 2017 11:00 am0 views

  NPR (Feb. 16) A study conducted by Illinois entomologist May Berenbaum and colleagues found that fungicides can harm bees by making it harder for them to metabolize their food.

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  Agweek (Feb. 16) -- A forecast for fewer acres planted in corn for 2015

  Feb 17, 2015 10:00 am0 views

  Agweek (Feb. 16) -- According to Illinois agricultural economist Darrel Good, there is a general consensus that U.S. producers will plant fewer acres of corn in 2015 than were planted in 2014 and increase acreage of higher-valued and lower-cost crops.

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  Lignan: The greatest technical barrier to cost-effective ethanol

  Feb 17, 2016 1:15 pm0 views

  Phys.org (Feb. 16) - Josh Vermaas, a graduate student at Illinois, contributed significantly to research efforts to overcome this barrier. 

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  100+ researchers have taken a U of I workshop for genomics researchers, Indigenous communities

  Feb 17, 2020 1:15 pm0 views

  Washington Post (Feb. 16) 'Having better science isn’t just about keeping science in the ivy tower of academia; science is about helping communities,' says program founder, genomic researcher Ripan Malhi

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  SNAP online availability about to explode, but some worry it won't fully address food insecurity

  Feb 17, 2021 11:15 am0 views

  Grocery Dive (Feb. 16) Professor Craig Gundersen says online payments aren’t likely to make much of a dent in solving food insecurity or in reaching the majority of recipients. 

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  Scientists find increasing concentrations of mercury in rainwater

  Feb 19, 2016 8:30 am0 views

  Scientific American (Feb. 19) - Several years after scientists thought they had put the problem to rest, Illinois researchers have discovered increasing concentrations of mercury, this time in rainwater. “It’s a surprising result,” says David Gay from Illinois, who is a co-author on the new study.

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  Climate science deniers hoping to influence 2022 assessment of climate impacts

  Feb 19, 2020 1:00 pm0 views

  Scientific American (Feb. 18) U of I professor who oversaw the last assessment says Trump science advisor Kelvin Droegemeier will work to produce an assessment free of Trump’s erroneous assertions about climate change.

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  Coyote numbers have rebounded. Some 2,000 are even in Chicago

  Feb 20, 2017 2:30 pm0 views

  Chicgo Tribune (Feb. 20) Illinois Extension agrees that “coyote population reduction (removing some or all of the coyotes in an area) is usually unrealistic and always temporary.”   

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  To make things easier for plant breeders, Illinois researchers turned to unmanned aerial vehicles

  Feb 21, 2017 11:15 am0 views

  AZOrobotics (Feb. 21) “When drones became available, we asked ourselves how we could apply this new technology to breeding." U of I soybean breeder Brian Diers

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  MLB’s newly altered baseball may change game’s analytics approach

  Feb 22, 2021 11:00 am0 views

  Yahoo Sports (Feb. 19) Scientists have determined that the change will result 'in a small reduction in the distance of a typical fly ball,' which could have an immediate impact on strategy and the way the game is played, says professor Alan Nathan.

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  The weather in Texas last week was terrible, but 'unprecedented'? No

  Feb 23, 2021 10:15 am0 views

  Washington Post (Feb. 22) Weather data from the U of I's Midwest Regional Climate Center makes clear that, while February 2021 was indeed unusually cold, it was not unprecedented.

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  Before high tech, people used observation, experience to predict weather

  Feb 25, 2021 12:00 pm0 views

  Discover Magazine (Feb. 24) 'When they looked at the sky, it wasn’t just an indication of what was happening right then, but could be an indication of what was going to happen,' says Illinois atmospheric scientist Sonia Lasher-Trapp.

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  'Fight for $15' movement relishes minimum wage victory in Illinois, presses on for union rights

  Feb 26, 2019 8:30 am0 views

  Chicago Tribune (Feb. 22) Workers haven’t seen such a sweeping benefit since the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act in the 1930s, says Illinois labor expert Bob Bruno.

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  In Trump farm bailout, top 1% reaped nearly one-fourth of aid

  Feb 26, 2021 10:15 am0 views

  Bloomberg (Feb. 24) 'This certainly adds to the questions about the way that program was designed,' says U of I professor Jonathan Coppess, who ran the federal agency that administers farm subsidies during the Obama administration.

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  Black-owned ad agency reflects on popular 70s TV commercials

  Mar 1, 2021 11:15 am0 views

  WLS-TV (Feb. 28) 'In the 1970s if you saw African Americans in a TV advertisement – which is still a relative rarity, but especially for a company like Coca-Cola or McDonald’s – it was done by Burrell advertising agency,' says advertising professor Jason Chambers.

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  Team explores path toward endless supply of clean energy with controlled nuclear fusion

  Mar 3, 2017 1:00 pm0 views

  R&D Magazine (Rockaway, N.J., March 2) – Controlled nuclear fusion has been a Holy Grail for physicists who seek an endless supply of clean energy. Scientists at Rice University, Illinois and the University of Chile offer a glimpse into a possible new path toward that goal.

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  FDA approves U of I's saliva COVID-19 test: ‘We’re wasting no time in deploying this'

  Mar 3, 2021 8:45 am0 views

  Chicago Tribune (March 1) The U. of I. has relied on the test to keep its three campuses open for in-person learning since the fall, garnering national attention for the innovation and running more than 1.5 million samples to date.