Illinois Featured Content

The Chronicles of Higher Ed (Feb. 20) Professor Peter Goldsmith at the Illinois Soybean Lab: 'Initially, I briefed everyone at a staff meeting. I told them, “Do not do any work,”... I didn’t want them working and not getting paid for it.' 

Axios (April 17) SCOTUS will hear arguments next month over Trump’s efforts to restrict birthright citizenship. Illinois professor Michael LeRoy says that a Supreme Court ruling in Trump’s favor would have far-reaching legal repercussions.

University of Illinois scientists, experts, and Extension specialists weigh in on avian flu’s impact and discuss safety recommendations to help prevent further spread.  

CNN (June 11) Twitter has provided direct access to lawmakers, but 'there are now issues in how people see Twitter as a source of information and a source of political community,' says U of I media professor Rachel Kuo.

Anxiety about artificial intelligence has been driven by its rapid development as well as knowledge worker concerns about potentially being replaced by it, says Robert Brunner, chief disruption officer at the Gies College of Business.

Organized labor has fared considerably better during the Biden administration than it did during the Trump years, and would likely be better off under a Kamala Harris presidency, says Robert Bruno, a labor expert at Illinois. 

'Civil rights aren’t like colliding trains, where one civil right has to take precedence over another. Protecting civil rights is not a zero-sum game with winners and losers. Civil rights can be like puzzle pieces that can be made to fit together.'

U of I sociology professor Kevin Leicht is co-leading the development of a software app that will alert clinicians to medical misinformation circulating on social media so they can address it with patients if they choose.

Blockchain technology has the potential to transform industries ranging from health care to government, says Robert Brunner, the associate dean for innovation and chief disruption officer at the Gies College of Business.

WNIJ-AM (Aug. 1) Professor Dave Beck describes the legacy of St. Mary’s Training School for Boys in Maryville, Ill., where many Native American children were indoctrinated into white American culture, and where several of them died.

U of I's Prairie Research Institute provides a home to five state scientific surveys: the state Natural History Survey, Geological Survey, Water Survey, Sustainable Technology Center, and the State Archaeological Survey.

International relastions expert Nicholas Grossman, author of 'Drones and Terrorism: Asymmetric Warfare and the Threat to Global Security,' talks about the implications of the U.S. killing former al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri by drone.

'The stories of Illinois’ people are artificially segregated between the long-term Native inhabitants and the European newcomers. This creates a vision of discontinuity and simplistic stereotypes,' says retired U. of I. archaeologist Thomas Emerson.

Professor Damarys Canache talks about the Biden administration’s decision to ease sanctions on Venezuela, the migration crisis and the upcoming 2024 Venezuelan presidential election. 

Teacher shortages plaguing primary and secondary schools in the U.S. could be game-changers for people entering the field by boosting salaries and improving benefits and working conditions, said education professor Nancy Latham.

USA Today (Oct. 5) 'The real problem is that people try to say, "I know what's best for the school system, and for the library, and the library should reflect my own values – no matter what the values are of other people in the community."'
 

'I think this strike will last much longer than three months. In 1988, the writers were on strike for nearly 22 weeks. This time, they're striking over job-killing issues, such as the use of artificial intelligence in generating creative works.' 

Hilary was the first tropical storm to hit the California coast in 84 years. The combination of conditions that prompted the storm's path are not unheard of, but their timing and severity are unusual, says atmospheric sciences professor Deanne Hence. 

Professor Brian Gaines talks about the 2022 midterm elections, the message voters sent, what effect gerrymandering had, and what we can expect from a divided Congress, with a republican majority in the House, and a democratic majority in the Senate.

Although Trump made inroads with some demographics, political science professor Brian Gaines says he’s 'not confident that those swings reflect enduring changes of party loyalty rather than short-term candidate effects.' 

The H5N1 virus attacks specific body systems in each species and behaves very differently in each - it can cause widespread death in some animals while barely affecting others, says Illinois professor Dr. Jim Lowe. 

Professor Jerry Dávila, who specializes in the history of Brazil in the 20th century, spoke about civil unrest in Brazil. 'It was a coup attempt, and it was styled after the (Jan. 6, 2021) attack on the U.S. Capitol.'

Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (Nov. 29) Nuclear engineering professor Kathryn Huff and grad student Nathan Ryan write about plans to restart Palisades Nuclear Power Plant in Michigan and Three Mile Island Unit 1 in Pennsylvania.

WBEZ-FM (June 8) There is high demand for educational programs in prison but very few opportunities. Only about 600 inmates are enrolled in higher education programs, according to the Education Justice Project at the U. of I.

'So many people in prison hear what’s going on in their neighborhoods back home and wish they could be a source for peaceful resolutions, reconciliation and neighborhood upliftment. This program seeks to provide them with those skills.'

Following the loss of OceanGate's Titan submersible this week, U of I professor Viktor Gruev discusses the current state of the science behind underwater geolocation, and some advances his team is working on now.

The metaverse’s potential for transformation means it should be on everyone’s radar, says Robert Brunner, the associate dean for innovation and chief disruption officer at the Gies College of Business at Illinois.

Today (April 21)  Prebiotics and probiotics aren’t the same. U. of I. professor Kelly Swanson says prebiotics help support overall health and may have a number of benefits when consumed at a sufficient dose. 

Place-based knowledge fits a solution to a need, rather than the other way around. 'The impacts of climate change for farmers in Illinois, for example, are dramatically different than the impacts seen by the Navajo Nation in Arizona...'

Higher education should teach students how to understand each other across our differences. It’s about being exposed to diversities and learning to deal with them productively by talking, listening and trying to understand and empathize. 

This year saw good harvests in the Midwest and strong commodity prices, but the future is so uncertain. Commodity prices, input costs, and weather are all beyond the farmers' control - and those worries lead to mental health challenges.

Green Building & Design Magazine (Jan. 9) 'Superinsulation' is a staple of passive house construction. The term was coined in 1976 by U of I professor Wayne Schick to describe insulation with a very high R-value.

The best way to think of the Biden administration’s wide-ranging executive order on artificial intelligence is as a trial balloon to gauge what works, says Robert Brunner, chief disruption officer at U of I's Gies College of Business.

'The reality is, there is no real science basis for its repeal. The scientific evidence is very clear that our changing climate is almost entirely due to human activities, especially from the burning of fossil fuels,' says climate change expert Don Wuebbles.

Robert Brunner, the associate dean for innovation and chief disruption officer at the Gies College of Business, explains the cryptocurrency market.

'Quiet quitting' means forgoing the extra mile at work but is different than work withdrawal or employee disengagement, says U of I labor expert YoungAh Park, who studies work stress and recovery.

The state of U.S. labor and the labor movement in 2023 is 'very agitated,' reflecting decades of stagnant wage increases and deteriorating job quality, says Robert Bruno, a professor of labor and employment relations at Illinois.

Suja Thomas, who is working on a documentary related to her research on jury trials, speaks about the potential effect of the Trump criminal and civil trials on the public perception of trial by jury. 

For U.S. farmers, tariffs are a double whammy of paying more for imported goods such as fertilizer and losing out on export markets, says U. of I. agricultural expert Jonathan W. Coppess. 

A weakened Consumer Financial Protection Bureau likely won’t lead to another subprime mortgage meltdown but 'a steady ratcheting up of unfair practices' for the average consumer, says bankruptcy expert Robert Lawless.

Advertising professor Michelle Nelson has found that most adults – even those politically engaged – don't fully understand online targeting, sources and funding for political ads, or how political speech is treated differently from commercial speech.

Russian president Vladimir Putin weathered a recent insurrection by the Wagner mercenary group, but the crisis has damaged his standing, said Illinois professor of Slavic languages and literatures Richard Tempest.

First Amendment expert Lena Shapiro discusses the police raid on the Marion County Record, a small local newspaper in Marion, Kansas, owned by former U. of I. journalism professor Eric K. Meyer. 

The outlook for Syria’s future is mixed, but there are reasons to be optimistic, says Rana B. Khoury, a professor of political science who studies comparative and international politics, with a focus on the Middle East. 

'Oppenheimer' examines the process of building an organization of unprecedented scale and wrestles with how to view one individual’s decisions as relevant in the face of such a massive system, says Dean Kevin Hamilton.

Russian dissident Aleksei Navalny was able to unite activists and set the agenda for the anti-Putin movement. Now that he’s gone, the coalition he built might splinter, says Professor Richard Tempest.

Grist (June 30) Researchers have found that, even with adaptation, global warming is associated with 'almost a linear decline in caloric output,' says Andrew Hultgren, a professor of agricultural and consumer economics at the U. of I.

Bacteria, viruses in ocean water, for example, can be much more concentrated in jet droplets ejected during bubble bursting. Because the droplets are so small, the microorganisms are  dispersed into the surrounding air, carried by the wind, may be inhaled by people.

An expert in public health policy talks about what the 2020 shutdowns and the public responses to them have taught us about what works — and doesn’t work — in public health policy. 

The most likely outcome of the Clarence Thomas revelations is that the Supreme Court will announce new or clarified ethical standards for justices on the high court, says U of I law professor Jason Mazzone.