News Bureau

We spent last night in Yellowstone’s backcountry, at Grebe Lake, a lovely lake at the base of the Washburn Range. For most of the students, this was their first experience backpacking: carrying a tent, sleeping bag and food into the backcountry. They had to learn a few new skills, like how to hang food from a bear pole. Some also had to adjust emotionally to the idea of sleeping in the middle of grizzly country.

Look into any nutrient-rich pond almost anywhere in the world and you will find Daphnia pulex, a tiny crustacean (also called a water flea) that is a source of food for fish and fascination for scientists. A new study, reported in the journal Molecular Ecology, offers insights into this creature’s ability to disperse and its remarkable success in the wild.

We spent yesterday in Grand Teton National Park, hiking Cascade Canyon. Today we’re in Jackson, Wyoming, just south of the park and a very different setting

A Minute With...™ John Murphy, professor of communication and an expert on political rhetoric

University of Illinois students will have opportunities to hear musical performances, meet musicians and learn more about the arts, thanks to a $1 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The four-year grant will support arts initiatives on campus by the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts.

Currently the executive associate dean of the College of Agricultural, Human and Natural Resource Sciences at Washington State University, Kimberlee Kidwell will be the new U. of I. dean of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences effective Nov. 1, pending approval by the University of Illinois Board of Trustees. She also will hold the inaugural Robert A. Easter Chair.

Despite their significant presence in the Constitution, juries have largely disappeared from the U.S. legal system, according to a recently published book by University of Illinois law professor Suja A. Thomas.

A Minute With...™ Jerry Dávila, expert on the history of Brazil and director of the Lemann Institute for Brazilian Studies at Illinois

A Minute With...™ political scientist Damarys Canache

I drive slowly over the hilly terrain in Fossil Basin and park near the remnants of an old campsite. In the 1950s and early 1960s, botanist Herman Becker camped here and collected fossil insects and plants from the Renova Formation’s paper shales. We are the first, since Becker, to explore this fossil bed. Our work begins where his left off.

A new study from the University of Illinois confirms a link between routine Pap smear screenings and a lower risk of developing cervical cancer in women over age 65. However, most American health guidelines discourage women in that age range from receiving screenings unless they have pre-existing risk factors.

A recent analysis of online conversations about President Obama’s proposed plan for tuition-free community colleges, America’s College Promise, indicates that a significant number of people oppose the plan because it lacks measures to help them and the millions of other borrowers currently mired in student loan debt.

New research focuses on a fundamental human habit: When trying to explain something (why people give roses for Valentine’s Day, for example), we often focus on the traits of the thing itself (roses are pretty) and not its context (advertisers promote roses). In a new study, researchers found that people who tend to focus on “inherent traits” and ignore context also are more likely to assume that the patterns they see around them are good.

In a new report, dozens of scientists, health practitioners and children’s health advocates are calling for renewed attention to the growing evidence that many common and widely available chemicals endanger neurodevelopment in fetuses and children of all ages.

Cheryl Hanley-Maxwell will join the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as dean of the College of Applied Health Sciences effective Aug. 16, pending approval by the University of Illinois Board of Trustees.

I’m sitting near the top of our fossil excavation site in southwest Montana, my hammer and shovel ready. I have a perfect view of the mountains. A wall of fossil-laden shale lies before me, and I’m ready to dig in. This is our fourth day digging, and despite the early hour, I'm trembling with excitement. Today I might find something new, something no human has ever seen.

High school students investigate Ebola-like outbreaks and administer vaccines through Outbreak!, a new summer course at Illinois that uses online games to encourage critical thinking about fighting infectious diseases. 

A Minute With...™ Illinois State Geological Survey director Richard Berg

The creators of a novel substance abuse treatment program have received an infusion of funding from a federal agency for an expanded study of their intervention, which targets marginalized populations who struggle with problems such as racism, sexism, poverty and histories of incarceration.

A Minute With...™ labor expert Robert Bruno

Standing at the foot of the mountains, I look to the east. It’s still early and I have hiked up here alone to gather my thoughts. I can see why they call this “Big Sky Country.” The tree-covered foothills of the mountains behind me give way to rolling scrubland. Stunted trees mark the edges of dry creek beds cut into the soft rocks below. The sun sparkles on the surface of a reservoir in the valley several miles away, and beyond that, another mountain range rises to meet the sky. This is southwest Montana and I’m here to hunt.

A new study begins to clarify how brain structure and chemistry give rise to specific aspects of what researchers call “fluid intelligence,” the ability to adapt to new situations and to solve problems one has never encountered before.

A Minute With...™ veterinary diagnostic laboratory professor Adam Stern

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — It’s called the latitudinal diversity gradient, a phenomenon seen today in most plant and animal species around the world: Biodiversity decreases from the equator to higher latitudes. A new study of fossils representing 63 million of the past 65 million years reveals that – for North American mammals, at least – the modern LDG is the exception rather than the rule.

After driving the winding dirt roads of Yalbac Ranch, we venture for 20 minutes into a steep ravine surrounded by dense jungle. Cicadas sing to us from above as we approach Pool 1, a 60-plus-meter-deep cenote (steep-sided sinkhole fed by groundwater). It is difficult to see the pool at first.  But, as the truck tires grind over loose limestone, making those sitting in the back of the truck bounce, a water temple and the pool appear to emerge from the jungle. Previous VOPA excavations show that 1,300 years ago, Maya came from different regions of the lowlands to this sacred pool. 

Illinois budget impasse: A Minute With…™ Christopher Z. Mooney, expert on Illinois politics

National Park Service at 100: A Minute With™ parks and politics expert Robert Pahre

With maps and infographics, the Illinois Austerity Atlas visually chronicles the impacts the state budget impasse has had on social services, higher education, youth programs and public health.

Rethinking inequality and its causes: A Minute With™ sociologist Kevin Leicht

Podiums that don't match a speaker's proportions can undermine the speaker's message by diminishing him or her to a disembodied head. University of Illinois architecture professor Kathryn Anthony helped to design a podium that can be adjusted for people of different heights and for wheelchair users.

We are working in the the cleared agricultural fields near Cara Blanca Pool 7, a pre-Columbian residential area in west central Belize. Hundreds of ancient Maya structures once housed a thriving community here. Now the area is being converted into farmland, and our job is to salvage what we can before the plows sheer off this history, layer by layer.

A series of modifications to federal student financial aid policy have eroded perceptions of higher education as a public good in the U.S., creating a “flawed” financial aid system that promotes both personal debt and tuition increases, suggests a new study by University of Illinois scholars Daniel A. Collier and Richard Herman.

Japan House has developed a mobile guide to its gardens, which visitors can listen to on their phones for a self-guided tour.

A Minute With...™ Robin Fretwell Wilson, director of the Program in Family Law and Policy

A Minute With...™ Kathryn Anthony, an Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture Distinguished Professor of architecture

Clinical trials of the anti-cancer agent PAC-1 are continuing to expand, thanks to a $7 million angel investment from an anonymous contributor who originally invested $4 million to help get the compound this far in the drug-approval pipeline.

The U.S. has been a leading voice for human rights. It’s also run prison camps, now and in the past, that denied people those rights. A. Naomi Paik wanted to explore that contradiction – finding out why these camps were organized, how they were justified, how prisoners have been treated and their response to that treatment. The result is her book “Rightlessness: Testimony and Redress in U.S. Prison Camps since World War II,” published in April.

A Minute With...™ Jacob Sosnoff, professor of kinesiology and community health

A new educational software application under development at the University of Illinois is introducing middle school students to the topic of climate change and showing them how their dietary choices affect the planet.

People who had outstanding balances on their student loans when they graduated or dropped out of college had lower net worth, fewer financial and nonfinancial assets, and homes with lower market values when they reached age 30, according to a paper by University of Illinois social work professor Min Zhan.

A curriculum that has involved hundreds of Illinois youths in advocating for policy changes in their communities also could help schools fulfill a new state mandate that makes civics education a requirement for high school graduation.

A Minute With...™ Sheldon Jacobson, expert on aviation security

It is early May in central Belize, nearing the end of the dry season. While farmers anxiously await the beginning of the rainy season vital for crops, archaeologists hope it starts as late as possible. Tropical storms transform the landscape, making it difficult to get around, even in four-wheel-drive vehicles. Also, excavating in the clayey mud is not fun.

When hiring slows during recessions, the brunt of job losses is borne by job-seekers in their twenties and early thirties, according to a new paper by Eliza Forsythe, a professor of labor and employment relations and of economics at Illinois.

A new study reveals that police recruits and experienced officers are more likely than others to subscribe to colorblind racial beliefs – the notion that they – and people in general – see no differences among people from different racial groups and treat everyone the same.

The water going down the drain could help keep the lights on, according to a new study showing that reclaimed water – municipal wastewater that has been treated or cleaned – could be more efficient for cooling power plants than water taken from the local environment.

The history of Latinos in baseball is the subject of a new documentary, “Playing America’s Game,” which premieres Saturday, May 21, on the Big Ten Network. A production of BTN and the University of Illinois, the film profiles U. of I. history professor Adrian Burgos Jr., a leading expert on Latino baseball history.

A new study concludes that parental depression contributes to greater brain activity in areas linked to risk taking in adolescent children, likely leading to more risk-taking and rule-breaking behaviors. While previous research has found associations between clinically depressed parents and their teenagers’ risk taking, the new study is the first to find corresponding changes in the adolescents’ brains.

A Minute With…™ Julian Reif, expert in health care economics

When academics choose to litigate speech disputes with colleges and universities, they end up losing nearly three-quarters of the time – a finding that points to the growing tension between academic freedom and campus speech codes, says U. of I. labor and employment relations professor Michael LeRoy.