News Bureau

A Facebook user experience researcher will be the keynote speaker Nov. 8 at the School of Information Sciences Research Showcase.

Funda Kivran-Swaine is a research manager at Facebook who has worked in user experience design and whose research focuses on computer-mediated communication. She will give the keynote address at 1 p.m. Nov. 8 in Illini Union Rooms A and B.

A lecture by educational psychologist Kathleen Gallagher is among the events planned to celebrate the Child Development Laboratory's 75th anniversary.

Working with exotic animals in the Small Animal Clinic involves a lot of thinking on my feet. Each type of animal comes with unique needs and challenges. Parrots often have nutritional deficiencies and, like humans, can develop atherosclerosis – the result of a poor diet and too much sedentary time. (We sometimes refer to them as “perch potatoes.”) Reptiles and mammals tend to develop fungal infections on their skin. Birds, snakes and mammals need stimulation and like to explore – with sometimes tragic results.

Passes for the 20th annual Roger Ebert’s Film Festival, coming in April, go on sale Nov. 1.

Alfred Broccardo

A U. of I. history professor takes a fresh look at the Russian Revolution on its centennial.

The phenomenon that forms interference patterns on television displays when a camera focuses on a pattern like a person wearing stripes has inspired a new way to conceptualize electronic devices. Researchers at the University of Illinois are showing how the atomic-scale version of this phenomenon may hold the secrets to help advance electronics design to the limits of size and speed. 

Traffic patterns in the campus area will be affected by the annual Homecoming Parade, which takes place Friday, Oct. 27 from 6 to 7 p.m.

Stemlike cells at the edge of melanoma tumors secrete factors to promote blood-vessel growth, allowing the cancer to grow and spread.

A series of events at the University of Illinois called Speculative Futures will bring artists together with technology innovators with the goal of sparking new creative projects at the intersection of computer science and science fiction.

The University Library will honor the only University of Illinois alumnus to receive the Medal of Honor.

The Education Justice Project at the University of Illinois is expanding its academic programs for men in prison with the support of a three-year, $1 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Tchk-tchk-tchktchk

I stop dead in my tracks. Despite the howling prairie winds, that unmistakable sound cuts through the bluster and into my ears. My eyes search the ground, scanning through the prairie grasses, yucca, scoria and prickly pear. Nothing.

Soil moisture levels improved throughout the state during the first half of October, said Jennie Atkins, Water and Atmospheric Resources Monitoring program manager at the Illinois State Water Survey, part of the Prairie Research Institute at the U. of I.

Vastly expanding sugarcane production in Brazil for conversion to ethanol could reduce current global carbon dioxide emissions by as much as 5.6 percent, researchers report in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Nancy L. Davis ... The Rev. James “Jim” Patrick Fitzsimmons ... Hüseyin Leblebici ... Melvin Rothbaum ... Marcia Lynne Siders

This summer, 10 undergraduate students performed research using advanced imaging and microscopy technologies through the Discoveries in Bioimaging Research Experience for Undergraduates.

Fall semester fair helps students find local employers.

Journalism project creates a space for dialogue.

Don’t be fooled by the name, the wildlife and chronic wasting disease research group has a broader mission than you might think. Yes, the research focuses on white-tailed deer, primarily, and on CWD, a baffliing affliction of deer and elk. But for the dozens of undergraduate students who have joined this collaborative effort over the years, the group also is a portal, of sorts, to wide-ranging adventures in research.

Interactive art studio at University of Illinois teaches students coding, building circuits

Social Work Ambassadors promote the School of Social Work programs, courses to students curious about the major and the careers available to alumni with degrees in the field.

Escape the room if you can, but the physics is inescapable.

Pinshane Huang, a professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is among 18 early career researchers to receive 2017 Packard Fellowships from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

In the summer of 2012, two undergraduate students tackled a problem that plant ecology experts had overlooked for 30 years. The students demonstrated that different plant species vary in how they take in carbon dioxide and emit water through stomata, the pores in their leaves. The data boosted the accuracy of mathematical models of carbon and water fluxes through plant leaves by 30 to 60 percent.

Populations of largemouth bass, bluegill, catfish and other sportfish are at the highest levels recorded in more than a century in the Illinois River, according to a new report. Their dramatic recovery, from populations close to zero near Chicago throughout much of the 20th century, began just after implementation of the Clean Water Act, the researchers say.

Mass killings may have increasing news coverage, but the events themselves have happened at a steady rate for more than a decade, according to a new study by University of Illinois researchers.

The Estonian ambassador to the U.S. will address the state of the European Union as part of EU Day on Oct. 20.

The first time we see Elliot, he has a fractured jaw and a bad prognosis. He is a senior rescue dog. The family has only had him for a couple of years, but their 16-year-old daughter has given him his own tiny purple Mohawk hairdo. Clearly, he’s a keeper. The family isn’t sure how Elliot broke his jaw. They say maybe he took a spill off a table. But the dog has such severe dental disease that anything could have caused it.

Sharon M. Donovan, a professor of nutrition and the Melissa M. Noel Endowed Chair in Nutrition and Health at the University of Illinois, was elected today (Oct. 16) to the National Academy of Medicine.

College students considering careers in fields like archaeology or geology that require extensive work at remote field sites might want to find out how potential supervisors and advisers conduct themselves in the field. Do they establish clear ground rules for the behavior of everyone on the team? Are the rules consistently enforced? According to a new report, such factors likely influence whether students will witness or experience harassment while working far from home.

The Carle Illinois College of Medicine, the first engineering-based medical school, has received preliminary acreditation from the Liaison Committee on Medical Education and is recruiting students for its first class.

Health staff at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are following up with others who may have been in close contact with a student who is hospitalized for treatment of meningococcal meningitis.

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s largest, most ambitious philanthropic campaign was introduced to donors, alumni, faculty and staff, students and local community members Friday evening.

By mimicking the eye of the mantis shrimp, Illinois researchers have developed an ultra-sensitive camera capable of sensing both color and polarization. The bioinspired imager can potentially improve early cancer detection and help provide a new understanding of underwater phenomena, the researchers said.

Mildred Luther ... Dr. John Roger Powell ... Dr. George “Bruce” Thow

Engineers at the University of Illinois have taken a step forward in developing a saltwater desalination process that is potentially cheaper than reverse osmosis and borrows from battery technology. In their study, the researchers are focusing on new materials that could make desalination of brackish waters economically desirable and energy efficient.

News media are invited to set up for the Urbana campus's fundraising campaign inaugural event at the State Farm Center as early as 6:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 13.

A cholesterol byproduct facilitates breast cancer’s spread by hijacking immune cells, a new University of Illinois study found.

Japan House at the University of Illinois will host two prominent cultural figures from Japan this month -- Senko Ikenobo, the first female headmaster designate of the Ikenobo Ikebana School of Floral Art, and bamboo artist Noboru Fujinuma, a Living National Treasure of Japan.

Nancy C. Brady, an expert on pre-language communication and language development in young children, will give the annual Goldstick Family Lecture in the Study of Communication Disorders at the University of Illinois.

Making sense of the Arab Spring is the aim of U. of I. Middle East expert Asef Bayat, in a new book.

Some plants behave like the mythical monster Hydra: Cut off their heads and they grow back, bigger and better than before. A new study finds that these “overcompensators,” as they are called, also augment their defensive chemistry – think plant venom – when they are clipped.

University Primary School, the laboratory school of the College of Education, is hosting an open house for the community Thursday, Oct. 19. The school is located at the Children’s Research Center, 51 Gerty Drive, Champaign.

A new research study presents a perspective on the social and political views of white working-class communities.

Researchers at the University of Illinois are working to turn a complex materials design problem into an intuitive concept, understandable to engineers from novice to advanced experience levels. The group developed guidelines to help understand materials engineered to become thicker when stretched. This highly useful property, which is not commonly found in nature, has applications for protective sports equipment, body armor and biomedical devices.

As a veterinary dermatologist, I see my share of unusual cases. I’ve treated a cheetah with dental disease, an itchy wallaroo, an alpaca with allergies and an alligator snapping turtle with an obstructed throat. But infections in dogs, cats and other critters can be among the most difficult conditions to treat.

Today’s college students are slightly less narcissistic than their counterparts were in the 1990s, researchers report in a new study – not significantly more, as some have proposed. The study, reported in the journal Psychological Science, analyzed data from 1,166 students at the University of California, Berkeley in the 1990s, and from tens of thousands of students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of California, Davis in the 2000s and 2010s. All of the students completed the Narcissism Personal Inventory, the oldest and most widely used measure of narcissism.

Illinois research scientist, NCSA Gravity Group leader Eliu Huerta Escudero on what gravitational waves are, how they were discovered, and the huge data processing effort behind the breakthrough

Ken Gunji ... Richard Pelczar ... Walter E. Schroeder