blog posts

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  Mantis shrimp-inspired camera provides second opinion during cancer surgery

  May 5, 2021 12:30 pm0 views

  Illinois researchers have returned their gaze to the natural world to develop a camera inspired by the mantis shrimp that can visualize cancer cells during surgery.

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  Paper: Work-refusal safety laws serve employees poorly during pandemic

  May 4, 2021 8:45 am0 views

  Current work-refusal laws are out-of-step with modern workplaces and provide meager benefits to employees who decline to work when faced with risks involving chemicals, radiation and other invisible hazards such as COVID-19, study finds.

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  Previously unrecognized tsunami hazard identified in coastal cities

  May 3, 2021 3:15 pm2 views

  A new study found overlooked tsunami hazards related to undersea, near-shore strike-slip faults, especially for coastal cities adjacent to faults that traverse inland bays. 

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  Institute for Genomic Biology: Piecing together the LanCL puzzle

  May 3, 2021 11:00 am4 views

  These are important proteins, even if we don't know exactly what they do. 'A third of the mice that lack these enzymes die when they are between four to six months old...and we still don’t understand why,' said Professor Jie Chen. 

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  Beckman team builds better tool for assessing infant brain health

  Apr 29, 2021 8:30 am6 views

  Their open-access tool will help doctors and researchers assess infant brain metabolite levels. High or low metabolite levels in the brain may be the first sign of problems with brain function or development.

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  People of color hardest hit by air pollution from nearly all sources

  Apr 28, 2021 1:15 pm2 views

  Study that finds that nearly all major emissions categories contribute to the systemic air pollution exposure disparity experienced by people of color.

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  Study finds green spaces linked to lower racial disparity in COVID-19 infection rates

  Apr 28, 2021 11:15 am6 views

  Several factors could be at play. Researchers proposed that a greater proportion of green spaces makes it more likely that Black and white individuals have more equal access to the green spaces and the accompanying health benefits.

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  Study: Spring forest flowers likely a key to bumble bee survival

  Apr 28, 2021 9:00 am4 views

  The scarcity of early season flowers in forests – a primary food source for bumble bees in spring – likely endangers the queen bees’ ability to start their nesting season and survive until other floral resources become available, researchers say.

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  Geographies of death: COVID health disparities in Greater Santiago

  Apr 27, 2021 9:00 am2 views

  People up to age 40 living in economically depressed municipalities in the Greater Santiago, Chile, metropolitan area were three times more likely to die as a result of the infection than their counterparts in wealthier areas, researchers report.

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  COVID-19 mobility restrictions effective for short duration, study finds

  Apr 22, 2021 4:45 pm2 views

  Attempts at restricting people’s mobility to control the spread of COVID-19 may be effective only for a short period, researchers said.

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  Public school speech case is potential watershed moment for cyberbullying

  Apr 19, 2021 8:30 am2 views

  U of I professor says an upcoming U.S. Supreme Court case will be a major test of the First Amendment rights of K-12 public school students as well as the authority of administrators to discipline students for cyberbullying.

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  Channel migration plays leading role in river network evolution, study finds

  Apr 14, 2021 1:00 pm2 views

  Illinois researchers developed a new model that can help land use and infrastructure planners understand what today’s rivers might look like millions of years into the future.

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  Suppression of COVID-19 peaks reflect time-dependent social activity, not herd immunity

  Apr 14, 2021 9:00 am4 views

  Researchers showed that a temporary state of collective immunity - 'transient collective immunity' - emerged during early, fast-paced stages of the epidemic. But subsequent surges continued to appear because of changing social behaviors. 

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  Social comparisons with similar people determine income's effect on happiness

  Apr 13, 2021 10:45 am2 views

  The ability to compare ourselves with people of similar backgrounds, both people who earn more and others who earn less, determines how our income affects our happiness – not the absolute amount we earn.

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  Young adults may provide care for older relatives much more frequently than thought

  Apr 12, 2021 10:00 am2 views

  The vast majority of respondents – 72% – stated that caregiving would or did negatively impact their educational or career goals. However, many who had acted as caretakers described rewarding aspects as well.

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  Team cracks eggs for science

  Apr 8, 2021 9:45 am2 views

  Illinois researchers assess the factors that a bird must overcome to pierce a foreign egg and remove it from its nest. The study is relevant to the hosts of avian brood parasites, which lay their eggs in other birds’ nests.

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  Muon g-2 experiment strengthens evidence of new physics

  Apr 7, 2021 3:15 pm6 views

  U of I scientists played leading role in paradigm-shifting experiment that found muons behave in a way that is not predicted by scientists’ best theory, the Standard model of particle physics.

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  Study links prenatal phthalate exposure to altered information processing in infants

  Apr 6, 2021 1:30 pm0 views

  Most of the findings involved slower information processing among infants with higher phthalate exposure, with males more likely to be affected depending on the chemical involved and the order of information presented to the infants.

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  New 3D microbatteries stand up to industry standard thin-film counterparts

  Apr 5, 2021 9:30 am4 views

  U of I researchers have introduced a fabrication process that builds microbatteries with thick, 3D electrodes using lithography and electrodeposition. The prototype shows the highest peak power density of any reported microbatteries.

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  Repeal of Clean Power Plan had economic, environmental consequences

  Apr 2, 2021 10:15 am4 views

  'We find the repeal of the CPP imposed significant economic costs and environmental damages in the form of additional greenhouse gas emissions in the next decade,' says Professor Madhu Khanna. 

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  Hubble Space Telescope spots double quasars in merging galaxies

  Apr 1, 2021 10:30 am5 views

  'We estimate that in the distant universe, for every 1,000 quasars, there is one double quasar,' astronomer Yue Shen said. 'So finding these double quasars is like finding a needle in a haystack.'

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  Illinois composer's new work depicts pandemic experience

  Apr 1, 2021 9:45 am143 views

  'Beethoven would depict thunderstorms along the banks of a creek. Now we could depict the molecular dynamics of water,' says composer Stephen Andrew Taylor. 'It’s a modern updating of a very ancient musical representation.'

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  Partisan media sites may not sway opinions, but erode trust in mainstream press

  Mar 29, 2021 3:30 pm4 views

  Increased exposure to partisan media online may have little effect on readers’ political views, but it does undermine their trust and confidence in the mainstream press, communication professor JungHwan Yang and his co-authors found.

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  Machine learning helps spot gait problems in individuals with multiple sclerosis

  Mar 29, 2021 11:15 am0 views

  Illinois researchers have developed a machine-learning algorithm that could help doctors spot gait problems in people with multiple sclerosis and determine if they are a result of the disease or healthy aging.

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  Study: Rapid bulk-testing for COVID-19 key to reopening universities

  Mar 29, 2021 11:00 am4 views

  A new paper by business professors Ujjal Kumar Mukherjee and Sridhar Seshadri shows that rapid bulk-testing for COVID-19 along with  mask-wearing and social distancing were keys to successfully reopening college campuses during the pandemic.

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  Illinois poet's new work uses Gettysburg battlefield to reflect on race, national identity

  Mar 29, 2021 10:00 am0 views

  Professor Christopher Kempf’s poems were influenced by the language on the monuments at Gettysburg National Military Park, as well as letters written by soldiers who fought at Gettysburg and eyewitness accounts of the battle.

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  Illinois researchers to digitally preserve history of live musical performances

  Mar 26, 2021 1:00 pm0 views

  Illinois researchers are working with researchers in the U.K. to create a digital archive of the history of live musical performances.

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  Fast-acting, color-changing molecular probe senses when material nears failure

  Mar 25, 2021 11:00 am0 views

  Materials that contain these new mechanophores could someday be used as stress sensors to enable researchers to study the effects of stress on materials before they fail.

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  More protein doesn't mean more strength in resistance-trained middle-aged adults

  Mar 25, 2021 9:45 am0 views

  A 10-week muscle-building and dietary program involving middle-aged adults found no evidence that eating a high-protein diet increased strength or muscle mass more than consuming a moderate amount of protein while training.

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  Women, minority representation on Illinois corporate boards lags, study says

  Mar 25, 2021 9:30 am0 views

  'A handful of companies are doing well in board member diversity, but we found that women and most racial and ethnic minority groups aren’t equally represented proportional to their representation in the state,' says Professor Eunmi Mun.