blog posts

• 

  Illinois alumnus wins the Nobel Prize in Chemistry

  Oct 9, 2025 10:00 am

  The New York Times (Oct. 8) Illinois alumnus Omar Yaghi is one of the three scientists who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

• 

  Trump bailout for trade-ravaged US farmers expected this week

  Oct 8, 2025 11:15 am

  Reuters (Oct. 6) Direct payments to farmers are statutorily capped at $350 million, a fraction of the sum being discussed. Another funding source that could be used, but it hasn't been refilled because of the shutdown, says Prof. Jonathan Coppess.

• 

  Major down sides and up sides of nitrous oxide

  Oct 6, 2025 2:45 pm

  Psychology Today (Oct. 1) U. of I. professor Rachel Hoopsick and a colleague from the University of Mississippi conducted a study that found that nitrous oxide–related deaths in the U.S. rose nearly 600% between 2010-2023.

• 

  Scientists transform urine into a golden opportunity

  Oct 2, 2025 2:45 pm

  Science News Explores (Oct. 1) Yeast can turn ingredients from urine into hydroxyapatite, which may help make sturdy building materials. 'We’re taking a waste product and turning it into something high value,' says Professor Jeremy Guest.

• 

  How ‘woke’ went from an expression in Black culture to a conservative criticism

  Oct 1, 2025 4:30 pm

  L.A. Times (Sept. 30) 'Wokeness' began as African American slang for having awareness around racism, injustice, privilege, etc. U. of I.'s Gerald McWorter says it was about having a voice after centuries of Black suffering going back to the slave trade.

• 

  Pending home sales are up, but most owners are locked in to old mortgage rates

  Sep 30, 2025 4:15 pm

  Marketplace (Sept. 29) Professor Julia Fonseca says roughly 80% of borrowers are in the same boat she is: If they bought the same house today, they’d pay way more. 'These higher rates have really meaningfully deterred borrowers from moving.'

• 

  How to make water conservation a habit

  Sep 29, 2025 1:45 pm

  The New York Times (Sept. 25) It requires a lot of energy to provide hot and cold runnig water on demand. 'Any water that we conserve is also energy conserved,' says Ashlynn Stillwell, a U. of I. professor of civil and environmental engineering.

• 

  NASA launches mission to map the bubble around our solar system

  Sep 25, 2025 4:30 pm

  The New York Times (Sept. 24) A rocket launched Wednesday morning carrying the Carruthers Geocorona Observatory. U. of I. electrical and computer engineering professor Lara Waldrop is the principal investigator for the mission.

• 

  1 in 6 U.S. parents have chosen to delay or skip routine vaccines for their kids

  Sep 24, 2025 12:15 pm

  Everyday Health (Sept. 19) 'The Make America Healthy Again movement has also amplified skepticism about vaccine schedules, which can reinforce doubts for parents who are already hesitant,' says U. of I. professor Violeta Rodriguez.

• 

  Take the shot: The country’s future hangs on public health support

  Sep 23, 2025 10:00 am

  The Fulcrum (Sept. 20) Illinois professor Rachel Hoopsick writes, 'Countries like Japan, Denmark, and Australia, which invest more heavily in public health prevention,  experience longer life expectancies at a fraction of the cost of the U.S.'

• 

  U. of I. football coach built an army of elite recruiters: His players’ moms

  Sep 22, 2025 10:15 am

  Wall Street Journal (Sept. 17) Bret Bielema has turned around Illinois’ program by getting his players to stick around. He did it in part by winning over their mothers.

• 

  Being good ancestors starts right now

  Sep 17, 2025 12:30 pm

  Chancellor Charles Isbell Jr. on higher education as a public good.

• 

  Deflecting a deadly asteroid just got a lot less dangerous

  Sep 11, 2025 1:00 pm

  New Scientist (Sept. 11) Shifting an asteroid into a new orbit can push it through a window, boomeranging and hitting the planet later. Illinois alum Rahil Makadia has developed a system to locate the perfect spot for a colliding satellite to minimize this risk.

• 

  John Deere: Tarriffs will cost it $600M, even as they pinch overseas crop markets

  Sep 5, 2025 11:00 am

  New York Times (Sept. 4) The price for new tractors rose at least 60% over the last eight years, according to U. of I. Extension, with some models more than doubling in price, costing at least $250,000 more than they used to.

• 

  Nearly 600 economists back Lisa Cook and Fed independence in open letter

  Sep 4, 2025 11:30 am

  Fox Business (Sept. 3) 'It may not be obvious to...at least some politicians how important that independence is for economic stability and what independence from political influence should look like in practice,' said Professor Tatyana Deryugina.

• 

  EPA finds exposure to air pollution is higher among people of color, regardless of income level

  Sep 3, 2025 11:30 am

  Forbes (JAug. 31) 'Because the data shows that the racial disparities hold for all income levels, our study reinforces findings that race/ethnicity, independently of income, drives air pollution-exposure disparities,' says Professor Christopher Tessum. 

• 

  U. of I.'s new Wymer Hall welcomes its first students

  Aug 27, 2025 10:00 am

  News-Gazette (Aug. 26) Just past two years since groundbreaking, Steven S. Wymer Hall is open for business — business classes, that is. Students filled the space Monday for their first day of fall courses.

• 

  Can crosswords, puzzles, and other games really help you stay sharp?

  Aug 28, 2025 9:30 am

  Health (Aug. 26) Brain-training games may improve performance on specific tasks, but there’s little evidence they enhance everyday cognition. 'It sounds like a magic bullet. There’s just no magic,' says Professor Elizabeth Stine-Morrow.

• 

  A.I. paranoia: People are skipping metaphors, leaving in typos to prove they're human

  Aug 25, 2025 10:45 am

  Slate (Aug. 20) Describing his oversensitive 'AI radar,' professor John Gallagher says he had found himself convinced an academic article had been penned by AI — before realizing that it was published in 2019, predating the ChatGPT boom.

• 

  Study: Illinois pre-apprenticeship programs boost women, minorities in construction

  Aug 21, 2025 2:45 pm

  Chicago Sun-Times (Aug. 20) 'As America invests in new infrastructure, energy systems and advanced manufacturing, the ability to more readily access new pockets of workforce candidates has never been more critical,' said labor expert Robert Bruno.

• 

  Climate change is coming for your bananas

  Aug 20, 2025 10:30 am

  Time (Aug. 18) Hotter days caused by climate change are reducing yields. 'Very hot days … even for small amounts of time during the entire growing season, can cause large losses in the yield you get from a given plot of land,' says Professor Andrew Hultgren.

• 

  The new ChatGPT has some AI fans rethinking when to expect ‘superintelligence’

  Aug 18, 2025 4:30 pm

  The Washington Post (Aug. 17)  U. of I. doctoral student Sumuk Shashidhar, who'ss worked with AI companies, says many in the industry appeared to have misjudged what OpenAI would deliver. 'It doesn’t feel like the needle has moved much for the average user.'.

• 

  Dick Butkus’ legacy lives on at U. of I. through unique partnership

  Aug 15, 2025 9:45 am

  WCIA-TV (Aug. 13) The Butkus foundation and Carle Illinois College of Medicine have teamed up to offer life-saving cardiovascular screenings — but they also plan to improve them.

• 

  As climate change makes hail more destructive, Illinois residents pay the price

  Aug 13, 2025 8:45 am

  Inside Climate News (Aug. 12) 'Hailstorms are sort of unremarkable at first take. But then collectively, we see these kinds of financial problems that come from them,' says Trent Ford, the Illinois state climatologist based at the U. of I.

• 

  Illinois launches program to help African Americans trace ancestry to Africa

  Aug 11, 2025 9:15 am

  Black Enterprise (Aug. 7) Led by U. of I. professor LaKisha David, the Family Roots Pilot Program aims to uncover and restore family ties broken by the legacy of slavery and human trafficking. 

• 

  Invasive plant that produces severe burns, scars prompts warning

  Aug 6, 2025 9:45 am

  WMAQ-TV (Aug. 4) Giant hogweed secretes a clear, toxic sap, and it has been previously spotted in numerous states, including Illinois. 'It looks like Queen Anne’s lace on steroids,' according to University of Illinois Extension.

• 

  How climate change and extreme weather can hurt your health

  Aug 4, 2025 11:30 am

  U.S. News (July 30) Illinois agriculture professor Andrew Hultgren: 'A single 24-hour period at 105 degrees can reduce corn yields by over 5%. So, even short periods of extreme heat exposure can' lead to lower yields and higher prices.
   

• 

  U. of I. history professor: Emulating Lincoln could help country get off its dysfunctional path

  Jul 30, 2025 8:45 am

  Chicago Sun-Times (July 28) Our political dilemma isn't confined to a single issue. 'Something deeper is corroding our public life and amplifying attacks on the vulnerable. Like Lincoln, we ask, “Is this who we are?” Like him, we must answer “no.”' 

• 

  Hotter days, higher electric bills: How climate change is impacting the Great Lakes region

  Jul 29, 2025 9:30 am

  Capital B Gary (July 25)  'The Great Lakes region is undergoing rapid environmental change, and the science is pointing to increasingly serious impacts in the years ahead,' says U. of I. atmospheric sciences professor Donald Wuebbles.

• 

  U. of I. researchers find deadly police shootings trend down from 2021 to 2023

  Jul 28, 2025 12:15 pm

  Capitol City Now (July 25) 'It’s hard to know whether this decline represents some improvement in the quality of decision-making by officers... or whether this might be the result of underpolicing and withdrawal from victimized communities.'

• 

  Trump's new AI policies keep culture war focus on tech companies

  Jul 25, 2025 2:00 pm

  NPR (July 23) 'Most of the examples I’ve seen conservatives cite of AI being too "woke" are large language models refusing to confirm conspiracy theories or racist claims,' says Illinois computer science professor Talia Ringer.

• 

  Old school manufacturing is gone and it's never coming back

  Jul 24, 2025 8:45 am

  Chicago Tribune (July 22) Professor Sheldon Jacobson explains that Trump’s fixation on saving manufacturing makes for good sound bites but the U.S. economy has changed from the time when manufacturing jobs were a central part of the workforce.

• 

  This new experiment could take us closer to a theory of everything

  Jul 22, 2025 11:00 am

  Science Focus (July 21) Humanity is one step closer to reaching an all-encompassing 'theory of everything' to explain the physical universe, thanks to a new paper by three scientists, including Illinois physics professor Jacob Covey. 

• 

  ‘A disaster for all of us’: US scientists describe impact of Trump cuts

  Jul 21, 2025 1:00 pm

  The Guardian (uly 20)  Professor Anne Sickles: 'If you cut funding to the people who are doing the work now, you don’t know what they would have innovated in 10 or 15 years or 32 years like (Nobel laureate) Rosalind Yalow. We don’t know what we’re losing.' 

  
  

• 

  Potential NOAA weather research cuts could have serious consequences

  Jul 17, 2025 12:15 pm

  WILL-AM (July 16) Professor Jeff Frame points to the Warn-On Forecast System, which has been cut entirely. 'Say we have a storm coming.  Is it going to strengthen? Is it going to weaken? What are we going to do? Warn-On Forecast is a real key to that.'

• 

  Elon Musk’s chatbot Grok searches for his views before answering questions

  Jul 16, 2025 3:30 pm

  Fast Company (July 15)  'I think people (seek) opinions out of a reasoning model that cannot respond with opinions,' says professor Talia Ringer. 'So, for example, it interprets "Who do you support, Israel or Palestine?" as "Who does xAI leadership support?”'

• 

  Chinese students flocked to Central Illinois. Their food followed

  Jul 15, 2025 8:45 am

  New York Times (July 14) Like many college towns, the area around the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has been transformed by a surge of foreign students. Visa clampdowns could threaten that. 

• 

  Musk’s xAI scrubs inappropriate posts after Grok chatbot praised Hitler

  Jul 10, 2025 4:30 pm

  Associated Press (July 9) 'Fixing this is probably going to require retraining the model. All they can do at this point... are some more Band-Aids, like adding filters on responses and tweaking the prompt,' said U of I computer science professor Talia Ringer.
   

• 

  Don’t like eating insects? Your pet might.

  Jul 9, 2025 4:15 pm

  The New York Times (July 3) Insect meal and lab-grown meat be a more sustainable way to feed our cats and dogs. Research suggests that insects are indeed a 'high-quality protein source,' says Illinois professor Kelly Swanson. 

• 

  Easter Island's moai statues are eroding. Should they be preserved?

  Jul 3, 2025 1:45 pm

  BBC (July 3) 'Many believe the moai should, as they are, go into the ground and disappear. Let the moai go to their hanua, their land, and let them go back home,' says U. of I. anthropological archaeologist Dale Simpson Jr.

• 

  What does climate change mean for agriculture? Less food and more emissions.

  Jul 2, 2025 8:30 am

  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.

• 

  AI-engineered cement formulations promise to cut carbon emissions in half

  Jun 23, 2025 1:00 pm

  Forbes (June 22) At the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, researchers partnered with Meta and concrete supplier Ozinga to develop AI-optimized concrete that cut carbon by 40%.

• 

  How to boost your creativity: Proven ways to unleash the power of your imagination

  Jun 16, 2025 11:45 am

  Woman’s World (June 12) Being passionate is key to creativity. 'A study on intrinsic motivation found that poets who believed they were writing for the joy of it - not for external rewards - produced more creative work,' said U of I Professor Jack Goncalo. 

• 

  As labor costs rise, AI is learning to farm

  Jun 12, 2025 10:30 am

  Chicago Tribune (June 11) The labor demands of fruits and vegetables deter farmers from growing anything but corn and soybeans. U of I ag specialist Elizabeth Wahle says farming is increasingly dependent on foreign labor. 

• 

  What it’s like to graduate from college while inside an Illinois prison

  Jun 11, 2025 10:45 am

  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.

• 

  Experts doubt FBI’s claim that crop fungus smuggled by Chinese students is a threat

  Jun 9, 2025 1:45 pm

  Fusarium graminearum as a potential agricultural terrorism weapon? 'As a weapon, it would be a pretty ineffective one,' says Jessica Rutkoski, a professor of crop sciences at the U. of I.

• 

  University of Illinois braces for visa revocations for Chinese students

  Jun 6, 2025 1:45 pm

  Chicago Sun-Times (June 4) 'I’m really scared because if Trump is going after Chinese students, it means it could happen to other students from other countries,' said a student from Indonesia.

• 

  U.S. moms say their mental health is getting worse

  Jun 3, 2025 4:30 pm

  Science News (June 3) Depression during pregnancy puts the mother at risk for postpartem, says professor Karen Tabb Dina. 'It’s not like you have a baby and you flip the switch and, oh, everything is done, depression is gone.'

• 

  Chancellor Jones: Let's fund Illinois higher education the right way

  May 29, 2025 12:45 pm

  Crain’s Chicago Business (May 27) Robert Jones discusses the importance of funding education the right way. 'We must be more thoughtful and strategic as legislators consider a new funding model for our state’s public universities.' 

• 

  How electric vehicles are targeted by the Republican policy bill

  May 28, 2025 3:15 pm

  The New York Times (May 23) “We will not realize the energy efficiency and health benefits as fast as we could and as fast as other countries are realizing them,” says U. of I. professor Eleftheria Kontou.