Illinois Featured Content

Chicago Tribune (Feb. 4) – U. of I. student Vicente Mundo’s slaying, which police said marked the first fatal shooting on the Urbana campus in more than 16 years, sent waves of grief between the college community and Chicago as his friends and loved ones tried to understand how this could have happened to someone with so much promise and joy.

The Washington Post (Feb. 5) -- When we tell stories about our lives, most of us never have our memories questioned. NBC's Brian Williams, like other high-profile people in the past, is finding out what happens when someone does. Even scientists who specialize in memory research are susceptible to mis-remembering.

NYT (Feb. 9) - Illinois professor Bob Bruno, director of the labor education program, said the governor’s action was an aggression against public unions in a state where organized labor’s influence runs deep. 

USA Today (Feb. 13) -- Advancements in mobile application development have given disabled college students more academic independence. Kyle Murphy, a junior at Illinois, has Duchene muscular dystrophy, a genetic disorder characterized by muscle weakness and degeneration. Murphy frequently uses Dragon Naturally Speaking, a speech recognition software that transcribes a users words onto a Word document. Illinois even installed the Dragon software on its computers so he could complete tests.

Agweek (Feb. 16) -- According to Illinois agricultural economist Darrel Good, there is a general consensus that U.S. producers will plant fewer acres of corn in 2015 than were planted in 2014 and increase acreage of higher-valued and lower-cost crops.

"I still think they made a mistake," Henson said, offering a good-natured laugh. "There are a lot of people out there that deserve it more than me."

A galaxy's alignment lets astronomers watch a strange, distant supernova explode. And then watch it again. And again. And again and again.

Law prof says state will argue it must balance pension promises with state's general welfare.

Forbes (March 12) - An Illinois chemistry team has created a new process for synthesizing organic compounds from 14 different classes of small molecules.

Smithsonian (March 19) - Papaya grows on a tree that comes in one of three sexes -- male, female or hermaphrodite -- but only the hermaphrodite versions produce large yields. University of Illinois plant biology professor Ray Ming, recently launched a study to better understand the mutation that causes some to be hermaphroditic.

USA Today College (March 22) -- Illinois will be establishing the nation’s first college of medicine that integrates both engineering and medicine.

Christian Science Monitor (March 23) - Don Wuebbles, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Illinois: "The climate response that we're seeing in the atmosphere now is largely due to emissions that happened 20 years ago."

Advertising Age (March 24) - The best way to combat the ISIS media offensive comes from Jonathan Hoffman, who...I met at a Sandage symposium put on by the College of Media at the University of Illinois.

The Verge (March 26) - Noncompete agreements are more prevalent in states that are more willing to enforce the contracts, according to preliminary findings of a study conducted by scholars at Illinois and the University of Michigan.

Chicago Tribune (March 27) - When Indiana Gov. Mike Pence signed a new state law that allows people and companies to claim a religious objection to doing business with same-sex couples, he pointed to Illinois and Kentucky, saying he was simply bringing the state in line with its neighbors.

Gilberto Rosas, associate professor of anthropology and Latina/o Studies at Illinois, co-wrote an editorial for Politico about why the Obama administration needs to end family detention as it relates to immigration law.

Chicago Tribune (March 31) - Will the Wrigley Field renovations - especially the addition of a huge video board in left field - will change the game itself?

Chicago Tribune (April 1) - Designed, according to Chaz Ebert, to “realize Roger’s dream for a crossroads of film studies, production and ethics,” a new film and critical studies program to be housed at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is halfway to its $5 million fundraising goal.

Science (April 1) - U of I Professor Rashid Bashir and colleagues write that applying engineering ideas and approaches to medicine facilitates precision diagnostics and therapeutics to improve health care delivery for all.

The New York Times (April 6) -- Illinois was named as one of the top schools for intercollegiate hackathons, based on students’ overall performance during fall and spring.

What might set fencing apart from other sports is that it requires learning a variety of complex motor functions, according to Illinois neuroscientist Arthur Kramer, Beckman Institute director.

The New York Times (April 6) -- To labor experts like Illinois professor Daniel Gilbert, the league’s position seemed aimed at pitting baseball’s superstars against the less prominent players who claw their way onto the end of a bench.

The New York Times (from The Associated Press; April 9) - Michelle Frasher, a visiting scholar at the European Union Center at Illinois, discusses a bill designed to shut off North Korea through financial sanctions.

Computerworld (Framingham, Mass., April 10) - The Papers of Abraham Lincoln, a massive online archive has gone live containing 99,525 documents, is a joint digitization project sponsored by the University of Illinois.

Wired UK (London, April 13) - U of I professor Ryan Foley and a group of astronomers say the universe may be expanding more slowly than previously thought after they found discrepancies in "beacons" used to measure the cosmos. 

NPR (April 14) - Scientists have released the first of several dark matter maps of the cosmos. The National Center for Supercomputing Applications at Illinois processed the data that went into the map.

Christian Science Monitor (April 14) - A new video from Illinois professor Bill Hammack explains the science of how the modern soda can came to be.

Continuing through Sunday, the pocket-size Champaign charmer of a film festival known as Ebertfest was founded in 1999 by longtime Chicago Sun-Times and "At the Movies" marquee critic Roger Ebert.

USA Today College (April 20) -- To combat homesickness, three alumni from Illinois  – Niraj Patel, Chris Shah and Bogdan Ciuca – recently created Home Food Today, a food delivery service that distributes homemade meals to students on campus.

Vice (New York, April 20) -- Artificially intelligent systems and even robots have been used in the creative arts for decades, and many have even made their "own" art. Ben Grosser, an artist and professor at Illinois, created a robot that paints art based on what it hears.

The Boston Globe (April 20) - For the third straight year, American and Illinois alumna Tatyana McFadden won the Boston Marathon women’s wheelchair division Monday.

Chemical & Engineering News (April 21) - How exactly our sense of smell works is one of the most important, unanswered questions in sensory science. It’s also a question that has resulted in an acrimonious controversy that spans nearly two decades. Illinois sensory scientist Ken Suslick weighs in on the debate.

Chicago Tribune (April 23) - The U. of I. was selected for a visit by the Vice President because students have developed one of the most active campaigns in the country to educate peers and others about sexual violence.

Fusion (April 25) - Conceived at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the 50s and 60s, the room-sized behemoth was the most powerful number-crunching machine of its time.

Chicago Tribune (April 28) -- The Definition Theatre Company, formed by graduates of Illinois and currently in its inaugural season, describes itself as "featuring a multi-ethnic core companionship of actors," which is an interesting update of the notion of ensemble.

Yahoo! News (April 29) - In a new study, U. of I. psychology professor Eva Telzer and her colleagues found that having mom in the car while driving changed teens' brain activity.

WCBU Peoria (via AP, May 1) - The new Urbana-Champaign campus dorm will be named Wassaja Hall when it opens in August 2016. Wassaja is the birth name of Carlos Montezuma. He graduated from the university in 1884, went on to medical school, and advocated for American Indian rights.

Washington Post (May 1) - “I’ve been saying this for years, there’s really very minimal tax benefit here for the league, if at all,” said John Colombo, a tax law professor at Illinois.

Illinois Professor Robert Bruno: “The public would be surprised by the level of rational behavior on the part of union grievance officers.”

WMAQ-5 (NBC; Chicago, May 6) - Illinois' College of Business got the go-ahead Monday night to launch a new MBA program – the iMBA – that will put the required curriculum from the traditional courses on an online education platform free of charge.

Smithsonian Magazine (May 8) - Researchers also found that having Mom nearby actually affected activity in a teen’s brain.

Chicago Tribune (May 11) - The talking is over for the highly anticipated Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation Institute, opened Monday on Chicago's Goose Island by a bevy of city, state and federal officials.

Washington Post (May 13) - The rapidly worsening outbreak has killed more birds than any other incidence of avian flu, researchers at the University of Illinois reported last week.

“This 3D microbattery has exceptional performance and scalability, and we think it will be of importance for many applications,” says Paul Braun, a materials science and engineering professor at Illinois. 

Hollywood Reporter (May 17) - The film will be based on the award-winning book, Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America, by Illinois professor Chris Benson.

Yahoo! News (May 18) - Illinois professor and bullying expert Dorothy Espelage says publicly confronting the bully is exactly what teachers should be doing.

Boston Globe (May 20) - Illinois entomologist May Berenbaum, who buttonholed President Obama about bees when she received her National Medal of Science award in November, says the idea is ‘brilliant.’’

The Boston Globe (May 21) -- “Libraries are good victims, because [materials] won’t be discovered missing until someone wants to see the book or the archival document,” said Travis McDade, curator of law rare books at the Illinois College of Law.

Scientific American (May 21) - “We found that dolphins dying after the oil spill had distinct adrenal gland and lung lesions..."

St. Louis Post-Dispatch (May27) - The new rule "doesn't eliminate (pesticide) exposure to honey bees, but it should reduce it," says Illinois entomologist May Berenbaum. "...this is a big policy change."