In The News
Anthropolgy
United Press International (July 15) -- A large-scale genetic study of native North Americans offers new insights into the migration of a small group of Athapaskan natives from their subarctic home in northwest North America to the southwestern United States. The migration, which left no known archaeological trace, is believed to have occurred about 500 years ago. The study, led by U. of I. researchers, is detailed this month in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.
read entire article
Also:
HULIQ.com (Hickory, N.C., July 16)
Innovations Report (Bad Homburg, Germany, July 16)
Moldova.org (Chisinau, July 16)
Physorg.com (Douglas, Isle of Man, July 15)
Science Daily (Chevy Chase, Md., July 15)
Entomology
Suburban Journals (St. Louis, June 29) -- Sydney Cameron, a U. of I. professor of entomology, is leading a study to collect data on bumble bees of the central United States, and she encourages people to send photographs of bees they have found to http://beespotter.mste.uiuc.edu.
read entire article
Genetic Engineering
Medical News Today (Bexhill-on-Sea, England, June 20) -- “Until we resolve how we are going to deal with the food capabilities of this science (genetic engineering), the medical applications will remain largely undeveloped and many opportunities for curing and treating disease will go unrealized,” said Matthew Wheeler, a professor of animal sciences in the U. of I. Institute for Genomic Biology.
read entire article
Also:
Mid-South Farmer (Henning, Tenn., June 26)
Disappearance of Honey Bees
“Nature” (produced by WNET-Channel 13, New York City; broadcast by PBS June 15) -- U. of I. entomologists May Berenbaum and Gene Robinson were among the experts interviewed for “Silence of the Bees,” a documentary on the disappearance of honey bees.
read entire article
Also:
Evanston Review (Illinois, June 19) -- May Berenbaum, the head of the department of entomology at Illinois, runs the university's BeeSpotter program, a project that relies on citizen scientists to identify bee populations around Illinois.
Mundelein Review (Illinois, June 19)
Park Ridge Advocate (Illinois, June 19)
Pioneer Press (Glenview, Ill., June 19)
Vernon Hills Review (Illinois, June 19)
Wauconda Courier (Illinois, June 19)
Wilmette Life (Illinois, June 19)
Cellular Research
Chemical & Engineering News (Washington, D.C., June 17) -- A new array of microfabricated silicon cantilevers gives researchers a way to track the growth of individual adherent cells. Rashid Bashir, a professor of electrical engineering, computer engineering, and bioengineering at Illinois, and researchers at Purdue University, Harvard Medical School, and Ohio State University describe arrays of silicon cantilevers that can determine the mass of individual adherent cells without detaching them from the surface.
read entire article
Chemical & Engineering News (Washington, D.C., June 23)
Biology
Science Centric (Sofia, Bulgaria, June 17) -- Mary A. Schuler, a U. of I. professor of cell and developmental biology, of biochemistry, of plant biology and of entomology and an affiliate with the Institute for Genomic Biology at Illinois, and postdoctoral researchers Ting-Lan Chiu and Sanjeewa Rupasinghe have identified a key detoxifying protein in Anopheles mosquitoes that metabolizes DDT, a synthetic insecticide used since World War II to control the mosquitoes that spread malaria.
read entire article
Also:
Innovations Report (Bad Homburg, Germany, June 17)
PhysOrg.com (Amsterdam, Netherlands, June 16)
Exercise and the Brain
The News (Lahore, Pakistan, June 15) -- In a study involving rats, U. of I. bioengineering professor William Greenough and James E. Black of the University of Utah found a 20 percent increase in the density of blood vessels nourishing the cerebellum in rodents aerobically trained for four weeks. While aerobically trained rats had a richer blood supply to their brain, those trained in acrobatics showed a surprising increase in synaptic connections between brain cells.
read entire article
Cellular Biology
Chemistry World (London, June 11) -- How much does a cell weigh? “Cell mass is directly related to cell growth and division,” says U. of I. electrical and computer engineering professor Rashid Bashir, who also is an affiliate of the Institute for Genomic Biology.
read entire article
Molecular Movement
Science Daily (Chevy Chase, Md., June 6) -- U. of I. physics professor Taekjip Ha and postdoctoral fellow Peter Cornish report that they are the first to observe the dynamic, ratchet-like movements of single ribosomal molecules in the act of building proteins from genetic blueprints.
read entire article
Also:
Genetic Engineering News (New Rochelle, N.Y., June 5)
Innovations Report (Bad Homburg, Germany, June 6)
Photonics (Erie, Pa., June 5)
PhysOrg.com (Amsterdam, Netherlands, June 6)
Soybean Yields
Chicago Tribune (June 5) -- Doubling soybean yields may prove the most difficult because output in Illinois, the largest-producing state, has improved only 0.5 percent a year this decade, says Peter Goldsmith, a professor of agricultural and consumer economics at Illinois.
read entire article
Entomology
News Blaze (June 3) – May Berenbaum, head of the department of entomology, says in an essay that Rachel Carson's 1962 “Silent Spring” left a lasting legacy of controversy and valid warning.
read entire article
Materials Science
Nanowerk News (Honolulu, June 3) -- Researchers at Illinois have developed new synthetic strategies for forming monolayer films of conjugated carbon, in various configurations ranging from flat sheets, to balloons, tubes and pleated sheets. These monolayer membranes developed by John Rogers, a U. of I. professor of materials science and engineering, together with his organic chemist collaborators in the group of Jeff Moore, a professor of chemistry at Illinois, are sufficiently robust to be suspended over 440-nm diameter holes without tearing.
read entire article
Howard Hughes Medical Investigators
Genetic Engineering News (New Rochelle, N.Y., May 28) -- Two U. of I. researchers, Phillip A. Newmark, a professor of cell and developmental biology, and Wilfred A. van der Donk, the William H. and Janet Lycan professor of chemistry, have been named Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigators.
read entire article
Also:
Bio-Medicine (Chongqing, China, May 28)
Engineering
Chicago Tribune (May 26) -- Recent discoveries at the U. of I. and Northwestern University suggest further miniaturization of electronics is just around the corner. Engineers at the U. of I. have developed copper nanowires in bundles on silicon that can fire electrons at very thin phosphor-coated flat panels to create sharp images. "The emission characteristics of the copper nanowires in our proof-of-principle field-emission display were very good," said Kyekyoon Kim, a U. of I. professor of electrical and computer engineering.
read entire article
Microbiology
The Hindu (Chennai, India, May 25) -- Helicobacter pylori ican survive in the human stomach, a zone with a pH somewhere between that of lemon juice and battery acid. Now U. of I. researchers, led by microbiology professor Steven Blanke, have discovered how an H. pylori toxin gets into cells, a feat that helps the bacterium live in one of the most inhospitable environments in the body.
read entire article
Also:
Daily India.com (from Asian News International; Jacksonville, Fla., May 24)
HULIQ.com (Hickory, N.C., May 24)
Innovations Report (Bad Homburg, Germany, May 25)
Medical News Today (Bexhill-on-Sea, England, May 26)
News-Medical.net (Mona Vale Australia, May 27)
PhysOrg.com (Amsterdam, Netherlands, May 23)
Science Daily (Chevy Chase, Md., May 23)
Renewable Fuel
Daily Herald (from the Chicago Tribune; Provo, Utah, May 23) -- Miscanthus may be an optimal source of renewable fuel, suggests research by Stephen P. Long, the director of the energy biosciences institute at Illinois.
read entire article
Anthropology
Science (Washington, D.C., May 23) -- A new study, employing sophisticated modeling techniques, confirms the prevailing Out of Africa model but also comes up with some surprises, including evidence that the Americas' first human inhabitants arrived in multiple waves. Ripan Malhi, an anthropologist at Illinois, says that the research "holds great potential to give us important and novel insights into the peopling of the Americas."
read entire article
Self-Healing Materials
Medical News Today (Bexhill-on-Sea, England, May 20) -- Two research groups – one in the U.S. and one in the United Kingdom – have independently tried to create composite materials that mend themselves if damaged. The American initiative, led by U. of I. chemistry professor Jeff Moore and colleagues, focuses on the problem by adding extra components to composites.
read entire article
Ethanol Production
Renewable Energy (Peterborough, N.H., May 20) -- While scientists and other industry experts disagree on actual yields, it's clear that 1 acre of sugar cane grown in Brazil yields double or perhaps even triple the ethanol that 1 acre of corn yields. "Sugar from sugar cane is an easily available carbohydrate that can be directly fermented without many of the processing steps required for corn-based ethanol," says Hans P. Blaschek, a U. of I. professor of food science and human nutrition.
read entire article
