Strategic Communications and Marketing News Bureau

Science and technology

Life sciences Graphic with the title "42nd Insect Fear Film Festival" in a scary font and with a picture of a tarantula.

Insect Fear Film Festival to feature ‘hairy, scary’ tarantulas

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — The 2025 Insect Fear Film Festival at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign will feature “Tarantulas: Hairy, Scary Spiders” as its theme and a Hollywood bug wrangler who works with the 8-legged creatures as a special guest. The festival, which is hosted by the Entomology Graduate Student Association and is in its 42nd […]

Agriculture Illustration of an energy drink

New study evaluates public policy preferences for limiting children’s access to energy drinks

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Energy drinks are becoming an increasingly important topic in public health, nutrition and food policy, with global sales more than doubling from 2018-2023 and product selection expanding by 20% since 2021. Just as sales of the drinks have surged, so has their caffeine content, elevating concerns about childhood energy drink consumption. A […]

Life sciences Photo of Michael Ward standing in tall grass on a riverbank.

How are migrating wild birds affected by H5N1 infection in the U.S.?

Each spring, roughly 3.5 billion wild birds migrate from their warm winter havens to their breeding grounds across North America, eating insects, distributing plant seeds and providing a variety of other ecosystem services to stopping sites along the way. Some also carry diseases like avian influenza, a worry for agricultural, environmental and public health authorities. […]

Social sciences Male and female student embracing on the quad with flowering redbud tree and the ACES library in the background. Photo by Michelle Hassel

Dating is not broken, but the trajectories of relationships have changed

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — According to some popular culture writers and online posts by discouraged singles lamenting their inability to find romantic partners, dating is “broken,” fractured by the social isolation created by technology, pandemic lockdowns and potential partners’ unrealistic expectations. Yet two studies of college students conducted a decade apart found that their ideas about […]

Engineering Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor Nishant Garg, center, is joined by fellow researchers, from left: Yujia Min, Hossein Kabir, Nishant Garg, center, Chirayu Kothari and M. Farjad Iqbal, front right. In front are examples of clay samples dissolved at different concentrations in a NaOH solution. The team invented a new test that can predict the performance of cementitious materials in mere 5 minutes. This is in contrast to the standard ASTM tests, which take up to 28 days. This new advance enables real-time quality control at production plants of emerging, sustainable materials. Photo taken at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign on Monday, Feb. 3, 2025. (Photo by Fred Zwicky / University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)

Researchers develop a five-minute quality test for sustainable cement industry materials

A new test developed at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign can predict the performance of a new type of cementitious construction material in five minutes — a significant improvement over the current industry standard method, which takes seven or more days to complete. This development is poised to advance the use of next-generation resources called supplementary cementitious materials — or SCMs — by speeding up the quality-check process before leaving the production floor.

Health and medicine Photo of Dr. Lowe standing in front of a cattle feed lot on the U. of I. campus.

What makes the bird flu virus so unusual?

The H5N1 virus attacks specific body systems in each species and behaves very differently in each depending on which body systems are involved, causing widespread death in some animals while barely affecting others, says University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign veterinary clinical medicine professor Dr. Jim Lowe. He spoke with News Bureau life sciences editor Diana Yates […]

Life sciences Portrait of the research team posing together.

Minecraft players can now explore whole cells and their contents

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Scientists have translated nanoscale experimental and computational data into precise 3D representations of bacteria, yeast and human epithelial, breast and breast cancer cells in Minecraft, a video game that allows players to explore, build and manipulate structures in three dimensions. The innovation will allow researchers and students of all ages to navigate […]

Honors portraits of four Illinois researchers

Four Illinois researchers receive Presidential Early Career Award

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Four researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign were named recipients of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on young professionals at the outset of their independent research careers. The winners this year are health and kinesiology professor Marni Boppart, physics professor Barry Bradlyn, chemical and biomolecular engineering professor Ying […]

Life sciences Photo of researcher standing in front of a photo of the remains of an ancient Maya city.

Book: Maya wisdom should guide humanity’s future

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A new book takes readers on a guided tour of Maya history as narrated by an anthropologist who has spent more than 35 years salvaging and exploring the remains of ancient Maya cities, farms and sacred spaces. “Maya Wisdom and the Survival of Our Planet,” by Lisa J. Lucero, is also a […]

Engineering Prototype of device

New research helps eliminate dead zones in desalination technology and beyond

Engineers have found a way to eliminate the fluid flow “dead zones” that plague the types of electrodes used for battery-based seawater desalination. The new technique uses a physics-based tapered flow channel design within electrodes that moves fluids quickly and efficiently, potentially requiring less energy than reverse osmosis techniques currently require.

Earth and environmental sciences Engineering Physical sciences Research news Science and technology Photo of the researcher in his laboratory with starting materials and holding a glass jar full of the end product, ethylbenzene.

Team makes sustainable aviation fuel additive from recycled polystyrene

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A new study overcomes a key challenge to switching commercial aircraft in the U.S. from their near-total reliance on fossil fuels to more sustainable aviation fuels. The study details a cost-effective method for producing ethylbenzene — an additive that improves the functional characteristics of sustainable aviation fuels — from polystyrene, a hard […]

Expert viewpoints Portrait of the researcher examining a turtle.

Is the highly pathogenic avian influenza a threat to pets?

The American Veterinary Medical Association has issued recommendations for keeping pets and backyard flocks safe from highly pathogenic avian influenza, and the recommendations are also a useful guide for humans. In an interview with News Bureau life sciences editor Diana Yates, Stephany Lewis, a professor of zoological medicine at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and […]

Strategic Communications and Marketing News Bureau

507 E. Green St
MC-426
Champaign, IL 61820

Email: stratcom@illinois.edu

Phone (217) 333-5010