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University of Illinois to host state championship Rube Goldberg contest
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – The Illinois State Championship Rube Goldberg Machine Contest for High Schools will be held in the Newmark Civil Engineering Building, 205 N. Mathews Ave., Urbana, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. April 9. The contest pays homage to Goldberg, a satirical cartoonist best known for his designs of ridiculously complicated gadgets that […]
Interim-dean designate named, pending board approval, for engineering college
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Ilesanmi Adesida has been named interim-dean designate of the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign pending approval of the U. of I. board of trustees. David Daniel, the dean of the college, will remain in his position through May, before assuming his new duties as the president of […]
Weather forecasts may be predictors for prevalence of West Nile virus
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Weather forecasts could become barometers for predicting the potential threat of West Nile virus to humans and wildlife, according to scientists at two state agencies based at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Researchers at the Illinois State Water Survey (ISWS) and the Illinois Natural History Survey (INHS) report a reliable link […]
Improved dielectric developed for chip-level copper circuitry
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – A new dielectric material, developed by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, could facilitate the use of copper circuitry at the chip level. The thermally stable aromatic polymer has a low dielectric constant of 1.85, good mechanical properties and excellent adhesion. Replacing aluminum with copper as the multilayer interconnect structure […]
Theories of high-temperature superconductivity violate Pauli Principle
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Scientists seeking to explain high-temperature superconductivity have been violating the Pauli exclusion principle, a team of researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Rutgers University report. Any theory that does not embrace the Pauli principle has a lot of explaining to do, they say. The basic organizing precept behind the […]
Point-contact spectroscopy deepens mystery of heavy-fermion superconductors
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Theoretical understanding of heavy-fermion superconductors has just slipped a notch or two, says a team of experimentalists. Researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Los Alamos National Laboratory recently used a sensitive technique called point-contact spectroscopy to explore Andreev reflection between a normal metal and a heavy-fermion superconductor. Conventional theories […]
Membraneless fuel cell is tiny, versatile
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – A fuel cell designed by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign can operate without a solid membrane separating fuel and oxidant, and functions with alkaline chemistry in addition to the more common acidic chemistry. Like a battery, a fuel cell changes chemical energy into electrical energy. While most fuel cells […]
Nanotechnologist plans to build things with bricklike corn molecules
UI nanotechnologist Graciela Wild Padua is intrigued by the bricklike shape of the corn zein molecule. She thinks it’s particularly suited as a building block for tiny structures small enough to be measured in nanometers: cages, for example, that could carry biocompounds to targeted sites in the human body or scaffolds on which to grow […]
Membraneless fuel cell is tiny, versatile
Membraneless fuel cell is tiny, versatile James E. Kloeppel, Physical Sciences Editor 217-244-1073; kloeppel@illinois.edu 3/15/2005 STORY The system designed by Paul Kenis, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, uses a Y-shaped microfluidic channel in which two liquid streams containing fuel and oxidant merge and flow between catalyst-covered electrodes without mixing. E.R. Choban, L.J. Markoski, […]
Bill Hammack, U. of I. engineering professor, named Jefferson Science Fellow
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Bill Hammack, a professor of chemical and of biomolecular engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has been named a Jefferson Science Fellow by the U.S. Department of State. Hammack is one of five tenured research scientists and engineers chosen to work alongside senior diplomats and policymakers for a year in […]
Temperature inside collapsing bubble four times that of sun
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Using a technique employed by astronomers to determine stellar surface temperatures, chemists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have measured the temperature inside a single, acoustically driven collapsing bubble. Their results seem out of this world. “When bubbles in a liquid get compressed, the insides get hot – very hot,” said […]
Chemists synthesize molecule that helps body battle cancers, malaria
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – The first synthesis of QS-21A, a medicinally important molecule that helps the body battle disease, has been achieved by chemists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In clinical trials, QS-21A has been shown to significantly improve the body’s immune response in vaccine therapies against aggressive diseases such as melanoma, breast cancer, […]