News Bureau

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Research by scientists based at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign may lead to the development of a new breed of "multimodal" contrast agents that could work within a host of medical imaging platforms - from ultrasound and computed tomography (CT) to magnetic resonance imaging and molecular imaging.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Thirty-five years ago Arthur DeVries of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign first documented antifreeze glycoproteins (AFGPs) in Antarctic notothenioid fishes. This month three colleagues report they've solved the ensuing, long-running mystery of where these AFGPs, which allow the fish to survive in icy waters, are produced.

UI scientist Tim Garrow, in collaboration with Jiri Jiracek of the Czech Academy of Sciences, has applied for a provisional patent on a class of chemicals that has future therapeutic uses in medicine, specifically cancer treatment.

A Minute With™... U. of I. Extension entomologist Phil Nixon

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Since the discovery of buckyballs and carbon nanotubes, there has been intense interest inpreparing carbon materials of various morphologies and structures. Now, graduate student Sara E. Skrabalak and chemistry professor Kenneth S. Suslick at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have discovered a way to prepare porous carbon sponges by heating a chemical mist from an ordinary home humidifier.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill - The wait for an anti-aging treatment is over, according to cognitive neuroscientists and kinesiologists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. While not as effortless as popping a pill, the treatment - in the form of moderate exercise - may be a simple and effective way to reverse age-related brain deterioration.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The successful synthesis of an antibiotic in a non-native host has provided a team of researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with the potential for developing new treatments for bacterial infections.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - A new study that tracked the health of thousands of female textile workers in China indicates that women who have had an abortion do not have an increased risk of developing cancer.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The decomposition of plant, animal and microbial material in soil and water produces a variety of complex organic molecules, collectively called natural organic matter. These compounds play many important roles in the environment.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are studying the environmental impact that unique patterns of deforestation in Rondonia, Brazil, have on the land and climate.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - As an expanding body of work continues to confirm links between exercise and improved brain function in older adults, a new study by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam suggests similar improvements among younger populations as well.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - What's 34 centimeters (13.39 inches) long, likes the cold and has an interorbital pit with two openings? The answer is Cryothenia amphitreta, a newly discovered Antarctic fish discovered by a member of a research team from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - A protein known primarily for its role in killing cells also plays a part in memory formation, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign report. Their work exploring how zebra finches learn songs could have implications for treatment of neurodegenerative conditions such as dementia and Alzheimer's disease.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Two studies of free-ranging cats - one at the University of Illinois South Farms and the other in Allerton Park near Monticello - will allow researchers at the Illinois Natural History Survey and the University of Illinois to document how cats use the environment and to track the presence of Toxoplasma gondii in local cat populations.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Tropical forests are among the most diverse plant communities on earth, and scientists have labored for decades to identify the ecological and evolutionary processes that created and maintain them. A key question is whether all tree species are equivalent in their use of resources - water, light and nutrients - or whether each species has its own niche.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Estrogen is known to enhance the growth and migration of breast cancer cells. Now researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have found that estrogen also can shield breast cancer cells from immune cells.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - A $500 million research program announced today by the energy company BP will bring farm bioenergy production to Illinois on a grand scale, say researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Illinois will join the University of California at Berkeley and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in forming the new Energy Biosciences Institute, with UC Berkeley taking the lead.

Understanding and treatment of human ovarian cancer, known as the silent killer, may be a step closer thanks to some chickens at the UI. Ovarian cancer is the fourth leading cause of cancer deaths in women and unlike other cancers, its rate of mortality has not been reduced.

A new UI study shows that tomatoes and broccoli – two vegetables known for their cancer-fighting qualities – are better at shrinking prostate tumors when both are part of the daily diet than when they’re eaten alone.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The Japanese have a unique relationship with bugs. Many keep crickets or rhinoceros beetles as pets. Stir-fried or marinated silkworm pupae, wasp larvae and rice hoppers are popular treats in some regions, and there are firefly festivals throughout the country every summer.

A Minute With™... Stephen P. Long, Illinois' lead investigator on a new Energy Biosciences Institute

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - This spring David H. Baker, professor emeritus of animal sciences and nutritional sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, will receive the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology's Charles A. Black Award. The award is given to an individual who "has demonstrated outstanding achievement in his or her area of expertise within the agricultural, environmental, or food science sectors."

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Scientists from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana have found that people employed in chimpanzee-focused research and tourism in a park in western Uganda are exchanging gastrointestinal bacteria - specifically Escherichia coli - with local chimpanzee populations. And some of the E. coli strains migrating to chimps are resistant to antibiotics used by humans in Uganda.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Scientists at the University of Illinois have conducted a genetic analysis of vespid wasps that revises the vespid family tree and challenges long-held views about how the wasps' social behaviors evolved. In the study, published in the Feb. 21 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers found genetic evidence that eusociality (the reproductive specialization seen in some insects and other animals) evolved independently in two groups of vespid wasps.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Researchers at the University of Illinois have found that a molecular pathway known to have a role in the progression of bone cancer in humans is also critical to the pathology of skeletal tumors in dogs and cats. Their work could lead to advances in the palliative care of companion animals afflicted with osteosarcoma.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Researchers at the University of Illinois have found that adolescence is a time of remodeling in the prefrontal cortex, a brain structure dedicated to higher functions such as planning and social behaviors.

A Minute With™... entomology professor and department head May Berenbaum

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The culture of a school can dampen - or exacerbate - the violent or disruptive tendencies of aggressive young teens, new research indicates. A large-scale study from the University of Illinois found that while personal traits and peer interactions have the most direct effect on the aggressive behavior of middle school students, the school environment also influences student aggression.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The planarian is not as well known as other, more widely used subjects of scientific study - model creatures such as the fruit fly, nematode or mouse. But University of Illinois cell and developmental biology professor Phillip Newmark thinks it should be. As it turns out, the tiny, seemingly cross-eyed flatworm is an ideal subject for the study of germ cells, precursors of eggs and sperm in all sexually reproducing species.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Many women in the menopausal transition experience hot flashes: unpredictable, sometimes disruptive, periods of intense heat in the upper torso, neck and face. Although generations of physicians have prescribed hormones to reduce these symptoms, very little research has focused on the underlying causes of hot flashes.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The National Institutes of Health has awarded $7 million to a team of researchers from the University of Illinois and the University of Wisconsin to discover, engineer and produce a promising - yet little explored - class of antibiotic agents.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Renée Baillargeon, the University of Illinois Alumni Distinguished Professor of Psychology, has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the academy announced today. She and the other 226 newly elected fellows will be honored at the annual Induction Ceremony on Oct. 6 at academy headquarters in Cambridge, Mass.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Researchers in Illinois and Singapore have found that the aging brain reflects cultural differences in the way that it processes visual information. This study appears this month in the journal Cognitive, Affective & Behavioral Neuroscience. This paper and another published by the same group in 2006 are the first to demonstrate that culture can alter the brain's perceptive mechanisms.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Researchers at the University of Illinois have developed a simple and economical technique for imaging and mapping fruit fly chromosomes. This new approach will enable them to construct the first accurate map of the chromosomes and tease out the secrets hidden in their stripes.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The queen honey bee is genetically identical to the workers in her hive, but she lives 10 times longer and - unlike her sterile sisters - remains reproductively viable throughout life. A study from the University of Illinois sheds new light on the molecular mechanisms that account for this divergence. The study appears in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Researchers at the University of Illinois report that a new study of mechanoluminescence revealed extensive atomic and molecular spectral emission not previously seen in a mechanoluminescence event. The findings, which appear online this month in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, also include the first report of gas phase chemical reactions resulting from a mechanoluminescence event.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Are soy products healthy additions to a person's diet, safe alternatives to hormone-replacement therapy or cancer-causing agents? The answer, according to University of Illinois food science and human nutrition professor William Helferich, is, "It depends."

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Researchers at the University of Illinois have constructed the first global family tree of metabolic protein architecture. Their approach offers a new window on the evolutionary history of metabolism.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - A research team led by the University of Illinois has developed a treatment for exposure to enterotoxin B, a noxious substance produced by the Staphylococcus aureus bacterium. The team engineered a protein, which was successfully tested in rabbits, that could one day be used to treat humans exposed to the enterotoxin.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - All anxiety is not created equal, and a research team at the University of Illinois now has the data to prove it. The team has found the most compelling evidence yet of differing patterns of brain activity associated with each of two types of anxiety: anxious apprehension (verbal rumination, worry) and anxious arousal (intense fear, panic, or both).

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Using X-ray data and advanced computer simulation and visualization software, researchers at the University of Illinois have painstakingly modeled a critical part of a mechanism by which bacteria take up large molecules. Their findings provide a rare window on the complex interplay of proteins involved in the active transport of materials across cell membranes.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - In a study appearing this month in the Journal of Immunology, researchers at the University of Illinois describe how an impaired anti-inflammatory response plays a role in the pathology of type 2 diabetes.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Human sperm cells travel up to 6 meters in their transit from testes to penis, and most of that journey occurs in the epididymis, a tightly coiled tube that primes the cells for their ultimate task: fertilization. In a paper released this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers at the University of Illinois report that they have discovered a gene - and related mechanism - essential to the embryonic development of the epididymis.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - In a paper published online this month in the journal Nature Chemical Biology, researchers report that they have developed a way to determine the function of some of the hundreds of thousands of proteins for which amino acid sequence data are available, but whose structure and function remain unknown.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The process by which genes are duplicated is mysterious and complex, involving a cast of characters with diverse talents and the ability to play well with others in extremely close quarters. A key player on this stage is an enzyme called a helicase. Its job is to unwind the tightly coiled chain of nucleic acids - the DNA or RNA molecule that spells out the organism's genetic code - so that another enzyme, a polymerase, can faithfully copy each nucleotide in the code.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - New research from the University of Illinois challenges the premise that the brain must build new proteins in response to an experience for that experience to be recorded in long-term memory.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Is it me, or are you a less than ideal partner? For psychologists studying how people manage romantic relationships, that's not an easy question to answer. What if one of the partners is deeply afraid of intimacy? Could she be acting in ways that undermine the relationship? Or is her partner contributing to the problem?

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The routine use of antibiotics in swine production can have unintended consequences, with antibiotic resistance genes sometimes leaking from waste lagoons into groundwater.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Expectations of higher corn prices are leading some farmers to neglect or ignore integrated pest management strategies, and their behavior could undermine the very technologies that sustain them, University of Illinois researchers report today at the American Chemical Society meeting in Boston.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Restless legs syndrome is a common problem in children 8 years of age and older in the United States and the United Kingdom, according to a new report from an international team of researchers.