News Bureau

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The mating ritual of the honey bee is a mysterious affair, occurring at dizzying heights in zones identifiable only to a queen and the horde of drones that court her. Now a research team led by the University of Illinois has identified an odorant receptor that allows male drones to find a queen in flight. The receptor, on the male antennae, can detect an available queen up to 60 meters away.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Researchers at the University of Illinois have developed a method for culturing mammalian neurons in chambers not much larger than the neurons themselves. The new approach extends the lifespan of the neurons at very low densities, an essential step toward developing a method for studying the growth and behavior of individual brain cells.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - A new study from the University of Illinois puts to rest the idea that overly controlling or manipulative parenting styles are less destructive to a child's emotional and academic functioning in China than in the U.S.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Researchers at the University of Illinois have used an innovative approach to reveal the molecular basis of altruistic behavior in wasps. The research team focused on the expression of behavior-related genes in Polistes metricus paper wasps, a species for which little genetic data was available when the study was begun. Their findings appear today online in Science Express.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - As they root for the home team from their bleacher seats this fall, high school gridiron fans in the small Illinois town of Tolono don't necessarily see anything out of the ordinary down on the field.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The present can tell you a lot about the past, but you need to know where to look. A new study appearing this month in Genome Research reveals that protein architectures - the three-dimensional structures of specific regions within proteins - provide an extraordinary window on the history of life.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Honey bee colonies are in decline in many states, but little is known about their wild cousins, the bumble bees, or, for that matter, honey bees living on their own in the wild without beekeepers. A new initiative from the University of Illinois seeks to build a better record of honey bee and bumble bee abundance and distribution in Illinois by recruiting citizen scientists to report on wild bees seen anywhere in the state.

A Minute With™... Swanlund Professor of Physics Klaus Schulten

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Thirty years ago this month, researchers at the University of Illinois published a discovery that challenged basic assumptions about the broadest classifications of life. Their discovery - which was based on an analysis of ribosomal RNA, an ancient molecule essential to the replication of all cells - opened up a new field of study, and established a first draft of the evolutionary "tree of life."

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Forest fragmentation threatens biodiversity, often causing declines or local extinctions in a majority of species while enhancing the prospects of a few. A new study from the University of Illinois shows that parasites can play a pivotal role in the decline of species in fragmented forests. This is the first study to look at how forest fragmentation increases the burden of infectious parasites on animals already stressed by disturbances to their habitat.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Scientists have discovered a strange mechanism for the development of the fruit fly antennal lobe, an intricate structure that converts the chaotic stew of odors in the environment into discrete signals in the brain.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - What do entomologists do on autumn weekends? This Sunday the University of Illinois department of entomology is going to see an animated insect film: "Bee Movie," starring Jerry Seinfeld and Renée Zellweger.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - University of Illinois researchers have built a better plant, one that produces more leaves and fruit without needing extra fertilizer. The researchers accomplished the feat using a computer model that mimics the process of evolution. Theirs is the first model to simulate every step of the photosynthetic process.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The University of Illinois is one of 12 institutions in Illinois to receive funding from the Federal Communications Commission Rural Health Care Pilot Program, an initiative to improve health-related communications infrastructure nationwide. The university will share in the $21 million grant to the state of Illinois. The money will be used to enhance the state's cyber-infrastructure, improving the communications capabilities of health providers all over the state.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - They are often overlooked, and were once thought to be too small to contribute much to major cellular processes, but in recent years the study of small ribonucleic acids (sRNA) has gained momentum. Now a team from the University of Illinois has identified the unique metabolic activities of one of these bit players, a 200-nucleotide-long RNA molecule in bacteria called SgrS.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Researchers at the University of Illinois have developed a new model of global carbon and nitrogen cycling that will fundamentally transform the understanding of how plants and soils interact with a changing atmosphere and climate.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Two land-grant universities have developed a new approach to global bio-exploration, one that returns most of the fruits of discovery to the countries that provide the raw materials on which the research depends. The Global Institute for Bio-Exploration, a joint initiative of the University of Illinois and Rutgers University, has become a model of sustainable, non-exploitive research in the developing world.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The Argentine ant, Linepithema humile, is one of the most successful invasive species in the world, having colonized parts of five continents in addition to its native range in South America. A new study sheds light on the secrets of its success.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Researchers at the University of Illinois have found a simple solution to a problem that has plagued scientists for decades: the tendency of chemical buffers used to maintain the pH of laboratory samples to lose their efficacy as the samples are cooled. The research team, headed by chemistry professor Yi Lu, developed a method to formulate a buffer that maintains a desired pH at a range of low temperatures.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Herons nesting in the wetlands of southeast Chicago are still being exposed to chemicals banned in the U.S. in the 1970s, a research team reports. The chemicals do not appear to be affecting the birds' reproductive success, however.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - A team of plant geneticists and crop scientists has pioneered an economical approach to the selective breeding of maize that can boost levels of provitamin A, the precursors that are converted to vitamin A upon consumption. This innovation could help to enhance the nutritional status of millions of people in the developing world.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Could the pursuit of happiness go too far? Most self-help books on the subject offer tips on how to maximize one's bliss, but a new study suggests that moderate happiness may be preferable to full-fledged elation.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - What could be lower than the lowly parsnip, a root once prized for its portable starchiness but which was long ago displaced by the more palatable potato? Perhaps only the parsnip webworm gets less respect. An age-old enemy of the parsnip, the webworm is one of very few insects able to overcome the plant's chemical defenses. The tenacious parsnip webworm has followed the weedy version of the parsnip in its transit from its ancestral home in Eurasia to Europe, North America and - most recently - New Zealand.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Researchers at the University of Illinois helped lead a collaborative effort to uncover a completely new treatment strategy for serious Staphylococcus aureus ("Staph") infections. The research, published Feb. 14 in ScienceXpress, the online version of Science magazine, comes at a time when strains of antibiotic-resistant Staph (known as MRSA, for methicillin-resistant S. aureus) are spreading in epidemic proportions in hospital and community settings.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - It's insect fear from the insect's perspective this year at the Insect Fear Film Festival at the University of Illinois, with a free screening of "Bee Movie," hosted by its director, Simon J. Smith.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - U. of I. researchers have taken the first steps toward understanding how an enzyme repairs DNA.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Like any species that aspires to rule the world, the honey bee, Apis mellifera, invades new territories in repeated assaults. A new study demonstrates that when these honey bees arrive in a place that has already been invaded, the newcomers benefit from the genetic endowment of their predecessors.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Blood clots can save lives, staunching blood loss after injury, but they can also kill. Let loose in the bloodstream, a clot can cause a heart attack, stroke or pulmonary embolism.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Transfer RNA is an ancient molecule, central to every task a cell performs and thus essential to all life. A new study from the University of Illinois indicates that it is also a great historian, preserving some of the earliest and most profound events of the evolutionary past in its structure.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Scientists have known for more than a decade that a protein associated with the HIV virus is good at crossing cell membranes, but they didn't know how it worked. A multidisciplinary team from the University of Illinois has solved the mystery, and their findings could improve the design of therapeutic agents that cross a variety of membrane types.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Ferrets, frogs and finches are becoming more common as pets, but the list of unusual species adopted into human households now includes some of the most exotic creatures on the planet. The trade in exotic pets has become a multi-billion dollar enterprise, but expansion of the industry sometimes outpaces veterinary knowledge of how to treat the maladies that afflict these unusual animals.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are rising at an alarming rate, and new research indicates that soybean plant defenses go down as CO2 goes up. Elevated CO2 impairs a key component of the plant's defenses against leaf-eating insects, according to the report.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The neurotransmitter acetylcholine is an essential chemical communicator, carrying impulses from neurons to skeletal muscle cells and many parts of the nervous system. Now researchers at the University of Illinois have painstakingly mapped the interior of a key component of the relay system that allows acetylcholine to get its message across. Their findings, which appear in the current issue of Nature Structure & Molecular Biology, reveal how the muscle nicotinic acetylcholine receptor responds to a burst of acetylcholine on the surface of a cell.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Alejandro Lleras, a professor of psychology at the University of Illinois and an affiliate of the Beckman Institute, is a recipient of an Early Faculty CAREER award from the National Science Foundation. The $400,000 award will be distributed over five years, beginning in 2008.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - University of Illinois researchers have developed a technique for imaging cells under an electron microscope that yields a sharper image of the structure of chromatin, the tightly wound bundle of genetic material and proteins that makes up the chromosomes.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Researchers report this month that red colobus monkeys in a park in western Uganda have been exposed to an unknown orthopoxvirus, a pathogen related to the viruses that cause smallpox, monkeypox and cowpox. Most of the monkeys screened harbor antibodies to a virus that is similar - but not identical - to known orthopoxviruses.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - A broad collaboration of research institutions in the U.S. and China has produced a first draft of the papaya genome. This draft, which spells out more than 90 percent of the plant's gene coding sequence, sheds new light on the evolution of flowering plants. And because it involves a genetically modified plant, the newly sequenced papaya genome offers the most detailed picture yet of the genetic changes that make the plant resistant to the papaya ringspot virus.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Richard Herman, the chancellor of the Urbana campus of the University of Illinois, and Jeffrey Moore, the Murchison-Mallory Professor of Chemistry at Illinois, have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the academy announced today.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Which is better, giving more food to a few hungry people or letting some food go to waste so that everyone gets a share? A study appearing this week in Science finds that most people choose the latter, and that the brain responds in unique ways to inefficiency and inequity.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Most female frogs don't call; most lack or have only rudimentary vocal cords. A typical female selects a mate from a chorus of males and then - silently - signals her beau. But the female concave-eared torrent frog, Odorrana tormota, has a more direct method of declaring her interest: She emits a high-pitched chirp that to the human ear sounds like that of a bird.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Cell division is essential to life, but the mechanism by which emerging daughter cells organize and divvy up their genetic endowments is little understood. In a new study, researchers at the University of Illinois and Columbia University report on how a key motor protein orchestrates chromosome movements at a critical stage of cell division.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Researchers at the University of Illinois report this week that a plant compound found in abundance in celery and green peppers can disrupt a key component of the inflammatory response in the brain. The findings have implications for research on aging and diseases such as Alzheimer's and multiple sclerosis.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Helicobacter pylori is one tough bug. It can survive in the human stomach, a zone with a pH somewhere between that of lemon juice and battery acid. Now researchers 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.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Two University of Illinois 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.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Researchers report this week 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. (View animation.)

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - A costly deadline looms for many growers in the Midwest, as every day of waiting for the weather to cooperate to plant corn and soybeans reduces potential yields. Research indicates that Illinois growers who plant corn or soybeans near the end of June can expect a 50 percent reduction in crop yield, according to a University of Illinois agriculture expert.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Remember the pollinators! That is the rallying cry of local bug aficionados as they prepare for National Pollinator Week, June 22-28.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - University of Illinois researchers 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.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Researchers have discovered a new family of agents that inhibit the growth of estrogen-dependent breast cancer cells. The finding, described today at a meeting of the Endocrine Society, has opened an avenue of research into new drugs to combat estrogen-dependent breast cancers.

A Minute With™... Extension entomologist Phil Nixon