News Bureau

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The transistor laser, invented by scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has been full of surprises. Researchers recently coaxed the device to reveal fundamental properties of the transistor, and of the transistor laser, moving it a step closer to commercialization.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Inspired by the success of the 24-year-old Insect Fear Film Festival at the University of Illinois, the U. of I. Geology Club and the department of geology are sponsoring an Earth Fear Film Festival on April 13 (Friday).

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Michael Loui, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has been named a Carnegie Scholar by the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.

A Minute With™... Jeremiah Sullivan, a professor emeritus of physics

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Nick Holonyak Jr., a John Bardeen Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has been selected as the 2004 recipient of the $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize - the world's largest single cash prize for invention.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Computer scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have developed software that enables the sharing of high-speed Internet connections without compromising security or privacy. The software can improve Internet connectivity in residential areas at no additional cost.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Like virtuosos tuning their violins, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have tuned their instruments and harmonized the production of entangled photons, pushing rates to more than 1 million pairs per second.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Neil L. Kelleher, a professor of chemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is among 20 U.S. researchers named 2002 Packard Fellows in natural sciences by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Ten faculty members of the University of Illinois at

A Minute With™... computer science professor Sheldon H. Jacobson

CHAMPAIGN,Ill. - A University of Illinois mathematician has been elected a 2011 Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Scholars representing disciplines as diverse as architecture, urban planning, science, technology, cultural studies and library and information science - will gather May 6-8 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for a conference on "European Modernism and the Information Society: Informing the Present, Understanding the Past."

The U. of I. will receive $16 million to fund a center focused on extreme-scale computing to predict how plasmas could be used to control combustion. The research may pave the way for cleaner-burning combustors and more reliable and higher performance jet engines.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Online file-sharing communities have experienced explosive growth in recent years. YouTube, started in May 2005 so that people could share and download videos, now attracts 100 million visitors a day, while Gnutella and Kazaa, for music sharing, are attracting users at an increasing pace.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. Four University of Illinois researchers Paul D. Coleman, Richard I. Gumport, Jean-Pierre Leburton and Bruce R. Schatz are among 288 scientists elected as 2001 fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

CHAMPAIGN,Ill. - Three University of Illinois professors have each been selected to receive a 2012 Sloan Research Fellowship from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Developing novel ways to control the motion of atoms on surfaces is essential for the future of nanotechnology. Now, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have found a phenomenon of dislocation-driven nucleation and growth that creates holes that spiral into a surface and pull atoms into crystalline solids.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - By carving specks of single crystal silicon from a bulk wafer and casting them onto sheets of plastic, scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have demonstrated a route to ultrahigh performance, mechanically flexible thin-film transistors. The process could enable new applications in consumer electronics - such as inexpensive wall-to-wall displays and intelligent but disposable radio frequency identification tags - and could even be used in applications that require significant computing power.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Eleven faculty members of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have been awarded the distinction of AAAS Fellow by the American Association for the Advancement of Science: Mark B. David, John A. Gerlt, Gregory S. Girolami, Steven C. Huber, Stephen P. Long, Yi Lu, Ken N. Paige, Edmund G. Seebauer, Scott K. Silverman, Gregory Timp and Donald J. Wuebbles.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. A new crash analysis system is helping accident investigators shed more light on the main causal factor of aviation accidents: human error.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Nigel Goldenfeld has been elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences. Goldenfeld is the Swanlund Professor of Physics at the University of Illinois.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - New software developed by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign allows scientists to more effectively analyze and compare both sequence and structure data from a growing library of proteins and nucleic acids.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Steve Granick, Founder Professor of Engineering, and professor of materials science and engineering, of chemistry, of chemical and biomolecular engineering, and of physics, was awarded the Polymer Physics Prize of the American Physical Society.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - An innovative strategy of mixing lipids and nanoparticles to produce new drug and agricultural materials and delivery vehicles has been developed by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - For budding "bracketologists" busily weighing picks for their annual March Madness office pool, a University of Illinois professor has some advice on how to pick winners: In the later rounds of the tournament, ignore a team's seeding, which is a statistically insignificant predictor of a team's chances of winning.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Researchers using an extremely fast and accurate imaging technique have shed light on the tiny movements of molecular motors that shuttle material within living cells. The motors cooperate in a delicate choreography of steps, rather than engaging in the brute-force tug of war many scientists had imagined.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Gregory S. Girolami, a professor of chemistry at the University of Illinois, has been elected chair of the Council for Chemical Research. He will serve two years as a vice chair, and then assume leadership of the organization in 2009.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Gordon A. Baym, the Center for Advanced Study Professor of Physics at the University of Illinois, has been elected to the American Philosophical Society.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Scientists putting the squeeze on thin films of polystyrene have discovered that at very short length scales the polymer doesn't play by the rules.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - David Morrison, a senior scientist at the NASA Astrobiology Institute, will present the sixth talk in the department of astronomy's Icko Iben Jr. Distinguished Lectureship at 4 p.m. Nov. 5 in Foellinger Auditorium, 709 S. Mathews Ave., Urbana. The talk, "Cosmic Collisions: How Astronomers are Saving the World," is free and open to the public.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Nick Holonyak Jr., a John Bardeen Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has been selected as the 2003 recipient of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Medal of Honor.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. Gordon A. Baym, Center for Advanced Study Professor of Physics at the University of Illinois, has been selected as the 2002 recipient of the Hans A. Bethe Prize from the American Physical Society.

A Minute With™... computer science professor Sheldon H. Jacobson and graduate student Douglas M. King

When it comes to science, Joanne Manaster admittedly inspires easily.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Scientists studying the structure and interaction of negatively charged lipids and DNA molecules have created a "cookbook" for a class of nontoxic DNA delivery systems that will assist doctors and clinicians in the safe and effective delivery of genetic medicine.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Using high-intensity ultrasound, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have created hollow nanospheres and the first hollow nanocrystals. The nanospheres could be used in microelectronics, drug delivery and as catalysts for making environmentally friendly fuels.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Printing circuits on sheets of plastic may offer a low-cost technique for manufacturing thin-film transistors for flexible displays, but maximizing the performance of such devices will require a detailed, fundamental understanding of how charge flows through organic semiconductors.

A Minute With™... atmospheric sciences professor Don Wuebbles

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will be the home of a national center that will address the challenge of how to protect the nation's power grid, the National Science Foundation announced today. The NSF has awarded $7.5 million over five years to the project, which will be led by the U. of I. and also involve researchers at Cornell University, Dartmouth College, and Washington State University. The Department of Energy and the Department of Homeland Security have pledged to join NSF in funding and managing the effort.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Howard K. Birnbaum, a professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has been selected as the 2002 recipient of the Von Hippel Award from the Materials Research Society. The award will be presented Dec. 4 at the MRS meeting in Boston.

CHAMPAIGN,Ill. - Edward Maibach, a professor at George Mason University, will give a lecture in a series that honors Charles David Keeling, an analytical chemist at the University of Illinois and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. Thomas B. Rauchfuss, professor of chemistry and director of the School of Chemical Sciences at the University of Illinois, has been selected as the 2002 recipient of the ACS Award in Inorganic Chemistry from the American Chemical Society.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - There may be tiny bubbles in the wine, but not at the interface between water and a waxy coating on glass, a new study shows.

A Minute With™... Geophysicist and earthquake expert Timothy Larson

The American Association for the Advancement of Science has recognized Lynford L. Goddard as the first recipient of the newly established AAAS Early Career Award for Public Engagement with Science. The award recognizes the achievements of individual early-career scientists and engineers who have demonstrated significant contributions to public engagement activities while simultaneously pursuing a research career.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - By threading a magnetic field through a carbon nanotube, scientists have switched the molecule between metallic and semiconducting states, a phenomenon predicted by physicists some years ago, but never before clearly seen in individual molecules.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the Agency for Science, Technology and Research, or A*STAR, a Singapore government agency that oversees 22 research institutes, consortia and centers, are establishing a major research center in Singapore. The Advanced Digital Sciences Center will be focused on breakthrough innovations in information technology that are expected to have a major impact in transforming human beings' utilization of information technology.

Developing a petroleum-free fuel from corn byproducts is one of the goals of a newly funded research project at the UI. Eight research laboratories will pool their expertise, attacking the problems from different directions in order to work to improve the efficiency of bioconversion of plant fibers into fuels and other value-added products.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have made an important theoretical breakthrough in the understanding of energy dissipation and thermal breakdown in metallic carbon nanotubes. Their discovery will help move nanotube wires from laboratory to marketplace.