News Bureau

Nick Holonyak Jr., a renowned innovator of illumination, has died. The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign professor was 93 years old.

Holonyak (pronounced huh-LON-yak) is credited with the development of the first practical visible-spectrum LED, now commonly used in light bulbs, device displays and lasers worldwide. 

A new study finds that Medicare costs tend to be lower in counties with more forests and shrublands than in counties dominated by other types of land cover. The relationship persists even when accounting for economic, geographic or other factors that might independently influence health care costs, researchers report.

Academic and administrative units at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will go back to the familiar orange block “I” logo, retiring the column “I” they have used since 1997.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Although World War I has faded from cultural memory, overshadowed by more dramatic and unambiguous conflicts that both preceded and followed it, the Great War continues to shape Americans' interpretations of their nation, its war-craft and its soldiers today.

CHAMPAIGN, lll. - The complicated sex life of the papaya is about to get even more interesting, thanks to a $3.1 million grant from the National Science Foundation. The NSF grant will fund basic research on the papaya sex chromosomes and will lead to the development of a papaya that produces only hermaphrodite offspring, an advance that will enhance papaya health while radically cutting papaya growers' production costs and their use of fertilizers and water.

Six faculty members at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have been named to the 2021 Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researchers list.

The only things one needs to learn Mandarin Chinese or nearly 30 other languages is a computer with a microphone, a University of Illinois NetID and plenty of phonetic practice.

As airline ticket sales have soared during the holiday season and the omicron variant causes surges of COVID-19 cases, a new University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign study may help passengers and airlines reduce risk of COVID-19 transmission by optimally seating passengers to minimize potential virus spread. Researchers used the most current data on aerosol spread on airplanes to calculate optimal seating assignments for common Boeing aircraft at different capacities. 

The Carle Illinois College of Medicine, the world’s first engineering-based medical school, welcomed its first class of 32 students July 2.

A partnership between the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the Carle Health System, the college aims to create a cohort of physician-innovators who exemplify the qualities of compassion, competence, curiosity and creativity. The students will receive full four-year tuition scholarships, privately funded, valued at more than $200,000 each.

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign announced Dean’s List honorees and graduates for the fall semester 2023, and the graduates for August 2023.
 

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – From shipping and construction to outer space, origami could put a folded twist on structural engineering.

CHAMPAIGN, lll. - A new study in the journal Cognition overturns a decades-old theory about the nature of attention and demonstrates that even brief diversions from a task can dramatically improve one's ability to focus on that task for prolonged periods.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - What we learn from our siblings when we grow up has - for better or for worse - a considerable influence on our social and emotional development as adults, according to an expert in sibling, parent-child and peer relationships at the University of Illinois.

Greater demand for online graduate programs pushed the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign’s 2020 enrollment to a record 52,331. In addition to delivering fall semester instruction as a mixture of face-to-face, hybrid and online courses, the university developed unique safety measures including a saliva-based COVID-19 test.

According to Brendan Morris, a graduate student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, treehoppers are the wackiest, most astonishing bugs most people have never heard of. They are morphological wonders, sporting bizarre protuberances that look like horns, gnarled branches, antlers, fruiting fungi, brightly colored flags or dead plant leaves.

To draw attention to this group, Morris named a newly discovered treehopper species after Lady Gaga, a musical performer who has her own flamboyant, shape-shifting style.

Students applying for fall 2021 freshman admission to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will not be required to submit SAT or ACT test results due to the COVID-19 pandemic limiting students’ opportunities to take the exams.

Just say the name "Selma," and anyone who knows the history of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s will know what you mean. It was on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in that Alabama city almost 50 years ago (March 7, 1965) that peaceful marchers were beaten back with billy clubs wielded by state and local lawmen. Captured on network television news, it would become known as "Bloody Sunday." The movie "Selma," which opened nationwide last Friday (Jan. 9), tells the story of that day and events before and after, which would prompt passage of the Voting Rights Act that summer. Sundiata Cha-Jua, a professor of history and of African-American studies at Illinois, teaches courses on both the civil rights movement and African-Americans in film. He talked about the film and the history with News Bureau social sciences editor Craig Chamberlain.

In most cases, an employer could require an employee to receive a COVID-19 vaccination. While that might seem like a violation of an employee’s personal freedom, “No one has a legally enforceable right to a specific job,” says Michael LeRoy, an expert in labor law and labor relations at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Eight faculty members at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have been named to the 2019 Highly Cited Researchers list, a global listing of scientists who produced the past decade’s most influential papers.

Consuming potato puree during prolonged exercise works just as well as a commercial carbohydrate gel in sustaining blood glucose levels and boosting performance in trained athletes, scientists report.

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is adjusting its 2021 spring calendar to help maintain instruction during the pandemic. Classes will start a week later than scheduled and while there will be no spring break, three days without classes will be added. Students planning to attend classes in person will be required to return early for COVID-19 on-campus testing.

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign announces graduates, Dean’s List and Bronze Tablet honorees for the 2024 spring semester.

A Minute With™... Wendy Haight, a professor of social work

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will open the fall semester with as much in-person instruction and residential occupancy as COVID-19 precautions allow.

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. - Emissions regulations do have an environmental impact, according to a long-term study of acidic rainfall by researchers at the University of Illinois.

The 60,000 square-foot, state-of-the-art facility will cultivate interdisciplinary design thinking and will foster innovation in undergraduate and graduate curricula in multiple colleges.

The U.S. recently confirmed that the Russian Ministry of Defence fired a hypersonic ballistic missile to destroy an underground arms depot in western Ukraine. This event marks Russia’s first use of the Kinzhal ballistic missile in this war and the first known use of a hypersonic missile in combat. Mechanical science and engineering professor Kelly Stephani spoke with News Bureau physical sciences editor Lois Yoksoulian about the significance of this technology.

Sending ailing dogs home with oral opioids may not be an effective way to manage their pain, experts report in a free, online continuing education program recently developed for veterinarians. In light of growing evidence that such drugs don’t work well in dogs – added to the fact that humans sometimes abuse opioids prescribed for pets – the common practice of prescribing oral opioids for dogs in pain should be reexamined, the experts say.

Anticipating the need among opioid prescribers for additional training to meet regulatory mandates, these experts created an online continuing education program that addresses the problem. The training includes cautions about unwarranted prescription of oral opioids and advice on effective pain management for veterinary patients. 

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign's incoming class of 8,325 includes the largest number of in-state residents in nearly two decades.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Though they be but little, they are fierce. The most powerful batteries on the planet are only a few millimeters in size, yet they pack such a punch that a driver could use a cellphone powered by these batteries to jump-start a dead car battery - and then recharge the phone in the blink of an eye.

With a population between 10,000 and 30,000 in its heyday (A.D. 1050-1200) and a sprawling assortment of homes, storage buildings, temples, cemeteries, mounds and other monuments in and around what is now St. Louis and East St. Louis, Illinois, the ancient Native American city known as Greater Cahokia was the first experiment in urban living in North America.

A new book, “Revealing Greater Cahokia, North America’s First Native City,” offers the most complete picture yet of a decade of archaeological research on a little-known part of the larger city and its precincts in East St. Louis.

Eleven faculty members at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have been named to the 2018 Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researchers list.

While sexual racism abounds on dating apps, Black men who are sexual minorities reported differing forms of it on the popular apps Jack’d and Grindr, researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign found.

Illinois alumnus and actor, humorist, author and woodworker Nick Offerman, best known for his role as Ron Swanson on the NBC hit comedy series "Parks and Recreation," will be the U. of I.’s commencement speaker Saturday, May 13.

One of the Biden administration’s first acts was to send Congress the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, a long-promised immigration reform bill. But any legislative action on comprehensive immigration reform will face significant headwinds in the Senate, says Lauren R. Aronson, an associate clinical professor of law and the director of the Immigration Law Clinic at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign College of Law.

Mental health outreach programs for farmers also need to provide services for their teens, who have similar rates of anxiety and depression, said agricultural and biological engineering professor Josie Rudolphi. 

An almost limitless supply of fresh water exists in the form of water vapor above Earth’s oceans, yet remains untapped, researchers said. A new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is the first to suggest an investment in new infrastructure capable of harvesting oceanic water vapor as a solution to limited supplies of fresh water in various locations around the world.

Exhaustive seismic data from repeating earthquakes and new data-processing methods have yielded the best evidence yet that the Earth’s inner core is rotating – revealing a better understanding of the hotly debated processes that control the planet’s magnetic field.

Rashid Bashir, the executive associate dean and chief diversity officer of the Carle Illinois College of Medicine, will become the next dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign effective Nov. 1.

Dennis Baron (he/him/his), a University of Illinois professor emeritus of English, writes about the history of pronoun use and how we adapt the language to fit our circumstances.

A Minute With™... Sandra Kopels, a lawyer and social worker

Parents who talk to their children about nonviolent conflict resolution reduce children’s likelihood of abusing their dating partners – even if parents give contradictory messages advocating violence in some situations.

Americans believe they have less stamina for strenuous mental activity than their European counterparts -- an indication that people in the U.S. perceive their willpower or self-control as being in limited supply, suggests a new study led by a researcher at the University of Illinois.

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has welcomed a record-breaking class for the fall 2024 semester. With a freshman enrollment of 9,008, the new class brings record total student enrollment at 59,238, including on-campus and online students.

Tinnitus, a chronic ringing or buzzing in the ears, has eluded medical treatment and scientific understanding. A new study by University of Illinois researchers found that chronic tinnitus is associated with changes in certain networks in the brain, and furthermore, those changes cause the brain to stay more at attention and less at rest.

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign today updated its faculty members, staff and students on the university's policies related to the coronavirus situation, including the immediate return of all people in Italy and the Daegu region of South Korea; restrictions of travel to those and other countries; and the offer to all study abroad participants to end their program early.

There could be an easy way to reduce lines at the airport, increase security, and save the Transportation Security Administration money, according to a new study by University of Illinois researchers: waive the $85 fee for frequent fliers to enroll in the TSA PreCheck program, which allows pre-screened, verified travelers to go through expedited security at airports.

CHAMPAIGN, lll. - When it comes to violent nonfiction, men are from Mars, the planet of war, but women are from Earth, the planet of serial killings and random murders.

Illinois alumnus and philanthropist Larry Gies will serve as the May 11 campuswide commencement speaker. Gies is the founder and CEO of Madison Industries, an international manufacturing company that is one of the largest privately held companies in the world.