News Bureau

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- The University of Illinois Motorcycle Rider Program, now in its 24th year, will recognize its 10,000th enrollee Saturday.

A Minute With™... Fred Kummerow, trans fat expert

Influenza has no cure, but vaccines and anti-viral treatments could help thwart another deadly outbreak, says microbiology professor Christopher Brooke.

A Minute With™... Tamara Chaplin, a University of Illinois historian of modern France

A project led by architecture professor Marci Uihlein will archive and make accessible 100 years of student design work, representing a history of architecture education.

A Minute With...™ U. of I. physicist Stuart Shapiro

Fourteen University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign faculty members have been elected 2021 fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Bruce Levine, professor of history and expert on the Civil War

The American Civil War came to an end 150 years ago with the Confederate surrender at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, on April 9, 1865. Five days later, President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. What role did slavery play in the Confederate defeat? And how might history have been different if Lincoln had lived? University of Illinois historian Bruce Levine (pronounced La-VEEN) has written extensively about the war and its consequences. His 2013 book, "The Fall of the House of Dixie," traced how fighting the war transformed the South from within. He spoke with News Bureau social sciences editor Craig Chamberlain.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - A six-month stockpile of recommended pediatric vaccines would cost $1 billion and could cover more than 90 percent of U.S. children during a six-month interruption in production, say researchers at two Illinois universities.

University of Illinois library professor Nicole Cooke wrote about the history of the Carnegie Scholars program -- an early 1970s effort to increase the diversity of Illinois' graduate library school.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Three key issues were at the center of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act: money for border enforcement, a pathway to citizenship and making it illegal to hire undocumented workers.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - A program that helps low-income residents save money and fuel by improving their homes' energy efficiency is being expanded.

A four-year, $1 million grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation will help University of Illinois humanities scholars identify digital publishing options and produce new publications that will best disseminate their research.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- The 2000 Illinois Statistical Abstract has been completed by the Bureau of Economic and Business Research at the University of Illinois.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Frederick Hoxie starts each of his courses asking students to list three American Indians, and their answers are almost always the same: Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull and Geronimo.

A Minute With™... James D. Nowlan, a senior fellow in the Institute of Government and Public Affairs

The Global Carbon Project recently published the Global Carbon Budget 2020, giving world leaders access to data on atmospheric carbon concentrations, emissions and trends. Illinois atmospheric scientist Atul Jain was part of an international team of scientists that contributed data to the report. Jain talked about the carbon budget and this year’s findings with News Bureau physical sciences editor Lois Yoksoulian.

An upswing in death rates from non-COVID-19 causes in 2020 hit hard for men ages 15-64, according to a new study by computer science professor Sheldon H. Jacobson and internal medicine professor Janet Jokela.

Films and the media industry in changing times will be the subject of this year’s online Ebert Symposium, on Oct. 8 and two later dates, with filmmakers, media professionals and academics part of the discussion. Participants will explore the effects of the pandemic, the racial justice movement and other factors on the media industry, documentary filmmaking and media representation.

This year’s Roger Ebert’s Film Festival, or “Ebertfest,” has been canceled due to concerns related to the coronavirus.

The 2021 edition of Roger Ebert’s Film Festival, or “Ebertfest,” has been moved to early September due to uncertainties related to COVID-19.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - More than 200 scholars from Europe and North America will meet at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to take part in the 2003

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Casinos in the state of Illinois want to keep their roulette wheels spinning 24 hours a day, but a leading national gambling critic warns that round-the-clock gambling could be disastrous for the Land of Lincoln.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities has been awarded a $2,050,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to create research groups in three emerging areas in the humanities.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Past accomplishments, present projects and future prospects will be the focus of a series of panel discussions planned April 7 and 8 to mark the 30th anniversary of the Afro-American Studies and Research Program at the University of Illinois.

A Minute With...™ communication professor Ned O'Gorman

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Fifty-six high school bands from across Illinois will compete in the 32nd annual Illini Marching Band Festival on Saturday (Oct. 19) at the University of Illinois.

Point your phone or tablet at the poster with a cow image and a small 3-D cow appears before you – Desktop Bessie, with her skeleton, circulatory, digestive and nervous systems, and various organs visible as you move around her.

If you’re a veterinary student, the augmented reality cow is a great way to learn a cow’s anatomy.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Living cells are ready for their close-ups, thanks to a new imaging technique that needs no dyes or other chemicals, yet renders high-resolution, three-dimensional, quantitative imagery of cells and their internal structures - all with conventional microscopes and white light.

Researchers who focus on fat know that some adipose tissue is more prone to inflammation-related comorbidities than others, but the reasons why are not well understood. Thanks to a new analytical technique, scientists are getting a clearer view of the microenvironments found within adipose tissue associated with obesity. This advance may illuminate why some adipose tissues are more prone to inflammation – leading to diseases like type 2 diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular disorders – and help direct future drug therapies to treat obesity.

University of Illinois engineers built a 3-D printer that offers a sweet solution to making detailed structures that commercial 3-D printers can’t: Rather than a layer-upon-layer solid shell, it produces a delicate network of thin ribbons of hardened isomalt, the type of sugar alcohol used to make throat lozenges.

The water-soluble, biodegradable glassy sugar structures have multiple applications in biomedical engineering, cancer research and device manufacturing.

3-D printing now can be used to print lithium-ion microbatteries the size of a grain of sand. The printed microbatteries could supply electricity to tiny devices in fields from medicine to communications, including many that have lingered on lab benches for lack of a battery small enough to fit the device, yet providing enough stored energy to power it.

Nearly 400 youth from across Illinois will be on the University of Illinois campus Saturday (May 2) to compete in the seventh annual Illinois 4-H Robotics Challenge.

A Minute With™... Jan Slater, an advertising professor and the dean of the College of Media

The fossilized insect is tiny and its genital capsule, called a pygophore, is roughly the length of a grain of rice. It is remarkable, scientists say, because the bug’s physical characteristics – from the bold banding pattern on its legs to the internal features of its genitalia – are clearly visible and well-preserved. Recovered from the Green River Formation in present-day Colorado, the fossil represents a new genus and species of predatory insects known as assassin bugs.

A Minute With™... Ned O'Gorman, a professor of communication affiliated with the U. of I. Program for Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Champaign-Urbana audiences will have the rare opportunity to experience the 600-year-old Japanese theater art called Noh when the Kashu-juku Noh Theater troupe from Kyoto, Japan, performs March 29 (Tuesday) at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, 500 S. Goodwin Ave., Urbana.

A Minute With™... U. of I. educational historian James D. Anderson

A Minute With...™ Christopher Benson, author and professor of journalism

A Minute With™... Peter Fritzsche, a historian of modern Germany

CHAMPAIGN, lll. - Researchers report that a single, 20-minute session of Hatha yoga significantly improved participants' speed and accuracy on tests of working memory and inhibitory control, two measures of brain function associated with the ability to maintain focus and take in, retain and use new information. Participants performed significantly better immediately after the yoga practice than after moderate to vigorous aerobic exercise for the same amount of time.

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. - Think your simple wagering strategy for professional football - such as always picking the home team or the underdog - is going to pay off in the long run? Don't bet on it, say sports economists Scott Tainsky and Yoon Tae Sung.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - African-American and Hispanic students placed in ability groups for reading instruction learned less compared to demographically similar minority students who weren't grouped by ability, a new study by a University of Illinois expert in the sociology of education found.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Family debt diminishes students' prospects of graduating from college, and is particularly detrimental to black students' chances of earning degrees, suggests a new study by social work professor Min Zhan and doctoral student Deirdre Lanesskog, both at the University of Illinois.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - A new study from the University of Illinois concludes that very high biomass prices would be needed in order to meet the ambitious goal of replacing 30 percent of petroleum consumption in the U.S. with biofuels by 2030.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - A new class of tiny, injectable LEDs is illuminating the deep mysteries of the brain.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The absence of a key protein may lead to infertility.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The rising popularity of absentee voting, especially the use of "no-excuse" absentee ballots, poses a risk of vote tampering and election fraud, a University of Illinois legal scholar argues.