Physics SlideShow

Sir Anthony J. Leggett, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor and Center for Advanced Study Professor of Physics, will be presented the Trustees' Distinguished Service Medallion.

Founder Professor of Engineering David M. Ceperley and Swanlund Professor of Physics Laura H. Greene have been appointed permanent members of the University of Illinois's Center for Advanced Study.

Benjamin Wandelt, associate professor of physics and of astronomy, has been selected for a College of Engineering 2009 Xerox Award for Faculty Research.

A team led by Illinois physics professor and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Taekjip Ha, with Sua Myong, a professor at the U. of I.s Institute for Genomic Biology, discovered how the RIG-I protein detects an invading virus and sends out an alarm to other cellular components.

By determining the properties of hydrogen-helium mixtures at the millions of atmospheres of pressure present in the interior of Saturn and Jupiter, physicists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have determined the temperature at a given pressure when helium becomes insoluble in dense metallic hydrogen. The results are directly relevant to models of the interior structure and evolution of Jovian planets.