Illinois News Bureau: Research | University of Illinois

Photonics pioneer James J. Coleman has been elected to membership in the National Academy of Engineering. Coleman is the Intel Alumni Endowed Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering and a professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Illinois.

Robert Bruno, a professor of labor and employment relations, says a tax-increment finance program that can equally serve to bolster both the city of Chicagos economic development and the needs of public school children is not likely to arise from the current approach to the issue.

Researchers have found a way to study how our brains assess the behavior and likely future actions of others during competitive social interactions. Their study, described in a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the first to use a computational approach to tease out differing patterns of brain activity during these interactions, the researchers report.

University of Illinois researchers determined that an adult stem cell present in muscle is responsive to exercise, a discovery that may provide a link between exercise and muscle health. The findings could lead to new therapeutic techniques using these cells to rehabilitate injured muscle and prevent or restore muscle loss with age.

Law professor Richard L. Kaplan says a so-called Buffett Rule that would implement a higher minimum tax rate for those with income over $1 million per year would have little effect on the taxes of the real-life Warren Buffett unless it takes capital gains into account.

Anyone who has flown on a commercial airline since 2001 is well aware of increasingly strict measures at airport security checkpoints. A study by Illinois researchers demonstrates that intensive screening of all passengers actually makes the system less secure by overtaxing security resources.