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U. of I. graduate student in chemistry invited to Nobel laureates meeting

Published Date:May 29, 2013

Anna Jean Wirth, of Charlottesville, Va., a doctoral student in chemistry, has been selected to attend the 2013 Lindau meeting of Nobel laureates in Lindau, Germany, in June.

Published Date: May 29, 2013


Ted Underwood, an English professor, says he 'stumbled over' the surprising linguistic divide between literary and non-literary prose through data-mining.

Exhaustive computer research project shows shift in English language

Author: Dusty Rhodes, Arts and Humanities Editor

Published Date:May 15, 2013

University of Illinois English professor Ted Underwood recently wrapped up a research project involving more than 4,200 books. Since that work revealed dramatic shifts in the English language between the 18th and 19th centuries, hes now expanding his research to include more than 470,000 books almost every English language book written during that era and preserved in a university library.

Published Date: May 15, 2013


The newest Illinois faculty members named to the National Academy of Sciences are from left, Eduardo Fradkin, physics, and Martin Gruebele and Sharon Hammes-Schiffer, chemistry.

Three Illinois professors elected to National Academy of Sciences

Author: Liz Ahlberg, Physical Sciences Editor

Published Date:April 30, 2013

Three faculty members at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have been elected 2013 fellows of the National Academy of Sciences. Eduardo Fradkin, Martin Gruebele and Sharon Hammes-Schiffer are among the 84 new members and 21 foreign associates announced by the academy on April 30.

Published Date: April 30, 2013


Illinois chemists -- from left, undergraduate Kali A. Miller, graduate students Amin Haghighat Jahromi and Lien Nguyen, graduate student in Chemistry and professor Steven C. Zimmerman  developed a small-molecule compound that could lead to therapeutic treatment for myotonic dystrophy, an as-yet untreatable disease.

New molecule heralds hope for muscular dystrophy treatment

Author: Liz Ahlberg, Physical Sciences Editor

Published Date:April 29, 2013

There's hope for patients with myotonic dystrophy. A new small molecule developed by researchers at the University of Illinois has been shown to break up the protein-RNA clusters that cause the disease in living human cells, an important first step toward developing a pharmaceutical treatment for the as-yet untreatable disease.

Published Date: April 29, 2013


Schematic representation of phase segregated InGaAs/InAs nanowires grown on graphene and single phase InGaAs nanowires grown on a different substrate

Nanowires grown on graphene have surprising structure

Author: Liz Ahlberg, Physical Sciences Editor

Published Date:April 22, 2013

When a team of University of Illinois engineers set out to grow nanowires of a compound semiconductor on top of a sheet of graphene, they did not expect to discover a new paradigm of epitaxy.

Published Date: April 22, 2013


Atmospheric sciences professor Atul Jain led a group that studied the global effects of nitrogen on carbon dioxide emissions from land use change, such as deforestation to expand cropland.

Nitrogen has key role in estimating CO2 emissions from land use change

Author: Liz Ahlberg, Physical Sciences Editor

Published Date:April 19, 2013

A new global-scale modeling study that takes into account nitrogen a key nutrient for plants estimates that carbon emissions from human activities on land were 40 percent higher in the 1990s than in studies that did not account for nitrogen.

Published Date: April 19, 2013


The graphic illustrates a high power battery technology from the University of Illinois.  Ions flow between three-dimensional micro-electrodes in a lithium ion battery.

Small in size, big on power: New microbatteries a boost for electronics

Author: Liz Ahlberg, Physical Sciences Editor

Published Date:April 16, 2013

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.

Published Date: April 16, 2013


A thin plastic ribbon printed with advanced electronics is threaded through the eye of an ordinary sewing needle. The device, containing LEDs, electrodes and sensors, can be injected into the brain or other organs.

A bright idea: Tiny injectable LEDs help neuroscientists study the brain

Author: Liz Ahlberg, Physical Sciences Editor

Published Date:April 10, 2013

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

Published Date: April 10, 2013


U. of I. chemists  professor Scott Silverman, right, and graduate student Jagadeeswaran Chandrasekar  synthesized a DNA catalyst that can perform a difficult reaction usually catalyzed by the protein enzyme phosphatase.

DNA catalysts do the work of protein enzymes

Author: Liz Ahlberg, Physical Sciences Editor

Published Date:March 18, 2013

Illinois chemists have used DNA to do a proteins job, creating opportunities for DNA to find work in more areas of biology, chemistry and medicine than ever before.

Published Date: March 18, 2013


Philip Phillips, a professor of physics and of chemistry at Illinois, and colleagues have found that something other than electrons carry the current in copper-containing semiconductors known as cuprates.

Electrons are not enough: Cuprate superconductors defy convention

Author: Liz Ahlberg, Physical Sciences Editor

Published Date:March 18, 2013

To engineers, its a tale as old as time: Electrical current is carried through materials by flowing electrons. But physicists at the University of Illinois and the University of Pennsylvania found that for copper-containing superconductors, known as cuprates, electrons are not enough to carry the current.

Published Date: March 18, 2013