News Bureau

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Despite recent rains over parts of Illinois, drought conditions have worsened in central and southwestern regions of the state, say officials of the Illinois State Water Survey.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- The most detailed map ever produced of cattle genes and the first comparison map of cattle and human genomes show that many genes, and even whole chromosomes, are configured in the same way in the two species, scientists report.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Stephen P. Havera, director of the Forbes Biological Station of the Illinois Natural History Survey, was honored Sept. 13 by the Wildlife Society as the recipient of its 2000 Wildlife Publications Award for his comprehensive book on Illinois waterfowl.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- The seemingly lost tradition of shared family meals will be the focus of the inaugural lecture of The Pampered Chef Family Resiliency Lecture Series to be held Oct. 19 (Thursday) at the Illini Center, 200 S. Wacker Drive, Chicago.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- University of Illinois biologists have discovered that a protein that lives in the cytoplasmic world between a mammalian cell's membrane and nucleus undergoes a "nuclear experience" that is necessary for regulating cell growth and division.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- "Secret Agent Worms," corn as a vitamin and fuel, and kenaf as an alternative cash crop are among the exhibits to be displayed March 2-3 at the 12th Annual College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) Open House at the University of Illinois.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Area residents can enhance their knowledge of medicine and science by attending the Community Medical School, a new program of the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Urbana-Champaign.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. Herbert E. Whiteley, the head of the department of pathobiology and veterinary science at the University of Connecticut, will return to the University of Illinois as the dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine, pending approval of the UI Board of Trustees at its meeting May 23-24 in Springfield.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. A $100,000 grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has paved the way for the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine to develop a comprehensive online continuing education program for veterinarians.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. Carbon isotope evidence in almost 6-million-year-old soils suggests that the earliest humans already were evolving in and likely preferred humid forests rather than grasslands, report a team of scientists working in Ethiopia.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. Robert A. Easter was named today to be acting dean of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois. He will become interim dean, pending approval of the Board of Trustees at its meeting Sept. 13 in Chicago.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. What are the implications now that the human genome has been sequenced? How will that scientific breakthrough, along with others in the field of biology, affect various areas of human life, from health and medicine to food production?

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. Pollen from a Bt corn variety carrying a now-phased-out genetically inserted pesticide known as event 176 dramatically reduced growth rates among black swallowtail caterpillars in University of Illinois field tests, researchers report.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. A lecture on the human genome, scheduled for Thursday at the University of Illinois, has been postponed because of Tuesdays terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. University of Illinois researchers have major roles in a newly announced $43.8 million National Science Foundation-funded initiative to define the function of the genes in a plant considered a model for understanding all plants. Eventually, their findings could have dramatic implications for all agricultural crops.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. Two University of Illinois microbiologists will be among the five panelists participating in a free, public forum on anthrax and bioterrorism that begins at 8 p.m. Wednesday (Oct. 24) in Lincoln Hall Theater, 702 S. Wright St., Urbana. Members of the audience will be able to ask questions of the expert panelists after they speak.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. A computer that can recognize users faces, and even their moods. A method of delivering vaccine by a single pill that would eliminate the need for booster shots. An electronic "nose" that could be used by physicians to monitor dialysis patients and diagnose disease and by USDA inspectors to ensure fish is fresh.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. The University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine is home to a new federally funded center that will study the effects of exposure to toxicants in fish being eaten in large quantities by Laotian and Hmong refugees in Green Bay and Appleton, Wis.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. A computational study on nitrogen inputs to the Mississippi River Basin from the 1950s to the 1990s suggests that better use of the fertilizer such as not over-applying it could substantially reduce the amount of nitrates flowing down river without compromising crop yields.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. Dr. William A. Eaton, the chief of the Laboratory of Chemical Physics at the National Institutes of Health, will give a public lecture, "Searching for a Cure of Sickle Cell Disease," Jan. 31 (Thursday) beginning at 4 p.m. in the auditorium of the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, 405 N. Mathews Ave., Urbana.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. Millions of alien invaders live in the United States, and a select bunch of them cause an estimated $20 billion in damage each year. These are not repulsive life-threatening beings from Mars and beyond; rather they are insects and other arthropods, some barely distinguished from homegrown varieties. Some of these aliens will star in this years Insect Fear Film Festival on Feb. 9.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. The complexity and diversity of life, from insects to trees to mollusks to big cats and more, will be the topic of a four-day symposium for scientists converging on the University of Illinois campus Feb. 7-10.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. The Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is teaming with General Motors Research & Development and Planning of Warren, Mich., to study driver distractions and how well humans interact with in-vehicle technologies.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. A buzz being heard around the entomology department these days is a genomic celebration. Three departmental researchers will have key roles in a recently announced federal project to map the some 15,000 genes of a honeybee (Apis mellifera).

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. An ongoing, multi-faceted science education and outreach program, which benefits undergraduates as well as elementary through high school teachers and students across Illinois, is among 44 proposals nationwide that will receive funding from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. Robert A. Easter today was named the dean of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has served as interim dean since August 2001. His appointment was approved by the board of trustees at its meeting in Springfield.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Work and home: Two worlds that most parents juggle daily. How to balance the two so the pressure of one doesn't overwhelm the other is the focus of a five-part program under development by University of Illinois Extension.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Phillip A. Newmark, a researcher in the department of cell and structural biology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is one of five recipients nationwide of a 2003 Damon Runyon Scholar Award.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Scientists Nick Holonyak Jr. and Susan E. Fahrbach of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are among 291 people selected as 2002 fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Microbiologist Carl R. Woese today won the $500,000 Crafoord Prize in Biosciences given by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The annual prize marks accomplishments in scientific fields not covered by the Nobel Prizes in science, which the academy also selects. The king of Sweden will present the prize to Woese Sept. 24 in Stockholm.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Microbiologist Carl R. Woese today won the $500,000 Crafoord Prize in Biosciences given by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The annual prize marks accomplishments in scientific fields not covered by the Nobel Prizes in science, which the academy also selects. The king of Sweden will present the prize to Woese Sept. 24 in Stockholm.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Insects are vital to every ecosystem and essential to our existence, Gilbert Waldbauer says, answering a common question posed by the title of his new book, "What Good Are Bugs?"

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Animal geneticist Harris A. Lewin today was named the first director of the Post Genomic Institute at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, pending approval by the Board of Trustees at its May 15 meeting in Urbana. The institute will be a facility that officials say will put Illinois at the forefront of modern biological research.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Faculty members and students of the neuroscience program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign want children and their families to join them to learn about "Brains in Action" from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., May 24, at the Orpheum Children's Science Museum, 356 N. Neil St., Champaign.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The West Nile virus is the focus of a dozen research papers to be presented Aug. 9 (Saturday) during the 121st Stated Meeting of the American Ornithologists' Union, Aug. 5-9, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - A half-inch-long beetle known as the emerald ash borer, which is devastating ash trees in Michigan, poses a serious threat to Illinois, says an entomologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Officials fear that beetle-infested firewood could be accidentally transported into the state.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Nine scientists of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are part of a newly created, federally funded Midwestern Regional Center of Excellence to be based at the University of Chicago.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Microbiologist Carl R. Woese formally accepted the $500,000 Crafoord Prize in Biosciences from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Sweden. The king of Sweden presented the prize to Woese on Sept. 24.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Paul C. Lauterbur, a pioneer in the development of magnetic resonance imaging and a faculty member at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has been awarded the 2003 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. He shares the prize with Sir Peter Mansfield of the University of Nottingham in England. Mansfield was a research associate in the department of physics at Illinois from 1962-1964.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - John W. Erdman Jr., a professor of nutrition at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, was elected today to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - A pioneering interdisciplinary research initiative that will combine neuroscience, chemistry and materials science in an effort to find new treatments for brain diseases and damage is being launched at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a $1.2 million grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Sediment samples dating back thousands of years and taken from under the deep water of West Olaf Lake in Minnesota have revealed an unexpected climate indicator that can be factored into future projections.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Chemists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have uncovered the molecular activity of an enzyme responsible for naturally turning a small protein into a potent antibiotic known as a lantibiotic.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The nationwide rise in induced labor and Caesarean deliveries could be eased by an experimental dual drug approach that not only safely jump-starts labor but also remodels the cervix to allow for speedy natural delivery, scientists report.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The world's latest most-feared technological nightmare comes true Feb. 28, but only for about six hours. Genetically engineered insects will be running amok - though just on the big screen - during the 21st annual Insect Fear Film Festival at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - During the last decade, Val Beasley of the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine has led a team wanting to know why the world's amphibian populations have been dwindling or riddled with limb deformities.

Champaign.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Aging adults who give up a sedentary lifestyle and replace it with a cardiovascular fitness regimen as simple as brisk walks reap greater focus and reduced decision-making conflict as they perform a variety of tasks, scientists say.