News Archive [2018]

[ 2018-12 ] A new study links higher levels of several key nutrients in the blood with more efficient brain connectivity and performance on cognitive tests in older adults. The study,…

[ 2018-12 ] In biomedical research, plant breeding, and countless other endeavors, geneticists are on the hunt for the specific genes responsible for disease susceptibility, yield, and other…

[ 2018-12 ] Move over, trap-jaw ants and mantis shrimp: There’s a faster appendage in town. According to a new study, the Dracula ant, Mystrium camillae, can snap its mandibles at speeds of…

[ 2018-12 ] On Monday, December 10, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awards one half of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Dr. Frances H. Arnold, Professor of Chemical Engineering,…

[ 2018-12 ] More than a decade after the identification of colony collapse disorder, a phenomenon marked by widespread loss of honey bee colonies, scientists are still working to untangle the…

[ 2018-12 ] Inside the microbial communities that populate our world, microbes are fighting for their lives. These tiny organisms are in the soil, in the oceans, and in the human body.…

[ 2018-11 ] Nine faculty members at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have been named to the 2018 Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researchers list, including four from the IGB.…

[ 2018-11 ] Four Illinois professors have been elected 2018 Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, including two from the IGB. Plant biology professors Andrew…

[ 2018-11 ] This week, families across the U.S. will gather around Thanksgiving tables in a traditional celebration of the season’s bounty. By improving how key crops transform sunlight into…

[ 2018-11 ] A previously unappreciated interaction in the genome turns out to have possibly been one of the driving forces in the emergence of advanced life, billions of years ago. This…

[ 2018-11 ] The Illinois iGEM team won a bronze medal at the 2018 International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition for their work on the relationship between lactic acid…

[ 2018-11 ] When temperatures drop, the enzyme Rubisco that fuels plant growth and yield gets sluggish. Many crops compensate by producing more Rubisco; however, scientists speculated that…

[ 2018-11 ] The Earth BioGenome Project (EBP), a global effort to sequence the genetic code, or genomes, of all 1.5 million known animal, plant, protozoan and fungal species on Earth,…

[ 2018-10 ] University of Illinois entomology professor and department head May Berenbaum, a member of the National Academy of Sciences and longtime editorial contributor to the Proceedings…

[ 2018-10 ] A team of researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Mayo Clinic have engineered a new type of molecular probe that can measure and count RNA in cells and…

[ 2018-10 ] When temperatures drop, plants can’t bundle up. Stuck outside, exposed, plants instead undergo a series of biochemical changes that protect cells from damage. Scientists have…

[ 2018-10 ] Dr. Hong-Yan Shih, a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Physics and at the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign…

[ 2018-10 ] Somatic stem cells are microscopic workhorses, constantly regenerating cells throughout the body: skin and the lining of the intestine, for example. And to University of Illinois…

[ 2018-10 ] Entomology professor and director of the IGB Gene Robinson, an international leader in honey bee research, has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine “for pioneering…

[ 2018-10 ] Changing the way microbes are classified can reveal similarities among mammals’ gut microbiomes, according to a new study. The study, published in mBio, proposed an alternative…