2019-07-25
- Neuroscientist shines new light on a natural phenomenon: The anemonefish is a gender-bending marvel. It starts out as a male, but can switch to female when circumstances allow, for example, when the only female present dies or disappears. In a new study, researchers found that the male-to-female sex-change occurs first in the fish’s brain and only later involves the gonads – sometimes...
2019-07-25 - On Thursday, July 18th, the University of Illinois held "Illini Fest." This first ever event, initiated by the Chief Marketing Officer, Eric Minor, was designed to showcase the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in Chicago. It was a way to "wake up" the city of Chicago and announce to the over 150,000 + alumni in the Chicago area that the University of Illinois is here and is...
2019-07-24 - Beckman Institute - 07/24/19 Fatima Husain’s group has published one paper and has another forthcoming that measure the behavioral, functional, and structural changes associated with using mindfulness-based cognitive therapy as an intervention for tinnitus. Living with tinnitus means hearing a constant sound, even in a quiet room. Unfortunately, 12% to 30% of the population suffers...
2019-07-05 - The Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, established by President Clinton in 1996, is the highest honor bestowed by the United States Government on science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their independent research careers. Recipients are selected for their pursuit of innovative research at the frontiers of science and technology and for their...
2019-06-20 - Jonathan Sweedler was recently voted the 2019 winner of CASSS Award for Outstanding Achievements in Separation Science. His contributions to capillary electrophoresis, detection methods for CE, and applications of CE, especially to single cell analysis have advanced neuroscience by providing deep information on neuropeptide processing and the role of D-amino acids, among...
2019-05-16 - ENTOMOLOGY: WLS-TV (Chicago, May 16) – For the growing number of beekeepers in Lake County, the arrival of 3 million bees was a welcome sign that winter was finally ending. Gene Robinson, an entomology professor at Illinois, credits three factors with the growth of beekeeping as a hobby. “With the concern for bees and the interest in locally produced food and the interest in food in...- 2019-05-02 - 5G WIRELESS - Chicago Tribune (May 1) – 5G, the fifth generation of wireless, promises lightning-fast download speeds and could lay the foundation for high-tech advancements like self-driving cars, but it’s also sparking health concerns. Lav Varshney, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Illinois, says concerns surrounding new technologies are common throughout history. “When...
2019-05-01 - New soft, stretchable electronic devices designed by a team including Neuroscience faculty and alumni at Beckman Institute could change the way people undergo medical tests, control prosthetic devices, and more. The innovation, which can range from the size of a postage stamp to that of entire body parts, is a shining example of what is possible through interdisciplinary collaboration....- 2019-04-17 - 3D printing is...allowing scientists to create models at a much finer scale, says ornithologist Mark Hauber at the University of Illinois in Urbana. Hauber studies a behavior known as brood parasitism, in which birds lay eggs in the nests of other species, leaving the unwitting foster parents to rear their chicks. Previously, researchers studied host birds’ reactions by placing plaster and wood...
2019-04-17 - Hakai Magazine (Campbell River, Canada, April 17) – Mark Hauber, an animal behavior researcher at the U. of I., has discovered that year after year a female common murre will produce an egg with a shell pattern that has an individualized, recognizable pattern that is nearly identical to her previous eggs by manipulating just two pigments.- 2019-04-11 - On April 10, Associate Professor's Dan Llano, MIP and Stephanie Ceman, CDB, debated before the Neuroscience Program weekly seminar audience as to whether they believed beta-amyloid plaques cause Alzheimer's disease.
2019-04-11 - Featured in the April 10 Daily Illini, Aadeel Akhtar, founder of PSYONIC, is featured for the bionic hand he has been working on and is currently produced by PSYONIC. He states, “Our prosthetic hand is actually faster, smaller and stronger than all the other prosthetic hands that are out there...
Systems Biology Understanding of the Effects of Lithium on Affective and Neurodegenerative Disorders2019-02-18 - Lithium has many widely varying biochemical and phenomenological effects, suggesting that a systems biology approach is required to understand its action. Multiple lines of evidence point to lithium intake and consequent blood levels as important determinants of incidence of neurodegenerative disease, showing that understanding lithium action is of high importance. In this paper we undertake...
2019-02-18 - URBANA, Ill. – Cancer: The word alone evokes dread, anxiety, and fear. Accordingly, many women living with the disease and undergoing treatment experience chronic stress and depression. Scientists have demonstrated, in studies with rodents and humans, that stress can exacerbate cancer’s progression, but it wasn’t clear how. A new study, published in The Journal of Clinical Investigation...
2019-02-11 - Professor earns award for tinnitus research: Tinnitus is one of the most common health conditions in the United States, affecting an estimated 45 million Americans, according to the American Tinnitus Association. Despite its prevalence, scientific knowledge about the condition remains limited. In an effort to better understand tinnitus, Fatima Husain, associate professor in the Speech...