2/4/2011
Excerpts from Illinois in the News, a daily service provided by the University of Illinois News Bureau. This collection of February excerpts focuses on engineering topics and faculty contacted for their expertise by print and broadcast reporters around the world.
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Excerpts from Illinois in the News, a daily service provided by the University of Illinois News Bureau. This collection of February excerpts focuses on engineering topics and faculty contacted for their expertise by print and broadcast reporters around the world.
Chemistry World (Royal Society of Chemistry; London, Feb. 25) -- U. of I. electrical and computer engineering professor Gang Logan Liu and colleagues built a layer onto a CD that converts biological information into digital information to detect the presence of cells and their size and number. Blood-cell counting and sizing are often standard medical practices in the diagnosis of diseases such as leukemia, anemia and AIDS.
EFFICIENT DNA SEQUENCING
PhysOrg (Douglas, Isle of Man, Feb. 25) -- Using Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Jaguar, one of the world’s fastest supercomputers, Aleksei Aksimentiev, a professor of physics at Illinois, and his team are developing a nanopore approach, which promises a drastic reduction in time and costs for DNA sequencing.
BATTERY TECHNOLOGY
Wired (San Francisco, Feb. 22) -- A newly created lithium-ion battery that can heal itself may improve the life span and safety of today’s energy-storage technologies, U. of I. researchers report. Also: Chemistry World (Royal Society of Chemistry; London, Feb. 23), iStockAnalyst (Salem, Ore., Feb. 22), Science 360 (Washington, D.C., Feb. 23), United Press International (Feb. 22), Wired (Feb. 22), ASEE FirstBell (Feb. 23), EV World (Papillion, Neb., Feb. 23).
BUILDING PROTEINS
Nanotechnology Now (Banks, Ore., Feb. 22) -- Researchers, led by Jianjun Cheng, a professor of materials science and engineering at Illinois, have developed a simple method of making short protein chains with spiral structures that can also dissolve in water, two desirable traits not often found together. Also: R&D Magazine (Rockaway, N.J., Feb. 23), AZoNano (Warriewood, Australia, Feb. 24), RedOrbit (Dallas, Feb. 23), News-Medical (Sydney, Feb. 25), Medical News Today (Bexhill-on-Sea, England, Feb. 25), Science Daily (Chevy Chase, Md., Feb. 23).
SELF-GENERATING STRUCTURAL MATERIALS
Science News (Washington, D.C., Feb. 21) -- U. of I. engineering professor Scott White and his research team are developing self-generating structural materials for autonomic damage control in polymeric structures such as circuit boards, in addition to keeping batteries behaving properly. Also: Bright Side of News (San Diego, Feb. 22).
LEMELSON-MIT ILLINOIS FINALISTS CHOSEN
News-Gazette (Champaign-Urbana, Feb. 22) -- Three University of Illinois students have been chosen as finalists for the $30,000 Lemelson MIT-Illinois Student Prize to be awarded March 9. The $30,000 prize is funded through a partnership with the Lemelson-MIT Program, which has awarded a similar prize to outstanding student inventors at MIT since 1995.
TACKLING GLOBAL WARMING
Science Magazine (Washington, D.C., Feb. 17) -- A new report suggests that tackling emissions of two other short-lasting pollutants – methane and the black component of soot – could slow expected warming by 0.5C beyond what targeting carbon dioxide alone could accomplish by 2070. “It’s the first time a group has picked out actual measures that might improve forcing by short-lived pollutants,” says Tami Bond, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Illinois. “Previously, the analyses have focused only on one pollutant, or on entire economic sectors, but this is not how policy is done.” Related article: The Economist (Feb. 17).
ENGINEERING ALUMNUS DONATES $1 MILLION FOR FUTURE ILLINI
Jacksonville Journal-Courier (Jacksonville, Ill., Feb. 17) -- Herman Dieckamp, an Engineering at Illinois alumnus (BS 1950, Engineering Physics), made a $1 million donation to send one Jacksonville High School graduate a year to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with tuition and fees paid for all four years.
AEROSPACE OPTIONS
Medill Reports (Evanston, Ill., Feb. 17) -- NASA is looking to the commercial market to develop low-cost options for crew travel to the space station and other future destinations. “It’s a welcome change,” says Rod Burton, an aerospace engineer and professor emeritus at Illinois. “It’s just showing that private industry can do the job of designing and building a rocket faster and for less money.”
GODDARD HONORED BY AAAS
First Science News (London, Feb. 16) -- The American Association for the Advancement of Science has recognized Lynford L. Goddard, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, as the first recipient of the new AAAS Early Career Award for Public Engagement with Science.
SUPERCONDUCTORS AND GRAPHENE
RedOrbit (Dallas, Feb. 15) -- Illinois researchers led by physics professor Nadya Mason have documented the first observations of some unusual physics when two prominent electric materials are connected: superconductors and graphene. Also: AZoNano (Warriewood, Australia, Feb. 15), e! Science News (Quebec City, Feb. 14), Insciences (Basel, Switzerland, Feb. 14), PhysOrg (Douglas, Isle of Man, Feb. 14), R&D Magazine (Rockaway, N.J., Feb. 14), ScienceDaily (Chevy Chase, Md., Feb. 14), Azom (Warriewood, Australia, Feb. 16).
COMPUTING
Medical News Today (Bexhill-on-Sea, England, Feb. 11) -- The third annual GPU Technology Conference will be held in San Jose, Calif., this October for computational scientists, engineers and developers who want to better understand how the GPU is transforming scientific, visual and technical computing. “It’s rare to attend a conference where there is such a broad a range of research disciplines represented,” says U. of I. physics professor Klaus Schulten. Also: HPCwire (San Diego, Feb. 10).
SOPHISTICATED CAMERA
Science 360 (National Science Foundation; Washington, D.C., Feb. 9) -- A camera inspired by the operation of the human eye can “zoom” without the need for bulky lenses and builds on a non-zooming eyeball camera developed by engineering professor John Rogers at Illinois. Also: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (original paper, Feb. 1).
NATIONAL ACADEMY
R&D Magazine (Rockaway, N.J., Feb. 8) -- John A. Rogers, the Lee J. Flory-Founder Chair in Engineering at Illinois, is among the 68 new members elected to the National Academy of Engineering. Also: Nanotechnology Now (Banks, Ore., Feb. 9).
FARM SAFETY
Cattle Network (Lenexa, Kan., Feb.7) -- Robert Aherin, a professor of agricultural and biological engineering at Illinois, is one of 15 members of a consortium of public and private organizations working to reduce or prevent grain bin accidents and fatalities through education and outreach.
PARALLEL COMPUTING
New Electronics (London, Feb. 7) -- Wen-mei Hwu, an electrical and computer engineering professor at Illinois, has used the example of a video decompression algorithm to illustrate the parallelization problem. It demonstrates a simple 50-50 choice that can remove a major opportunity for exploiting parallelism.
COMPUTING - MOST POWERFUL
InformationWeek (Manhasset, N.Y., Feb. 8) -- Next year’s top 500 list of the world’s most powerful supercomputers is expected to include (Blue Waters) at Illinois. Also: IT World (Framingham, Mass., Feb. 8), Chicago Sun-Times (Feb. 9), Popular Science (New York, N.Y., Feb. 9).
Related story: The Herald News (Joliet, Ill., Feb. 13) -- The U. of I. next year will fire up Blue Waters, a supercomputer on par with Argonne’s, according to IBM.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP & INNOVATION
Inventors Digest (Charlotte, N.C., Feb, 7) -- The U. of I. offers 13 courses in entrepreneurship and innovation.
COMPUTER-AIDED INSTRUCTION
The New York Times (Feb. 5) -- When colleges and universities finally decide to make full use of the Internet, most professors will lose their jobs. However even amid acute budget crises, state universities can’t afford to take that very big step – adopting the technology that renders human instructors obsolete. For at least 50 years, the computer has been experimentally employed as the unflaggingly patient, attentive teaching assistant. In 1960, the U. of I. created Plato, pioneering courseware whose offerings would eventually span the elementary-school through college levels.
TINY ANTENNAS
Nanowerk Spotlight (Feb. 3) -- U of I researchers have now demonstrated the conformal printing of electrically small antennas on spherical shapes with a key performance metric (radiation quality factor or Q) that very closely approaches the fundamental limit dictated by physics. The 3D antennas are fabricated by conformal printing of a concentrated silver nanoparticle ink in a digitally programmed meander line pattern onto either the exterior (convex) or interior (concave) surface of a hollow glass hemisphere.
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Contact: Rick Kubetz, Engineering Communications Office, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; 217/244-7716, editor.