5/3/2011
Excerpts from Illinois in the News, a daily service provided by the University of Illinois News Bureau. This collection of May 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 May excerpts focuses on engineering topics and faculty contacted for their expertise by print and broadcast reporters around the world.
San Antonio Express-News (from The Associated Press, May 29) -- U. of I. student designs prize-winning solar-powered watering system; two other U. of I. students also win prizes in competition sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
INTERNATIONAL STUDENT SCHOLAR
J-1 Visa (May 27) -- Interview with a J-1 short term scholar working with Professor Cedric Langbort, Aerospace Engineering professor and Information Trust Institute researcher.
ROBOTICS
Science Daily (Chevy Chase, Md., May 26) -- Imagine a robot able to retrieve a pile of laundry from the back of a cluttered closet, deliver it to a washing machine, start the cycle and then zip off to the kitchen to start preparing dinner. MIT computer scientists are tackling the problem with a hierarchical, progressive algorithm that has the potential to greatly reduce the computational cost associated with performing complex actions. Stephen LaValle, a professor of computer science at Illinois who was not affiliated with the work, says the approach is an attractive one.
BATTERIES
AZoNano (Warriewood, Australia, May 24) -- U. of I. materials science and engineering professor Paul Braun and colleagues have discovered that the lithium-ion battery might be able to charge and release energy rapidly, besides featuring increased storage capacity.
ANTENNA TECHNOLOGY
Nanowerk News (Honolulu, May 24) -- Nanoscale antennas hold out the promise of higher resolution optical imaging of nano objects, including proteins and DNA molecules, and converting solar energy into electricity at very high efficiencies. U. of I. mechanical science and engineering professors Nicholas Fang and Kimani Toussaint have demonstrated a 1,000-fold increase in the UV-visible optical response of devices based on nanoantenna periodic arrays.
HONOR
Nanowerk News (Honolulu, May 24) -- William P. King has been named Bliss Professor of Engineering at Illinois.
ENVIRONMENTAL AWARD
The News-Gazette (Champaign-Urbana, Ill., May 23) -- Trey Ward, who graduated this month from the University of Illinois was honored as one of six winners of the EPA P3 Award for his solar-powered watering system. Also: Chicago Tribune (May 29), San Antonio Express-News (from The Associated Press, May 29), ASEE FirstBell (May 29).
RAILROAD TECHNOLOGY
The Wall Street Journal (May 23) -- A shift to electronically controlled pneumatic brakes poses a challenge for the railroad industry, says Christopher Barkan, the director of the railroad-engineering program at Illinois.
BRAIN-MACHINE INTERFACES
Medill Reports (Evanston, Ill., May 20) -- Tim Bretl, an aerospace engineering professor at Illinois, uses electroencephalograph technology to have subjects fly small fixed-wing unmanned aircraft.
VISUALIZATION
Health Canal (Melbourne, Australia, May 18) -- Psychologists and computer scientists at Illinois, Ohio State, and Stanford have taken mind reading a step further, with potential impact on how both computers and the visually impaired make sense of the world they see. Also: R&D Magazine (Rockaway, N.J., May 20), Phys Org (Douglas, Isle of Man, May 19), Red Orbit (Dallas, May 19), Scientific Computing (Rockaway, N.J., May 23).
ENGINEERING ALUMNUS NAMED PROVOST AT IOWA
Press-Citizen (Iowa City, Iowa, May 17) -- Barry Butler has been named the executive vice president and provost of the University of Iowa effective immediately, pending approval by the board of regents. He earned his bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in engineering at Illinois.
IN MEMORIAM
The New York Times (May 17) -- Maurice Goldhaber, a physicist who led the Brookhaven National Laboratory, died May 11 in East Setauket, N.Y. He was 100. After beginning his physics studies at the University of Berlin, he earned his doctorate at Cambridge in 1936. He moved to the U. of I. in 1938 and joined Brookhaven in 1950.
DISASTER PREPAREDNESS
Carmi Times (Illinois, May 17) -- An earthquake drill that began Monday uses data generated by the Illinois State Geological Survey and the Mid-America Earthquake Center, both at Illinois.
ENGINEER GUY ON POP-TOP TECH
Science 360 (National Science Foundation, Washington, D.C., May 13) -- Bill Hammack, a professor of chemical and biolmolecular engineering at Illinois, explains the ingenuity behind the pop-top lid found oun soda cans--the latest in his innovative series of videos on science and technology.
CARS AND OBESITY
News-Medical (Sydney, May 12) -- Public health enemy No. 1 may be the one staple of modern life most Americans can’t seem to live without one (or more) of – the automobile, according to Sheldon H. Jacobson, a professor of computer science at Illinois. Also: Bioscience Technology (Rockaway, N.J., May 11), Daily India (Jacksonville, Fla., May 12), Medical News Today (Bexhill-on-Sea, England, May 12), News Track India (New Delhi, May 12), Science Blog (Los Angeles, May 11), Science Daily (Chevy Chase, Md., May 11), Sify News (New Delhi, May 12), Health24 (Cape Town, South Africa, May 13), Medindia (Chennai, India, May 13), Medill Reports (Evanston, Ill., May 19).
Related story: United Press International (May 16) -- Sheldon H. Jacobson, a computer science professor at Illinois, and students Douglas M. King and Rong Yuan, analyzed annual vehicle miles traveled per licensed driver as a surrogate measure for a person’s total sedentary time.
CLOUD COMPUTING CENTER FUNDED
Chicago Tribune (from The Associated Press, May 10) -- The U. of I. is receiving a $6 million grant for research on cloud computing.
AFFORDABLE VACCINE DISTRIBUTION
News-Medical (Sydney, May 10) -- Sheldon Jacobson, a computer science professor at Illinois, working with Ruben Proano, a professor of engineering at the Rochester Institute of Technology, and Wenbo Zhang, a graduate engineering student at RIT, have developed a mathematical model that addresses key factors in providing affordable vaccines to developing countries. Also: Medindia (Chennai, India, May 10), Red Orbit (Dallas, May 10).
FAST-CHARGE BATTERY
WGN-TV (Chicago, May 10) -- Imagine plugging in a cell phone and instead of waiting a couple of hours for it to charge, only waiting a couple of seconds. A research team at Illinois figured out how to do it. The technology was co-invented by Paul Braun, a materials science and engineering professor. Also: ASEE FirstBell (May 10).
Related story: Phys Org (Douglas, Isle of Man, May 31) -- In Nature Nanotechnology, researchers at Illinois recently described an approach that significantly reduces the energy capacity loss in recharging batteries, when very fast charge and discharge rates are offered. Only two minutes are needed to charge a lithium-ion battery to 90 percent. This approach involves cathodes created from a 3-D nanostructure. Also: Nanowerk News (Honolulu, May 31).
ENGINEERING AND BUSINESS STUDENTS
San Jose Mercury News (California, May 10) -- The highly regarded engineering and business programs at Illinois often attract non-resident applicants.
BASEBALL
New York Daily News (May 7) -- Alan Nathan, an emeritus professor of physics at Illinois, has studied the effect of the baseball humidor at Coors Field in Colorado, noting that home runs are down about 25 percent since it has been employed.
TECHNOLOGY AND SHOPPING
Chicago Sun-Times (May 7) -- Cazoodle, a technology company that got its start with a team of faculty and graduate students at Illinois, is working with retailers to reward shoppers who use its online search algorithm to buy products in traditional stores.
EXPLAINING LASERS
Wired (New Yourk City, May 4) -- "Many of the things we normally associate with lasers are in fact present in a totally classical system,” said physicist Richard Weaver of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, co-author of a study in the April 25 Physical Review E. “It can be understood without any talk of quantum mechanics.”
DNA SEQUENCING
Earth and Sky (Austin, Texas, May 4) -- Aleksei Aksimentiev, a U. of I. physicist, is developing an inexpensive way to sequence a person’s DNA.
GREEN GPS
United Press International (May 3) -- Computer scientists at Illinois say new software for GPS devices can reduce energy consumption in transportation systems. Also: Belleville News-Democrat (Illinois, May 4), KWQC-Channel 6 (NBC; Davenport, Iowa, May 4), The State Journal-Register (Springfield, Ill., May 4), Herald & Review (Decatur, Ill., May 5), WCIA TV3 (Champaign, Ill., May 5), WAND TV17 (Decatur, Ill., May 5).
FARM SAFETY
The Times and Democrat (Orangeburg, S.C., May 3) -- Illinois averages about 32 farm-related deaths each year and close to 5,000 serious farm-related injuries, said Robert Aherin, a professor of agricultural and biological engineering at Illinois.
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