CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Plants use sunlight to generate their food through photosynthesis. When the sun rises each morning, plants must prepare themselves to receive nutrients from the sunlight, which takes time. Decreasing the prep time in plants could hold the key to improving yields in many crop varieties.
URBANA, Ill. — A team of scientists at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign developed a bioprocess using engineered yeast that completely and efficiently converted plant matter consisting of acetate and xylose into high-value bioproducts.
URBANA, Ill. – When he thinks about where he’ll be in five to 10 years, recent University of Illinois graduate Austin Parish sees himself disrupting the agriculture industry. In a good way.
“Right now, our only limitation in ag is how big we can think. I'm excited to be working alongside startups to bring more data and technology than ever to disrupt the plant biotechnology space,” he says.
The Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment is pleased to welcome Luis Rodríguez as its new Associate Director for Education & Outreach.
URBANA, Ill. – When agricultural weeds evolve resistance to herbicides, they do it in one of two ways. In target-site resistance, a tiny mutation in the plant’s genetic code means the chemical no longer fits in the protein it’s designed to attack. In non-target-site resistance, the plant deploys a whole slew of enzymes that detoxify the chemical before it can cause harm.
A recent news item reported a “digital divide” between urban and rural high school students in Illinois due to few computer science course offerings in schools outside Chicagoland. Given the state’s workforce development needs in this area (around 14,000 unfilled positions requiring computer skills at the time of the study), it is concerning that the educational gap not only exists, but is growing.
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Since COVID-19 reached global pandemic status, many countries have faced containment pressures from both domestic and international transmission after experiencing multiple epidemic waves. But according to a new paper co-written by a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign urban and environmental economics expert, taming domestic transmission of the novel coronavirus ought to be prioritized over international travel bans or restrictions ostensibly aimed at limiting the threat of the virus from abroad.
URBANA, Ill. – “I’m interested in studying hospitality management because I want to go into a career in food and restaurant management as well as owning my own bakery. I expect to learn the ins and outs of how the restaurant industry operates,” says Megan Darga, a first-year student this fall in food science and human nutrition (FSHN).
URBANA, Ill. -- Dozens of online videos document an unusual behavior among tufted titmice and their closest bird kin. A bird will land on an unsuspecting mammal and, cautiously and stealthily, pluck out some of its hair.
URBANA, Ill. -- Carbon is everywhere. It’s in the atmosphere, in the oceans, in the soil, in our food, in our bodies. As the backbone of all organic molecules that make up life, carbon is a very accurate predictor of crop yields. And soil is the largest carbon pool on earth, playing an important role in keeping our climate stable.
As such, computational models that track carbon as it cycles through an agroecosystem have massive untapped potential to advance the field of precision agriculture, increasing crop yields and informing sustainable farming practices.