URBANA, Ill. ­– Pigs that eat soybean as a regular part of their diet may be better protected against viral pathogens, a new study from University of Illinois shows. The researchers attribute the effect to isoflavones, a natural compound in soybeans.

URBANA, Ill. - Sharon Donovan, professor and Melissa M. Noel Endowed Chair in Diet and Health at University of Illinois, will assume the role of director of the newly established Personalized Nutrition Initiative (PNI).

The PNI is a partnership between the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology (IGB) and the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) at U of I.

URBANA, Ill. – Food additives get a bad rap, but a natural ingredient from orange peels and apple skins, pectin, is a thickener safely added to many food products, most notably jellies. The additive is also the subject of a University of Illinois experiment highlighting both the power and the challenges of public-private partnerships in university research.

URBANA, Ill. – The Soybean Innovation Lab (SIL), the American Oil Chemists’ Society (AOCS), and the USAID-funded Southern Africa Farmer-to-Farmer (F2F) program implemented by Cultivating New Frontiers in Agriculture (CNFA) have partnered to provide support to agro-processors in Southern Africa.

URBANA, Ill. – Genetically speaking, the loaf of bread you stress-baked during the COVID-19 shutdown is more complex than you think. Wheat’s 16 billion genes, organized in not one but three semi-independent genomes, can overlap or substitute for one another, making things extremely tricky for geneticists trying to enhance desirable traits in the world’s most widely grown crop.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Researchers often study the genomes of individual organisms to try to tease out the relationship between genes and behavior. A new study of Africanized honey bees reveals, however, that the genetic inheritance of individual bees has little influence on their propensity for aggression. Instead, the genomic traits of the hive as a whole are strongly associated with how fiercely its soldiers attack.

Read more from the Illinois News Bureau.

URBANA, Ill. – Underground tunnels have been used by warriors and smugglers for thousands of years to infiltrate battlegrounds and cross borders. A new analysis published in the Open Journal of Soil Science presents a series of medieval and modern case studies to identify the most restrictive and ideal soil and geologic conditions for tunneling.

URBANA, Ill. ­–  As University of Illinois employees and students return in the fall, safety measures to limit the spread of COVID-19 are critical. University administrators have announced a partial return to normal activities, with a combination of in-person and online instruction. Precautions include limited crowd sizes, frequent cleaning of classrooms, and hand sanitizer stations in all buildings.

URBANA, Ill. – Food banks help alleviate food insecurity, and their contribution has become increasingly important during the COVID-19 pandemic. Food banks receive supplies from many sources, including major food retailers, but little is known about their role in the food supply chain.

A team of researchers received a $500,000 grant from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) to study the relationship among food retailers, food banks, and food security.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — The crops we grow in the field often form dense canopies with many overlapping leaves, such that young “sun leaves” at the top of the canopy are exposed to full sunlight with older “shade leaves” at the bottom. In order to maximize photosynthesis, resource-use efficiency, and yield, sun leaves typically maximize photosynthetic efficiency at high light, while shade leaves maximize efficiency at low light.