URBANA, Ill. – Spending time in nature boosts children’s academic achievement and healthy development, concludes a new analysis examining hundreds of studies.

Article submitted by Gregory French, ACES Advisor and Graduate Student Intern

Opportunities to step outsides of one’s comfort zone are among the many reasons students choose to study abroad. For many students, winter break is a convenient time to experience a new culture while earning academic credit by participating in a faculty led study-abroad program.  

The following are reflections from Yushu Xia, a PhD student in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, on her research project partially funded by an ACES International Graduate Grant: “Improving Agricultural Nitrogen Models for Nitrogen Management Assessment at a Field Spatial Scale.” Yushu’s advisor is Dr. Michelle Wander.

From classifying mosquitos in the Amazon to conserving natural resources in a war zone, Dr. McKenzie Johnson brings significant international experience to the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES), where she recently joined the faculty as an assistant professor in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences.  

Johnson is also a recent recipient of an ACES International Seed Grant for a project she will initiate this spring: “Environment and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding in Colombia.”

URBANA, Ill. – In pig diets, the amount of digestible calcium has a direct impact on phosphorus digestibility and the overall growth performance of the animals. With more calcium, phosphorus digestibility and feed intake decrease, leading to lower-weight pigs.

URBANA, Ill. — University of Illinois Extension is calling all lovers of bees, butterflies, and other pollinators that keep our crops and gardens growing to join scientists in tracking their distribution and habitat use across the state, from the comfort of your home, school, or community garden.

URBANA, Ill. – Sharon Donovan, a professor of nutrition and the Melissa M. Noel Endowed Chair in Nutrition and Health at the University of Illinois, has been appointed to the USDA’s 2020 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue and U.S.

URBANA, Ill. – During the Vietnam War, United States aircraft sprayed more than 20 million gallons of herbicides, including dioxin-contaminated Agent Orange, on the country’s rain forests, wetlands, and croplands. Agent Orange defoliated the thick jungle vegetation concealing Viet Cong fighters and destroyed a portion of the country’s food crops, but it was primarily the dioxin contaminant that harmed so many Vietnamese and U.S. military personnel.

URBANA, Ill. – Photosynthesis drives yields, but in cold conditions, this process that turns sunlight into biomass takes a hit. Miscanthus is a popular, sustainable, perennial feedstock for bioenergy production that thrives on marginal land in temperate regions.

URBANA, Ill. – Until the U.S. Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision in 2015 provided federal recognition of same-sex marriage in the United States, individual state laws varied. Some states were clear on whether or not they would recognize the marriages of same-sex couples, and others were in an uncertain flux, in some instances legalizing, then backpedaling on the decision days later. Some married couples thus faced uncertainty about whether their union would continue to be legally valid.