By giving artificial intelligence simple associative learning rules based on the brain circuits that allow a sea slug to forage — and augmenting it with better episodic memory, like that of an octopus — scientists have built an AI that can navigate new environments, seek rewards, map landmarks and overcome obstacles.

The College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign welcomed 6th- to 12th-grade student

Scientists have identified a potential driver of aggressive lung cancer tumors in patients who live in areas with high levels of violent crime. Their study found that stress responses differ between those living in neighborhoods with higher and lower levels of violent crime, and between cancerous and healthy tissues in the same individuals. 

The findings are detailed in the journal Cancer Research Communications.

A multi-institutional study led by scientists in the Agroecosystem Sustainability Center (ASC) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign concluded that although soil moisture varies significantly both within a single field and from field to field due to varying soil properties and different management practices, soil moisture distribution relative to the field average remains consistent across time within each field. 

Evelyn Brandt Thomas turned 100 on her last birthday, and just over 100 days into this year, she was awarded the prestigious Order of Lincoln by the

Editor's note: This article was written for The Hershey Company by chocolate scientist and College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences alum Allison Brown, Ph.D., who volunteered to help cacao farmers and business owners in Trinidad and Tobago maximize the value of their crops. 

Smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa tend to use very small amounts of fertilizer, limiting their crop productivity. A 2016 intervention in Tanzania increased farmers’ fertilizer use and their crop yields.

Feeding an ever-growing human population is one of the major grand challenges we face — especially with the impact agriculture can have on climate change. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign researchers and partners in Singapore are taking a novel approach to this challenge: creating food building blocks at the microbial level.

Jarai Carter didn’t know she could combine her passions for big data and agriculture when she enrolled as a crop sciences major in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences