CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Black adolescents who lived in poverty and were less optimistic about the future showed accelerated aging in their immune cells and were more likely to have elevated insulin resistance at ages 25-29, researchers found.

URBANA, Ill. – Urban agriculture is booming, but there’s often a hidden danger lurking in city soils: lead. A recent University of Illinois study showed universally elevated lead levels in soils across Chicago, an urban ag hotspot.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — An individualized diet program that empowers users to create their own plan based on targeted levels of protein and fiber shows promise at helping people lose extra pounds and keep them off.

The Individualized Diet Improvement Program is a self-guided approach that involves easy-to-use tools, according to the nutritionists at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who created iDip.

Champaign, Ill. – Poor nutrition coupled with living in a chaotic household environment may negatively affect young children’s executive functioning, the higher order cognitive skills that govern memory, attention and emotional control, researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign found.

URBANA, Ill. – Like the virus that causes COVID-19, pathogens that attack crops change constantly to evade host immunity, or disease resistance in plant parlance. Sometimes, a single gene makes the difference between a resistant crop and one that’s susceptible. In those cases, the gene typically blocks the pathogen for a while, until the microbe makes a change. 

When most people are just getting home from their workdays, I’m about to start mine. I am a researcher studying the breeding behavior of the Eastern whip-poor-will (Antrostomus vociferus), a cryptic bird that is primarily active after sunset as it forages on the wing for moths. So – for the summer, at least – I also am nocturnal.

URBANA, Ill. – Intimate partner violence (IPV) can have significant implications for the wellbeing of mothers and children during separation and divorce. Yet IPV is often not included in custody cases or factored into court decisions, a new University of Illinois study shows.

URBANA, Ill. – With the rising cost of nitrogen fertilizer and its impacts on air and water quality, University of Illinois researchers want to help farmers make more informed fertilizer rate decisions. Their latest modeling effort aims to do that by examining the role of pre-growing season weather on soil nitrogen dynamics and end-of-season corn yield.

URBANA, Ill. – Transition to middle school can be a stressful time for adolescents. They must adjust to a new peer group and social environment while going through the developmental changes of puberty. A recent University of Illinois study looks at how emotional aspects of parenting can help youth better cope with peer stressors during this transitional period.

URBANA, Ill. – Although about 20% of Illinois cropping systems are planted to continuous corn, it’s nearly impossible to find fields planted this way for decades at a time. Yet long-term experiments like one at the University of Illinois, including over 40 years of continuous corn under different nitrogen fertilizer rates, provide incredible learning opportunities and soil management lessons for researchers and farmers alike.