Research

The COVID-19 pandemic has been stressful for many families — and that stress can affect a child’s development, including their language and social skills.

Side Effects Public Media recently received questions from audience members through our texting group, the Midwest Checkup, about how the changes wrought by the pandemic may affect child development.

URBANA, Ill. – If you’ve ever been to an eye doctor, there’s a good chance you’ve felt the sudden puff of air to the eye that constitutes a traditional test for glaucoma. It’s no one’s favorite experience, but the puff is non-invasive and harmless.

URBANA, Ill. – Goss’s bacterial wilt and leaf blight is one of the most damaging diseases affecting corn. The most effective way to control this disease is to plant corn varieties that are resistant to the disease. In other words, growers avoid the disease by growing certain varieties of corn. In part, this is the easiest method because scientists don’t yet know much about Goss’s wilt.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Consistent bedtime routines and activities such as reading books and cuddling with caregivers beginning when infants are 3 months old promote better sleep habits through age 2, a recent study suggests.

URBANA, Ill. – Proteins have been quietly taking over our lives since the COVID-19 pandemic began. We’ve been living at the whim of the virus’s so-called “spike” protein, which has mutated dozens of times to create increasingly deadly variants. But the truth is, we have always been ruled by proteins. At the cellular level, they’re responsible for pretty much everything.

URBANA, Ill. – Despite soybean’s high protein and oil content and its potential to boost food security on the continent, Africa produces less than 1% of the world’s soybean crop. Production lags, in part, because most soybean cultivars are bred for North and South American conditions that don’t match African environments.

Most survivors of squamous cell head and neck cancers report that their sense of taste is dulled, changed or lost during radiation treatment, causing them to lose interest in eating and diminishing their quality of life.

An hour before the sun goes down, my colleagues and I arrive at our site: a human-made pond in the middle of the forest. The high-pitched croaking of Cope's gray treefrogs greets us as we get out of our truck. Surrounded by trees and full of salamanders, these ponds are an essential water resource for our forest-dependent bats. We do a brief survey of the site, then set up our mist nets around the pond’s perimeter. We’re hoping to catch our target species – the Indiana bat, Myotis sodalis.

URBANA, Ill. – For the most accurate accounting of a product’s environmental impact, scientists look at the product’s entire life cycle, from cradle to grave. It’s a grand calculation known as a life cycle assessment (LCA), and greenhouse gas emissions are a key component.

URBANA, Ill. - Red seaweeds have been prevalent in the diets of Asian communities for thousands of years. In a new study, published in Marine Drugs, researchers have shown how these algae confer health benefits.