Illinois Public Media News

Spring has officially begun. At Eckert’s Farm in Belleville, visitors can find an upcoming season dedicated to the colorful flower, check out the Tulip Trail and enjoy a stroll along through thousands of different pigments of tulips.

Saunas have always been around in some form, but there’s more and more sauna businesses opening up, and content creators online are sharing all sorts of health claims associated with saunas. A health expert offers some tips.

The Illinois Times covered the story of a man who was convicted of defrauding the Illinois EPA out of millions of dollars.  He was sentenced to five years in federal prison in 2015 — but now he’s back in business and has collected more than $1.5 million from the same state agency he defrauded.

It’s the official policy of the U.S. government to work toward putting people on Mars. Debates about that usually focus on cost and national priorities. Less considered is what life on Mars would do to the people who go there.

That, however, is the subject of a new book by scientist Scott Solomon. It’s called Becoming Martian: How Living in Space Will Change Our Bodies and Minds. Solomon was raised in Champaign, attended University High in Urbana, and earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.