Topic: Science

Meteorologist Andrew Pritchard says he saw his first tornado from his back door in Urbana. Since that day in 1996, Illinois has seen its fair share of twisters.

The interdisciplinary theater piece "Quantum Voyages" takes audience members on a journey to strange atomic landscapes. The performance debuts today as part of the 80th birthday celebration of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Anthony Leggett.

If you create a million unique chemicals, chances are one or two of them could be a life-saving drug. A new research study from the University of Illinois finds that this shotgun approach to drug discovery can be accelerated with the help of bacteria. 

Agriculture uses 90-percent of the world’s fresh water supply.  And as the demand for food around the world continues to rise, so will the need to find crops that use less water.

When a man places 40 dozen eggs on the conveyor in the check-out line at the grocery store, it begs the question: What’s he going to do with all of them?

The 35th annual Insect Fear Film Festival will feature ticks. The festival's founder, May Berenbaum, says even though ticks are arachnids and not insects, they chose to feature them because of their importance as disease vectors.

As agriculture intensified in the 20th century, summers in the Midwest became wetter and cooler. Researchers at MIT, in a study published this month, looked at whether vegetation from crop production, rather than the greenhouse gas emissions that are an established source of climate changes, could have driven these regional impacts.

The “Me Too” movement brought attention to the issue of sexual harassment in entertainment, but the problem manifests itself in the sciences as well. U of I anthropologist Kate Clancy studies sexual harassment in the sciences and says most university training programs are not effective because they're not based on research.

The Illinois State Senator representing much of the area covered by the Mahomet Aquifer, says he’s got ideas for a task force looking at ways to protect the aquifer from future accidental contamination. 

Many research labs across the country use animals for testing products such as make-up or medicines. For the past decade, advocates have pushed to get more of these animals — especially research dogs — adopted after they are no longer needed. Just a handful of states have policies in place. Illinois just recently joined that list.