RESEARCH General Archives 2007

TOPICS: Archaeology | Arts | Children | Education | Government | Health | History | Home & Garden | Humanities | Law | Literature | Poetry | Psychology | Sociology | Theater | World Affairs

ANTHROPOLOGY
Genetics: A team of 21 researchers, led by Ripan Malhi, a geneticist in the department of anthropology at the University of Illinois, has a new set of ideas about human migration from Asia to the Americas. (10/25/07)

ARCHITECTURE
Skyscrapers: Soon after the World Trade Center’s twin towers were brought down by terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001, some observers questioned whether tall buildings – now viewed as potential targets for future attacks – would continue to be built. Among those who predicted the world’s skylines would not yield to such threats was University of Illinois architecture professor Mir Ali. (9/10/07)

ARTS
'Facades': First impressions and what actually lies beneath the surface – both architectural and human – is the theme of a new multimedia exhibition at the University of Illinois’ Krannert Art Museum. (10/9/07)

Allerton Festival: If University of Illinois School of Music director Karl Kramer’s vision becomes reality, the Allerton Music Barn Festival – to take place for the first time Aug. 31 through Sept. 3 at a pastoral site in Central Illinois – could find its own niche on the nation’s cultural map alongside some of the most reputable and best-known summer music festivals. (6/28/07)

Prague Quadrennial: The next Olympic games won’t take place until 2008, but a team at the University of Illinois has been going the distance to ensure that the U.S. is well represented in another major international event and competition held every four years. Under the direction of Thomas V. Korder, technical director at the U. of I.’s Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, several students and faculty and staff members from the center and the department of theater’s Division of Design, Technology and Management have been working long hours for the past year and a half coordinating, designing and building the USA exhibits that will be entered in the 2007 Prague Quadrennial, June 14-24. (5/3/07)

Artistic Challenge: If University of Illinois art and design professor John Jennings were a superhero, he’d probably be drawn with multiple limbs and a large, oversized right brain. (4/25/07)

Chinese Cinema: According to Gary Gang Xu, author of “Sinascape: Contemporary Chinese Cinema,” several converging forces – transnationalism, privatization and the lifting of strict government controls, a strong pan-Chinese film tradition and the current Hollywood penchant for remaking East Asian films – have made China “one of the film production centers of the world.” (4/9/07)

Play: She studies Wagner and opera. He studies mostly Mozart and Beethoven. Together, husband-and-wife musicologists Katherine Syer and William Kinderman have themselves been the subject of much prodding and research – by internationally acclaimed playwright and director Moisés Kaufman. (3/14/07)

Exhibition: Armed with Internet access, soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are blogging their war stories – and digital images – back home and beyond. But, according to Jordana Mendelson, a professor of art history at the University of Illinois whose research focuses on the art and print culture that emerged during the Spanish Civil War, this is not the first time those on the front lines have used popular new forms of communications to promote their ideas and influence public opinion. (3/14/07)

Play: After 70 years, Tennessee Williams’ first full-length play – “Candles to the Sun” – is returning to St. Louis for a March 16 homecoming performance at the theater where it premiered on March 18, 1937. (2/27/07)

Art Institute Exhibition: The Art Institute of Chicago and a University of Illinois historian have teamed up to create an unusual exhibition focusing on the idea of “otherness.” (1/17/07)

'Branded' Exhibition: It’s no wonder Americans are heavily invested in a culture of consumption. As targets of ubiquitous corporate branding campaigns and marketing mania, we are bombarded 24/7 on all fronts – through every conceivable form of mass media and product packaging, at sporting and entertainment venues, and even lobbied by the apparel of friends and family. (1/16/07)

CHILDREN
Influence: Researchers have found a surprising cultural influence on some boys’ drive for muscularity. In a study to be published this summer in the journal Body Image, University of Illinois researchers discovered that exposure to video gaming magazines has a stronger influence on preadolescent boys’ drive for muscularity, or desire for muscle mass, than does exposure to magazines that depict a more realistic muscular male-body ideal. (5/17/07)

EDUCATION
Bullying: In the battle against drugs in the 1980s and ‘90s, schools overwhelmingly embraced the DARE program before research came to seriously question its effectiveness. Now schools looking for anti-bully programs risk following a similar trend, says Dorothy Espelage, a professor of educational psychology at the University of Illinois and a prominent researcher of bullying in U.S. middle schools. (8/10/07).

African Languages: For students of African languages who want an immersive learning experience that also emphasizes the rich, diverse cultures of the African continent, this summer the University of Illinois is where it’s at. (6/19/07)

Textbooks: There is no certainty in science, no such thing as “the truth.” Nor is science completely rational, objective or free of cultural influence. There is no step-by-step procedure for doing science, no “scientific method.”

Those who study the scientific enterprise are aware of all this, but much of the public holds a simpler, more-naïve view about the nature of science – and science textbooks may deserve much of the blame, according to a University of Illinois study being presented today at the American Educational Research Association annual meeting in Chicago. (4/11/07)

EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
Dumbledore Hypothesis: Aging adults may joke about memory lapses and “early Alzheimer’s.” They may worry when they can’t understand a drug plan or lose track of the characters in a novel. But they have more control over their “cognitive vitality” than they may realize, says Elizabeth Stine-Morrow, a professor of educational psychology at the University of Illinois, who has spent 20 years studying learning throughout the lifespan. (8/2/07)

HEALTH
Wound Care: In recent years, researchers at the University of Illinois have uncovered a host of reasons for people to remain physically active as they age, ranging from better brain function to improved immune responses. Now a new U. of I. study points to yet another benefit: a link between moderate exercise and decreased inflammation of damaged skin tissue.(11/28/07)

Health Care Costs: If Americans spent the same amount of money on health care as counterparts in Canada and a number of other countries, the difference between what they spend now and what they would save annually would be enough to pay for two plasma TVs or three Big Macs a day.Those are just some of the scenarios worked out in a new study by Tom O’Rourke, a professor emeritus of community health at Illinois who has spent much of his professional career examining the nation’s ailing, failing health-care system.(11/16/07)


High School Footballers: Six strategically placed, spring-loaded accelerometers wirelessly beam information to a Web-based system on a laptop computer on the sidelines, more effectively – and more immediately – detect when blows to players’ heads may result in concussions or more severe brain injuries. (9/27/07)

Flu Vaccine: Move on mosquitoes. Step aside sweat bees. Before long, another unwelcome, but predictable, pest will return: the dreaded, oft-spotted flu bug. But as this year’s sniffling-sneezing season approaches, there’s also a hint of hope present in the pre-germ-season air. In a study scheduled for publication in the August issue of the American Journal of Chinese Medicine, a team of kinesiologists at the University of Illinois suggest that older adults who adopt an exercise regimen combining Taiji and Qigong may get an extra boost from their annual flu shot. (8/13/07)

Exercise and Inflammation: A recent study by kinesiology and community health researchers at the University of Illinois provides new evidence that may help explain some of the underlying biological mechanisms that take place as the result of regular exercise. According to the researchers, that knowledge could potentially lead to a better understanding of the relationship between exercise and inflammation. (7/5/07)

Alternative Medicine: It’s time for Congress to re-examine the ban on experimental or alternative medicine that is not approved by federal regulators, especially drugs and devices aimed at seniors who suffer from life-threatening diseases, a legal scholar says. (5/25/07)

Traumatic Brain Injury: Thanks to a $1 million, five-year training grant from the U.S. Department of Education, Adele Proctor, a speech-language pathologist and researcher in the department of speech and hearing science, and colleagues at the U. of I., working with staff at area and regional hospitals, are training professionals to recognize, assess and treat pediatric traumatic brain injury - injures in people 21 or younger. (2/15/07)

HISTORY
Library Blog: Blogged your way through the history of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair lately? How about the history of the Spanish American War in Cuba as seen through the eyes of an African-American physician from Illinois?

Now, thanks to the University of Illinois Library, any and all students of history who have Web access can blog into some of the past’s most vivid chapters, page by page. (8/2/07)

Baseball: In “Playing America’s Game: Baseball, Latinos, and the Color Line,” a study of Latinos and U.S. professional baseball from the 1880s to the present, author Adrian Burgos Jr. traces the racial and ethnic tensions that developed over the incorporation of Latinos in professional baseball. (7/6/07)

Victorian Amusements: Despite their reputations for being prudes and their Queen’s famous comment to the contrary, Victorian folks could be amused. Quite, in fact. And to demonstrate their ravenous appetite for fun, an ensemble of scholars at the University of Illinois has mounted a new exhibition titled “We Are Amused.” (4/17/07)

Women in History: The authors of a new book have fashioned a 16-chapter prehistory theme park worthy of Disney, but in their confection, lame, even egregious, past assumptions about our past are hunted down and slain, and stars – in the form of womankind – are born. (2/5/07)

HOME & GARDEN
Holidays: Christmas trees are not only the centerpiece of most household celebrations, but also a shining symbol of sacrifice that reflects what the season is all about, said Cele Otnes, a marketing professor who led a new study on how families negotiate holiday rituals. (11/12/07)

Tourism: Don’t be surprised if some of your colleagues and acquaintances aren’t exactly forthcoming about how they spent their summer vacations. Those who appear to have a don’t-ask, don’t-tell policy when it comes to discussing details of their trips to certain locations in Asia, Canada, the Caribbean, Europe, South America and elsewhere abroad may be among a sub-set of travelers engaging in so-called “deviance” tourism.(8/23/07)

Investments: Keeping up with the Joneses apparently includes keeping up with their stock market picks, researchers at the University of Illinois have found. Zoran Ivkovich and Scott Weisbenner, both professors of finance in the College of Business, studied the stocks purchased by 35,673 U.S. households between 1991 and 1996. (7/27/07)

Conversation: Spouses who experience doubts about their marriage, even weak doubts, make pessimistic judgments about their partner’s behavior in conversation. That’s the conclusion of researchers who have conducted the first study to examine the link between relational uncertainty and conversation within marriage. (7/25/07)

HUMANITIES
African Languages: For students of African languages who want an immersive learning experience that also emphasizes the rich, diverse cultures of the African continent, this summer the University of Illinois is where it’s at. (6/19/07)

JOURNALISM
Media: Our communication system is rapidly transforming before our eyes. But we don’t have to just watch, University of Illinois professor Bob McChesney says in a new book. In fact, we shouldn’t. (10/15/07)

"Hear It Now": The 1950s program “See It Now,” hosted by Edward R. Murrow, has earned a place in the early history of television news. Most recently it was the setting for the 2005 movie “Good Night and Good Luck,” in which Murrow famously clashed with U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy. Largely forgotten and little studied, however, has been its innovative radio predecessor and prototype, “Hear It Now,” says Matthew Ehrlich, a professor of journalism at the University of Illinois. (9/26/07)

Knight Chair: Brant Houston, the executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors Inc. (IRE), has been named to the Knight Chair for Investigative and Enterprise Reporting at the University of Illinois, pending approval by the U. of I. Board of Trustees at its May 17 meeting in Chicago. (5/11/07)

Investigative reporting: The news business may be in constant turmoil these days, but investigative reporting is alive and well, says a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner who is writing his second textbook on the subject, due out in June. (3/12/07)

LIBRARY
Music Month: “Music Without Borders” is the theme of the 2007 American Music Month at the University of Illinois. (10/17/07)

Librarians on film: To counter a plethora of negative impressions, an independent film company has produced and will screen on the U. of I. campus its new documentary, “The Hollywood Librarian: A Look at Librarians Through Film.” (9/26/07)

Preserving Virtual Worlds: With help from the Library of Congress, and in partnership with three other institutions of higher education and one commercial game lab, a team from Illinois’ Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS) will lead a two-year project to preserve virtual worlds – early video games, electronic literature and “Second Life,” an interactive multiplayer game. (8/21/07)

Center for Translation Studies: The U. of I. announced on June 13 in New York that it is establishing a Center for Translation Studies. (6/19/07)

Library Catalog: Although he’s not yet 25 and has only just entered the profession, Christopher Cook already is regarded as an expert in his trade. (6/12/07)

Digital Book Archive: The University of Illinois has joined an alliance of educational institutions, Internet companies and other groups in the U.S. and abroad that is building a massive digital archive of public domain books for universal and free public access. (2/20/07)

LITERATURE
Mark Twain: As many Americans know, Sam Clemens led a rich and complex life – sometimes as Mark Twain, sometimes not. He usually is remembered as a journalist, stand-up comic, world traveler, philosopher, and literary giant. (3/15/07)

American Indian Author: American literary history is about to change. An early Native American writer who has been a largely forgotten figure is entering the canon and getting the recognition she has long deserved. (1/18/07)

POETRY

PSYCHOLOGY
Online Interaction: Is there such a thing as being too safe on the Internet? One University of Illinois education researcher believes there is, at least when teenagers are concerned. (11/5/07)

Parenting: A new study from the University of Illinois puts to rest the idea that overly controlling or manipulative parenting styles are less destructive to a child’s emotional and academic functioning in China than in the U.S. (1/18/07)

SOCIOLOGY

THEATER

WORLD AFFAIRS
Missile Defense: “It seems with the tentative agreement reached on June 7 at the G8 meeting that there will not be a new offensive arms race but rather a new defensive arms buildup to install missile defense worldwide to meet as yet unseen and undeveloped threats of missile proliferation,” said Julian Palmore, the director of the Program in Arms Control, Disarmament and International Security at the University of Illinois. (6/14/07)

Solzhenitsyn: The wife of Nobel Prize-winning Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn will be the featured speaker at a University of Illinois conference devoted to her husband’s contributions to modern Russian literature, history and political life. (5/31/07)