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42nd Annual Insect Fear Film Festival

a tarantula standing in front of the IFFF information
The 42nd Annual Insect Fear Film Festival (IFFF) will be held on Saturday, February 22, 2025, at Foellinger Auditorium, on the campus of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Hosted by the Entomology Graduate Students Association in the Department of Entomology at the...

Putting the bee girls to bed

A man and woman in bee suits holding parts of a bee hive
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – I like to encourage people of all ages to help pollinators, the insects, birds and mammals that help flowering plants reproduce. People are more willing to help if they have a chance to get to know their local pollinators. To that end, I like to invite people to visit the...

Cosplaying for science

a tattooed woman handing a girl in a skirt seeds
  URBANA, Ill. – It’s a blazingly sunny September Saturday afternoon at Riggs Beer Company, a family-friendly brewery located on the edge of Urbana. It’s not surprising to see crowds of families basking in the dog days of summer with their food truck lunches and locally brewed pints...

Study: Good nutrition boosts honey bee resilience against pesticides, viruses

Two men standing in a field holding bees
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — In a new study, researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign tackled a thorny problem: How do nutritional stress, viral infections and exposure to pesticides together influence honey bee survival? By looking at all three stressors together, the scientists found that...

The lessons of the Windy City

A device on a pole with the skyline of Chicago in the background
 From deep-dish pizza to towering skyscrapers, Chicago is a city like no other. Nearly 3 million people call it home, making it a hub of economic development, culture, and groundbreaking research. And for decades, the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences has played a meaningful role there....

Drowning tomatoes for science

A scientist studying a tomato plant that's in a plastic bag.
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. —  I can barely hear Esther Ngumbi over the roar of greenhouse fans as she shows me around her rooftop laboratory in Morrill Hall. The benches are full of tomato plants, and the tomatoes don’t look good. Half of the plants are submerged in bins of water. Their leaves are yellow...