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Tuning in to fluorescence to farm smarter: monitoring plant light use saves indoor farm energy costs

Plant owners with a so-called green thumb often seem to have a more finely tuned sense of what their plants need than the rest of us. A new “smart lighting” system for indoor vertical farms grants this ability on a facility-wide scale, responsively meeting plants’ needs while reducing energy...
A man working at a microscope

Splitting hairs to keep the public safe

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Counting the marginal dorsal hairs on blacklegged tick larvae would probably be a tedious affair for most people. But it is a normal day for me in the Medical Entomology Laboratory of the...
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IGB Director Steps Down, Interim Director Named

After nearly 15 years of dedicated leadership, Gene Robinson has stepped down as IGB Director to assume the role of Executive Director and CEO of the Discovery Partners Institute. Lisa Ainsworth, Charles Adlai Ewing Chair of Crop Physiology in the Department of Crop Sciences and the Department of...
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Top seven photosynthesis researchers include three Plant Biology faculty members

Plant biology professor Tracy Lawson, plant biology professor emeritus Govindjee Govindjee, and the late plant biology emeritus professor...
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Plant Biology Professor Andrew Leakey Featured in Chicago Tribune

Research by Plant Biology Professor Andrew Leakey was recently highlighted in the Chicago Tribune in a feature story examining the promise of miscanthus, a fast-growing perennial...
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Heather Lash, Assistant Director of Controlled Environment Facilities for Plant Biology, named one of eight College of LAS award winners

Eight staff members and academic professionals are being honored by the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences for outstanding professional contributions.Heather Lash, Kristi McDuffie, and Jamie Thomas-Ward have been selected to receive the LAS Academic Professional Award, which provides a cash...
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Scientists make new progress in understanding how flowers are built

A team of plant biologists has made an exciting discovery about how flowers grow and organize themselves, and one of the key authors was Assistant Professor in Plant Biology Ya Min (Minya) from the University of Illinois. Their new study...
a headshot of Plant Biology Associate Professor Li-Qing

Plants’ Sugar Transport Key to Growth Under Stress, Study Finds

A new study in the journal New Phytologist reveals how plants move sugar to get the energy they need to grow, even in challenging conditions. The research was led by the group of Li‑Qing Chen, Associate Professor of Plant...
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The Coming of Age of Miscanthus

Giant, versatile, and genetically complex, miscanthus poses unique opportunities for the farm economy, domestic manufacturing, next-generation biofuels, and the environment. This ancient, highly productive, and resilient grass hails from Asia, where it thrives from the tropics of New Guinea to...
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New model can accurately predict a forest’s future

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — One of the great challenges of ecology is to understand the factors that maintain, or undermine, diversity in ecosystems, researchers write in a new report in the journal Science. The researchers detail their development of a new model that — using a tree census and genomic data...