university of illinois

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign engineers have developed a new breed of display screens that use flexible fins, varying temperatures and liquid droplets that can be arranged in various orientations to create images. The control is precise enough to achieve complex motions, like simulating the opening of a flower bloom. Image courtesy Sameh Tawfick

Displays Controlled By Flexible Fins & Liquid Droplets More Versatile & Efficient Than LED Screens

3 years Guest Contributor 0 Comments

Engineers inspired by the morphing skins of animals like chameleons and octopuses

Photosynthesis Differs in Rice Varieties — Natural Diversity Could Boost Yields

6 years Guest Contributor 0 Comments

Rice is a direct source of calories for more people than any other and serves as the main staple for some 560 million chronically hungry people in Asia. With over 120,000 varieties of cultivated rice (Oryza sativa) across the globe, there is a wealth of natural diversity to be mined by plant scientists to increase yields. A team from the University of Illinois and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) examined how 14 diverse varieties photosynthesize—the process by which all crops convert sunlight energy into sugars that ultimately become our food.

NASA To Provide $6 Million For Electric Aircraft Research At Univ. Of Illinois

7 years Jake Richardson 0 Comments

NASA will pay $6 million dollars over the next three years to support electric aircraft research at the University of Illinois. The NASA-backed program is called CHEETA — the Center for Cryogenic High-Efficiency Electrical Technologies for Aircraft. Phillip Ansell, a principal investigator for the project, and an assistant professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Urbana-Champaign, answered some questions about the work for CleanTechnica.