NIU Today

Is the day coming when knowledge of the genetics behind human diseases will point the way to cures? At the next STEM Café – “The Human Blueprint” – NIU associate professor of biology Rick Johns will explore the latest scientific understanding of how genes relate to medical conditions. Johns then will describe the challenge of...

NIU biology professor Karen Samonds has spent more than two decades piecing together a mystery. Samonds’ field research aims to shed light on the origin and evolutionary history of Madagascar’s modern fauna – and to close a gap in the fossil record. In more than 20 years of researching Malagasy vertebrate species, she has discovered...

...On the road to Mandalay, Where the flyin’ fishes play, An’ the dawn comes up like thunder outer China ’crost the Bay! – Rudyard Kipling “Road to Mandalay” (1892) In August, a cohort of NIU professors spent two weeks in Mandalay, Myanmar, working with Yadanabon University to lay the foundations for collaborative research projects. Because...

The American Cancer Society predicts that the United States will have 1,658,370 new cancer cases diagnosed and 589,430 cancer deaths in this year alone. Experts agree that the best way to fight cancer is to stay healthy and active and to get recommended screening tests, but early detection can be difficult because of expensive, outdated...

The fieldwork of an NIU professor will be showcased in a documentary slated to air later this year on the Discovery Channel. In June of 2013, Karen Samonds, assistant professor of biological sciences, was filmed for a documentary series titled “Voyage of the Continents,” depicting how, over many millennia, geology and evolution have interacted to...

NIU student Lizzy Mack has gained some celebrity status in Canada. Mack, a graduate student in the laboratory of biological sciences professor Rich King, is featured in an episode of the documentary-style mini-series, Great Lakes Wild, which aired across the Great White North this week and can be viewed online. Mack is seen throughout the...

Having been a key member of research teams that announced discovery of the world’s smallest primate fossil in 2000 and the oldest primate skeleton in 2013, Northern Illinois University Professor Dan Gebo has made more than his share of headlines worldwide. He also has won every award that NIU has to offer for great teaching...

As the deadly Ebola virus races through West Africa, its grip on the collective United States attention is reaching a fever pitch. President Obama speaks almost daily on the outbreak, proclaiming it a “top national security priority” Oct. 6 and calling the next day for ramped-up airport screening procedures. Journalists staged across Dallas to report...

NIU student Angela Burke hails from blue-collar Burbank, Ill. With its prevalence of mom-and-pop restaurants and the regular roar of low-flying passenger jets from Chicago’s Midway Airport nearby, the southwest suburb certainly seems more city. So, for a week in August, it must have seemed to Burke like she was on another planet – or...

Lazy days of summer? Think again. For nearly 30 undergraduate students on campus at NIU this summer, the season provided opportunities to work alongside professors and delve deep into research projects. Shekinah Bergmann, for example, worked with mechanical engineering professor Behrooz Fallahi and several graduate students, designing and building a robot, nicknamed “Nightwing.” It has...

Could something as simple as aspirin be the key to controlling harmful insects? That’s the question NIU Biological Sciences Professor Jon Miller asked when he began his research on insect cellular immunity. His discoveries could eventually lead to safer, greener pest-control practices for agriculture. Miller will be the guest speaker at the next STEM Café,...

The Phi Sigma Biological Honors Society of the NIU Department of Biological Sciences hosted its 20th annual Student Research Symposium April 12. Approximately 50 students, both graduate and undergraduate, presented posters of their research and were judged by a panel from the department faculty. Gunisha Arora, Bode Lab, was awarded the Phi Sigma Outstanding Graduate...