Tag: science
On a bitter cold day this past January, professor Tom Sims is surrounded by signs of spring – hundreds of delicate blossoms in shades of purple and pink and white sprouting in an old greenhouse on campus at NIU’s Montgomery Hall. This is petunia central, and the spadework done here could help usher in a...
Proving once and for all that it’s cool to be brainy, more than 500 Illinois students gathered March 6 on the NIU campus to compete in math and science. NIU’s College of Engineering and Engineering Technology (CEET) hosted the 2014 Worldwide Youth Science and Engineering (WYSE) Academic Challenge Sectional. The competition ranks high schools based...
NIU’s Sigma Xi Scientific Research Society will host the 11th annual Graduate Student Presentation Competition in April in coordination with the Graduate Student Research Association conference. Judging takes place Saturday April 19, in the Holmes Student Center. Awards – $150 for first place, $100 for second place and $50 for third place – will be presented...
NIU this semester is launching a new Center for Secondary Science and Mathematics Education, aimed at strengthening the university’s support of science and mathematics education throughout the region. The Illinois Board of Higher Education recently approved center status for a duration of five years, after which it could become permanent. The center will be housed...
NIU is seeking college students who are interested in environmental issues to work on research projects this summer with university scientists. As many as eight non-NIU undergraduate students will be selected for participation, along with two or three NIU students who will serve as peer mentors. To be eligible to apply, students must have at...
Thirteen NIU students displayed posters of their research recently during the prestigious annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Chicago. The AAAS is an international non-profit organization with a mission to promote cooperation among scientists, defend scientific freedom, encourage scientific responsibility and support scientific education and outreach. Every year,...
A group of the world’s top lemur conservationists and researchers, including NIU anthropology professor Mitch Irwin, has published a “Policy Forum” article in the Feb. 21 issue of Science, urging emergency action to prevent extinctions of these unique primate species, found naturally only in Madagascar. The 19 article authors note that the country’s five endemic...
Warning: Brainiac alert! The annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), among the largest yearly gatherings of scientists in the world, will be held this week in Chicago, and NIU expects to be well-represented. NIU students, faculty and outreach staff will be attending various events at the meeting, held Thursday,...
Students, interested in potential research opportunities that exist on campus to enhance your academic career? Faculty, inquisitive as to what collaborations might exist for future grant applications and research on campus? Campus staff, curious as to what research is being conducted at your employer? NIU’s Institute for the Study of the Environment, Sustainability and Energy...
The PROMISE Scholars Program, funded by the National Science Foundation, will offer two opportunities to support students’ interests in NIU research and STEM professional development. From 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 22, the PROMISE Scholars will host a STEM conference titled, “Advancing STEM Education: Priming the Pump.” Invited companies include Fermi National Accelerator Lab, Lucent-Alcatel,...
Northern Illinois University physics professor Dhiman Chakraborty is preparing to reprise his popular talk on the mysterious Higgs boson for the DeKalb community. For decades, the Higgs boson was the holy grail of particle physics. Its detection confirms the existence of the Higgs field, which permeates the universe and gives particles mass. Without the Higgs...
Imagine that while walking through your neighborhood you could remember everything about your house – the address, the color, the reflecting ball in your garden – but you couldn’t remember how to get home. This neurological impairment is called spatial disorientation, and it’s the reason that people with Alzheimer’s disease frequently get lost in their...
