Denise Park, a U. of I. psychology professor at Illinois's Beckman Institute, and researchers at the University of Michigan used magnetic resonance imaging to analyze brain activity of twins. Their study found greater similarity in the brain activity of identical twins than their fraternal counterparts when processing faces and places, indicating a genetic basis for these functions.
Beckman researcher and U. of I. materials science and engineering professor Paul Braun and colleagues have pioneered a flexible process for a fabricating 3-D photonic-crystal waveguide by using a focused laser to mark it out.
Remodeling work on the 4th floor will not only add more space to the Visualization, Media, and Imaging Laboratory (VMIL), it will also help provide for a more creative working environment for its staff and the people who use its facilities.
A feature article in the Autumn 2007 issue of Chemistry highlights the work of Beckman Institute faculty member Jean-Pierre Leburton and his collaborators in the area of using nanopores to sequence DNA.
Beckman Institute researchers Joseph Lyding and Kyle Ritter have demonstrated semiconducting behavior in intrinsically metallic graphene by constraining its lateral dimensions to tens of nanometers, thus predicting the opening of a semiconducting gap due to quantum confinement effects.
Emily Wee, Assistant Director of the Beckman Institute's Biomedical Imaging Center, has won one of two coveted MBA scholarships offered by the University of Illinois.
Mark Nelson, a Beckman researcher and professor of molecular and integrative physiology at Illinois, collaborated on a Northwestern University study that is the first to clearly quantify the stopping motor volume (the amount of space it takes for an animal - including one in a vehicle - to come to a complete stop) and sensory volume (the amount of space an animal senses around it) for any animal.
The Beckman Institute welcomes Ling Meng from the Department of Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering as a new faculty member.
Researchers at Illinois led by psychology professor and Beckman faculty member Arthur Kramer showed in 2006 that the effect occurs in people, too, so that even a hour a day of mall-walking increases the amount of gray matter in the brains of the elderly. It also makes you feel better.