Speech and communication are some of the most basic functions in our everyday lives – and they come so naturally to most, it’s easy to take them for granted.
But what if you weren’t able to communicate, or express your thoughts and ideas effectively? It would be frustrating, and even frightening – and that’s an everyday reality for the millions of people living with neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer's and dementia.
A joint art project by students at the University of Northern Iowa and Holmes Junior High School persevered through a global pandemic to convey a message of inclusivity and creativity.
The Iowa Energy Center announced more than $800,000 in grant funding to two University of Northern Iowa projects working to boost energy efficiency in underserved rural areas and educate the next generation about career opportunities in an ever-evolving energy market.
The IEC awarded $418,696 to the Developing an Iowa Energy Curriculum for Secondary Classrooms project proposed by UNI’s Earth and Environmental Sciences department, which will develop and disseminate an energy curriculum for Iowa middle and high school students that incorporates career connections into each topic.
They may not be marching this year, but the Panther Marching Band will play on.
Like just about every other aspect of life on campus, COVID-19 has drastically altered marching band. This wasn’t the 120th season the nearly 300 members anticipated, but the group is pressing on, finding creative ways to stay safe, socialize and continue doing what they love even during a pandemic that has delayed the fall football season. They have performances scheduled throughout the semester, beginning on September 11th.
What if you could locate a cancer cell, and use the cell’s natural repair process to destroy it? You’d be one step closer to a cure for cancer.
And that’s exactly what students in the UNI Department of Physics are working on.
This summer, a group of three undergraduate students in the department have partnered with the University of Iowa Department of Biochemistry in a unique, collaborative research effort to study cells, and their natural self-repairing mechanisms.
UNI professor and linguist Juan Carlos Castillo has been in love with languages since his childhood growing up in Spain. The pandemic has ushered in a host of new or revived words and phrases from “flattening the curve” to “social distancing” to “coronabeard.” In this conversation, Castillo discusses how new words are born (think the power of Cardi B), the growth of gender-neutral language and how advancements in machine learning are changing how we all communicate.
What new words have entered our lexicon since the pandemic began?
When senior Drama and Theatre for Youth major Hannah Smith was selected for a summer internship at The Rose Theater in Omaha, the Waterloo native was thrilled to get the chance to live in a bigger city while pursuing her passion of teaching a new generation the joys of theater.
The COVID-19 pandemic changed those plans but the internship for Smith, whose professor has dubbed her a theater-teaching “rock star,” went virtual. It wasn’t what Smith had planned, but the internship has been a beneficial — and unique — experience, she said.
More than 100 million adults in the U.S. suffer from hypertension, or, high blood pressure, and in recent years, nearly half a million deaths in the U.S. were directly or indirectly caused by the condition.
Abby Weekley, a senior biology major at the University of Northern Iowa, is hoping to change that through her work with UNI alum Dr. Bob Good. Weekley and Good are collaborating on a research project to study how much young people between the ages of 18-25 know about hypertension.
The empty gallon milk jug landed with a thwack as it slapped against the placid surface of a stretch of Dry Run Creek near the Cedar Falls Visitor Center.
The jug, used to capture a sample of water for quality testing, was attached to a string held by University of Northern Iowa junior Logan Gray. He was perched about 15 feet above the creek on a trail bridge, struggling to propel the buoyant plastic container through the stubborn surface tension of the Cedar River tributary.
Sometimes a little destruction is necessary for creation.
That’s certainly true at the University of Northern Iowa’s Textile and Apparel Product Development and Materials Analysis Laboratory - a unique, $3 million state-of-the-art facility brimming with advanced machinery capable of putting every type of stress imaginable on fabric. National retailers use these sorts of tests to create strong, light fabrics.
