For those traveling on foot, Chicago is the fifth safest city to commute as a pedestrian according to a recent KURU Footwear study.

Walking safely is particularly key this time of year when warmer weather and longer days brings out more people. This is why the footwear brand ranked the 37 U.S. major metro cities from safest to the most dangerous for pedestrians. Rankings are based on an overall Walk Score – the walkability between residential areas and business areas – and the number of fatal pedestrian accidents.

Higher walking scores and fewer pedestrian related deaths earned these U.S. cities top five rankings: 1) New York, 2) Boston, 3) San Francisco, 4) Washington D.C., 5) Chicago.

On average, Chicago has two pedestrian deaths per 10,000 people and a Walk Score of 77.2, for a total safety score of 81.

Traffic and safety conditions can vary from city to city, so it is advisable to follow the local traffic regulations in your neighborhood and when walking in any urban environment.

Read about the study on KURU Footwear.

The remains of the most sophisticated prehistoric native civilization north of Mexico are preserved at Cahokia Mounds State Historic site, located a few miles west of Collinsville, Illinois in the southwestern part of the state. Here lie the archaeological remnants of the central section of the ancient settlement that is today known as Cahokia.

In 1976, The Cahokia Mounds Museum Society was founded as a not-for-profit to support the historic site. Their mission is to promote for the public benefit the educational and scientific aspects of Cahokia Mounds and associated archaeological sphere. The society recently received an award of excellence from the American Association of State and Local History for their augmented reality experience, “Back to the City of the Sun.”

“Back to the City of the Sun” brings the past to the present with audio and video through an app for personal smart devices. On the tour, visitors can see the temple that once stood on Monks Mound and other cultural aspects of the site that were present 1,000 years ago through the camera of a smart phone or other device.

The 2023 award of excellence is part of the American Association of State and Local History’s Leadership in History awards, the most prestigious recognition for achievement in the preservation of state and local history.

The Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site is located at 30 Ramey St. in Collinsville. The site’s interpretive center and gift shop are currently closed for renovations, however the grounds are open to the public daily from 8 a.m. until dusk and guided tours take place twice per day, Wednesday through Sunday. For more information, visit IDNR’s website.

Some of America’s best counties are right here in Illinois. According to the July 2023 issue of Site Selection Magazine, several Illinois counties are cited as the best areas to live based on the total number of economic development projects each made from January 2022 to March 2023. When it comes to building a county into one of America’s best, Pat Boeshart, president and owner of LiteForm Technologies, says you must reflect on how you can do business through its inevitable challenges.

The report names Cook, Kane, DuPage, and Will counties as top ranking areas for living and business investments.

Each county takes great pride in its individual strengths and collaborative environment that continues to make them a rich blend of urban and rural locations, diverse faculties, affordability, high quality of life, and connectivity amongst their neighboring regions. Below are the four Illinois counties and their rankings.

• Cook County: Ranked #2 with 231 projects
• DuPage County: Ranked #9 with 91 projects
• Kane County: Ranked #14 with 52 projects
• Will County: Ranked #16 with 48 projects

For more information on these counties and stats, please read the report here.

Innovators, cultivators, visionaries, and a talented student body represent the successes within the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s entrepreneurial climate. Alumni, graduates, and undergraduates are not only a part of world-changing programs – these entrepreneurs are leaders in their academic and professional fields.

The University of Illinois is “ranked among the top public universities for producing the most successful entrepreneurs,” according to Forbes. UIUC garners a rich entrepreneurial history in which alumni have committed their ideas to the marketplace and gone on to found some of the most renowned companies to date. Large public companies like YouTube and PayPal find their roots in the halls of UIUC in which two of YouTube’s founders Jawed Karim and Steven Chen earned their bachelor’s degrees in computer science and two of PayPal’s founders Max Levchin and Luke Nosek earned their bachelor’s degrees in computer science and computer engineering respectively.

Other major globally recognized companies include the online anime streaming service Crunchyroll, founded by alumni James Lin, and Tesla that is co-founded by alumni Martin Eberhard who received the 2008 Distinguished Alumni Award and was inducted into the Hall of Fame by Engineering at Illinois.

Among such highly esteemed graduates, the university continues to advance their students beyond the classroom through the support of innovative programs such as Duality – America’s first accelerator dedicated to quantum startups, as well as Chicago Quantum, The University of Chicago, Polsky Center of Entrepreneurship, Argonne National Laboratory, and P33. During a student’s academic career, faculty are also committed to fleshing out students’ ideas into reality by training its scientists and engineers to set their focus beyond academia and recognize the benefits their visions can grant a vibrant ever-changing society.

Read more on the current list of companies founded by the university’s alumni: Illinois Startups | Illinois Entrepreneurship | U of I.

For more information on the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s entrepreneurial background: Why The University Of Illinois Is A Top College For Entrepreneurs (forbes.com).

At the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, a study co-led by researchers make a rare and striking discovery in deep space.

Led by graduate student Yu-Ching Chen of UIUC and astronomy professors Xin Liu and Yue Shen, the team conducted their research using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope in combination with terrestrial and space-based observatories. The astronomers discovered two quasars that are gravitationally bound by their two galaxies. Their study identifies emerging binary quasar populations and rules out other astronomical explanations using a clear method to detect double quasars that are separated by an obscure distance.

The conception of quasars begins with a supermassive black hole consuming neighboring stars. Gas and debris from the stars spin rapidly into cosmic beams called accretion discs. Before reaching their final destination into the black hole, the debris rotates at unfathomable speeds while being pulled by a celestial body that is billions of times more massive than our sun. Friction in the accretion disc creates heat on a level almost difficult to fully appreciate. This results in a glowing disc that shines more brightly than even some of our galaxy’s brightest stars, which is the impressive quasar that these astronomers captured.

Like a needle-in-a-haystack, according to Professor Yue Shen, the search for this double quasar required the combined power of the Hubble’s sensitivity and the university’s leading researchers in their astronomy department. UIUC is committed to continuing their rich history of astronomical achievements inside the classroom by providing students hands-on experience using real data sets and outside campus in research projects led by students and faculty alike. Much of our universe is still unexplored and there is plenty of room for discoveries. UIUC is a pioneering research institution in observational astronomy, theoretical astrophysics, astronomical imagining, and cosmology. Faculty members have access to world-class facilities including the South Pole Telescope and large survey projects like DES. The university sets a high standard for undergraduate studies, which leads students to advance their academic expertise in year-round research as well as occasional collaborations with astronomy professors.

For more information: https://news.illinois.edu/view/6367/1173956073