Wired is reporting that University of Illinois Professor of Biophysics Klaus Schulten has discovered a possible way that birds can tell direction.

The latest piece of the puzzle is superoxide, an oxygen molecule that may combine with light-sensitive proteins to form an in-eye compass, allowing birds to see Earth’s magnetic field.

“It connects from the subatomic world to a whole bird flying,” said Michael Edidin, an editor of Biphysical Journal, which published the study last week. “That’s exciting!”

Wired: Reverse-Engineering the Quantum Compass of Birds
Highlight, Theoretical and Biophysics Group
Full Publication, with link to PDF

In a massmail this morning, it was announced that Compass will begin using the AD password. This is huge news. We all know how difficult it is to keep track of every different password, but now it is a little easier. CITES also offers the password manager which will allow you to merge all your passwords into one. Check it out.

Dear Student,

This message provides important information about logging in to your courses on Illinois Compass beginning January 14, 2009.

On Wednesday, January 14, Illinois Compass will begin using an Active Directory (AD) password for logging in (for example, this would be the same password that is used for CITES NetFiles).  We suggest that you allow extra time when logging in to Illinois Compass for the first time this semester in case you have forgotten or need to create an AD password.  If you have difficulty logging in, you may need to use the CITES Password Manager to set your password.  Please note, the new Password Manager makes it easy to set a single password for
many CITES services and you may wish to take this opportunity to consolidate your passwords.

For more information about CITES passwords, please see <http://www.cites.illinois.edu/accounts/index.html>.

If you have any problems logging in or have any questions about the Illinois Compass login change, please contact the CITES Help Desk by email at <consult@illinois.edu> or by calling 244-7000.

Sincerely,

CITES Educational Technologies

The Illinois Compass login page and banner have been updated as part of the Illinois Identity Standards initiative. The updated login page has a new look and feel to it, but all needed resource links should still be within reach. As part of this update, the logout page, error pages, and maintenance page have also been updated. There are no URL changes, and you will still authenticate using your NetID and NetID password.

Check it out… it looks just as cool as the new Illinois.edu… if only it worked as well…

Four of my courses this semester use Illinois Compass, two of which use it strictly for publishing grades. Compass should have a feature of emailing me when my grades are updated. They already have the option of emailing you when you have new “Compass Messages,” and they display on the front page when any grade is updated, so why can’t we just combine the two features?

Seems like something all too obvious.

When I reinstalled Windows last December, I didn’t install the Java Plugin on purpose, because U of I’s Blackboard Learning System (branded Illinois Compass) does a Java check on each login. This Java check takes forever, and is much shorter if Java is not installed (which makes no sense). I have not had any reason to install Java for three months. It was a great decision, and I’d recommend it to anyone who wants to speed up their Illinois Compass browsing times.