BTN.com staff, February 16, 2013

BTN?s new series, BTN LiveBIG, continues Thursday with stories highlighting how the Illini community is making an impact in Champaign and around the world including research of flexible and transient electronics to help researchers monitor people and the environment more closely.

The episode will include a look at how Illinois engineering professor John Rogers and his team are working with ?flexible and transient electronics,? which are flexible patches attached to skin to help monitor heartbeat, as well as muscle and brain activity.

The program will air at 11:15 p.m. ET on Thursday.

Viewers will also get a look at the university-based initiative Scientific Animations Without Borders (SAWBO). The program is dedicated to developing and deploying animated educational materials that can be used to improve the lives of people in developing nations. Animation is used as a learning tool with a voice track recorded in any language, and then delivered via the internet and viewed on a computer or tablet.

The episode will also give viewers a look at Illinois wheelchair basketball player Patty Cisneros. She helped the Illinois wheelchair basketball program win recent back-to-back national championships and also took home two Gold Medals playing for the U.S. National Paralympic Team.  She now mentors youth, sharing her story of overcoming injury and adversity. Also, viewers will learn about Illini Prosthetic Technologies, an organization made up of Illinois engineering students that focus on the problems faced by amputees in developing countries. The organization works to re-enable amputees around the world with simple, innovative and affordable prosthetic solutions.