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Ohio State University Research News

INFORMATION PARADOX SOLVED? IF SO, BLACK HOLES ARE “FUZZBALLS”

Stephen Hawking and Kip Thorne may owe John Preskill a set of encyclopedias. In 1997, the three cosmologists made a famous bet as to whether information that enters a black hole ceases to exist -- that is, whether the interior of a black hole is changed at all by the characteristics of particles that enter it. Hawking’s research suggested that the particles have no effect whatsoever. But his theory violated the laws of quantum mechanics and created a contradiction known as the “information paradox.” Read more . . .

RESEARCHERS DEVELOP SYSTEM TO DETECT BIOWARFARE AGENTS ON NAVY SHIPS

An Ohio State University professor is part of a team that developed a new protocol that the U.S. Navy now uses to detect biowarfare (BW) agents, such as anthrax, aboard its ships. “Until mid-2002, the only equipment to detect biological agents that warships had were the sailors themselves," said Michael Boehm, an associate professor of plant pathology at Ohio State and a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Naval Reserve. “The military was ill-prepared to deal with what might happen if a 37-cent letter filled with anthrax or smallpox was opened on a ship at sea.” Boehm was called to active duty shortly after September 11, 2001, to help the Navy develop an inclusive biowarfare agent detection program. In late 2001, he headed for the Naval Medical Research Center’s Biological Defense Research Directorate (BDRD) in Silver Spring, Md. Boehm's active duty stint ended in February 2003, and he returned to Ohio State. Read more . . .

OHIO STATE CREATES FIRST GENE CHIP FOR HORSE

Researchers at Ohio State University have created the first DNA gene chip that contains thousands of the genes for a horse and one of the first gene chips for a domestic animal. The new chip houses more than 3,200 expressed horse genes on a sliver of glass about the size of a postage stamp. When the researchers began developing this chip two years ago, only 200 horse genes were known. This new chip will allow researchers to scan an individual horses genes at once to see which ones are active in a certain situation. For example, drug companies might use a gene chip to predict how a particular drug will affect an animal. Read more . . .

COMPUTER MODEL OFFERS NEW TOOL TO PROBE WOBURN TOXIC WASTE SITE

A computer model developed at Ohio State University is giving researchers a new understanding of how municipal wells at a famous toxic waste site in Woburn, Massachusetts, came to be contaminated, and how much contamination was delivered to residents. As dramatized in the book and movie A Civil Action, a cluster of childhood leukemia cases in Woburn led to a lengthy court battle in the 1980s, during which three commercial companies were accused of dumping toxic chemicals that entered two of the towns water supply wells. Read more . . .

NEW EVIDENCE SUGGESTS THAT MONKEY THOUGHT EXTINCT STILL EXISTS

After years of searching for a rare African primate, anthropologist Scott McGraw and his colleagues believed that the Miss Waldron's red colobus monkey, Procolobus badius waldroni, was probably extinct. They had written a paper in 2000 saying so. But recent hard evidence of the Miss Waldron's red colobus' existence has rekindled McGraw's hopes of finding the primate, reportedly last seen in 1978. McGraw, an associate professor of anthropology at Ohio State University, details the evidence and his continuing search for the elusive monkey in a forthcoming issue of the International Journal of Primatology. Read more . . .

NEW HEREDITARY CANCER ARRIVED WITH A GERMAN IMMIGRANT ALMOST THREE CENTURIES AGO

Scientists have combined genetic testing with genealogical detective work to discover and trace the source of an unusual gene mutation. That mutation apparently was brought to the United States at least 13 generations ago by a German immigrant, and it may be responsible for a sizeable portion of certain hereditary cancers in Americans. People with this mutation are at high risk for developing cancer of the colon, endometrium and ovaries. The condition is known as hereditary nonpolyposis colon cancer, or HNPCC. The mutation is not normally revealed by using typical genetic testing methods. However, the researchers have developed a relatively simple and inexpensive test that detects its presence. Read more . . .

RESEARCHERS GET TO THE ROOT OF CASSAVA’S CYANIDE-PRODUCING ABILITIES

Cassava is the third-most important food source in tropical countries, but it has one major problem: The roots and leaves of poorly processed cassava plants contain a substance that, when eaten, can trigger the production of cyanide. That’s a serious problem for the 500 million people who rely on cassava as their main source of calories, among them subsistence farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa, said Richard Sayre, a professor of plant biology at Ohio State University. He and his colleague Dimuth Siritunga, a postdoctoral researcher in plant biology at the university, have created cyanogen-free cassava plants. A cyanogen is a substance that induces cyanide production. Read more . . .

STUDY: EDGES OF MAGNETIC TAPE KEY TO BOOSTING DATA DENSITY

Ohio State University engineers have examined in unprecedented detail a key manufacturing step that could improve one of the worlds most popular data storage materials: magnetic tape. How a tape is cut in the factory plays a major role in how much data it can hold -- and whether the $6 billion American magnetic tape industry will be able to maintain its market share in the future, according to the comprehensive study. Read more . . .