October: Ohio State Research Awareness Month

In 2005, Ohio State researchers completed the most meticulous survey ever made of the San Andreas Fault, and found detailed features that nobody could have seen before. Michael Bevis, Ohio Eminent Scholar in geodynamics and professor of geological sciences at Ohio State University, gathered data using ultra-high-resolution global positioning system (GPS) technology and a radar-like system called lidar. The researchers dubbed their survey the “B4” Project, because the data will form the “before” images that scientists will compare to “after” images of the next big San Andreas earthquake when it inevitably happens. This lidar image shows a portion of the San Andreas Fault. The green arrow on the egg-shaped feature in the middle of the image marks the spot where project members’ SUV and a tripod for a portable GPS station are visible. (Published October 5, 2008)

DNA Chip

Researchers at Ohio State 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, only 200 horse genes were known. This chip allows researchers to scan an individual horse’s 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. Pictured here is Alicia Bertone, the professor of veterinary clinical sciences who led Ohio State's efforts in developing the equine gene chip. (Published October 6, 2008)

Sunflowers

Researchers studied genetically engineered sunflowers – those modified with a gene that produces a chemical toxic to certain insects – to see what happened when these foreign genes, called transgenes, were inadvertently passed along to weedy relatives. The study showed that a gene artificially inserted into crop plants to fend off pests can migrate to weeds in a natural environment and make the weeds stronger. It was the first example of what could happen if a beneficial transgene accidentally spread to a wild population and then proliferated in subsequent generations. The research was led by Allison Snow, professor of evolution, ecology and organismal biology and now director of Ohio State’s undergraduate research office. (Published October 7, 2008)

Research: Signs

This is one example of the kinds of signs that were placed in residential yards in Amarillo, Texas, as part of a public art project. More than 5,000 signs had been placed in the area. Researchers in the city and regional planning at Ohio State found that the signs were not popular among many residents, and about half of those surveyed wanted some or all of the signs removed. (Photo by Jennifer Evans-Cowley) (Published October 8, 2008)

Research: Nanostrands

DNA strands fluoresce in this microscope images. Ohio State researchers led by L. James Lee, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, have invented a process for uncoiling DNA strands and forming them into precise patterns – a prelude to biologically based electronics and medical devices. The squares in the image measure approximately 10 micrometers (millionths of a meter) across. (Published October 9, 2008)

Research: Fossilized Tracks

Just this week, Professor of Earth Sciences Loren Babcock shared news of a discovery in Nevada of the fossilized trail of an aquatic creature suggesting that animals walked using legs at least 30 million years earlier than had been thought. The tracks, two parallel rows of small dots, each about 2 millimeters in diameter, date back some 570 million years, to the Ediacaran period. The Ediacaran preceded the Cambrian period, the time when most major groups of animals first evolved. Babcock was surveying rocks in the mountains near Goldfield, Nevada, with J. Stewart Hollingsworth of the Institute for Cambrian Studies in 2000 when he found the tracks. The creature must have stepped lightly onto the soft marine sediment, because its legs only pressed shallow pinpoints into that long-ago sea bed. But when Babcock flipped over the rock containing those tracks, the low-angle sunlight cast the dots in crisp shadow. He immediately suspected that the tracks were made by an arthropod, such as one resembling a centipede or millipede, or by a leg-bearing worm. (Published October 10, 2008)

Research: Large Hadron Collider

Some 30 stories below ground, the ATLAS particle detector awaits the first physics experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The detector is normally sealed in concrete, but this view was opened for visitors to CERN (The European Organization for Nuclear Research) on October 3, 2008. The 7,700-ton detector is shaped like a cylinder lying on its side (around 150 feet long and 80 feet high) and it wraps around the outside of the LHC tunnel, where particles will smash together at nearly the speed of light. An Ohio State team of researchers led the design and fabrication of the pixel detectors that will catch the debris resulting from the collision. They also designed and built radiation-tough computer chips, circuit boards, and other equipment that will capture data from the experiment. Ohio State is the only American institution collaborating on three of the four LHC detectors. (Published October 11, 2008)