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Extremists more willing than others to share their opinions

November 18, 2009

By Jeff Grabmeier

People with relatively extreme opinions may be more willing to publicly share their views than those with more moderate views, according to a new study.

The key is that the extremists have to believe that more people share their views than actually do, the research found.

The results may offer one possible explanation for our fractured political climate in the United States, where extreme liberal and conservative opinions often seem to dominate.

“When people with extreme views have this false sense that they are in the majority, they are more willing to express themselves,” said Kimberly Rios Morrison, co-author of the study and assistant professor of communication at Ohio State University.

How do people with extreme views believe they are in the majority? This can happen in groups that tend to lean moderately in one direction on an issue. Those that take the extreme version of their group’s viewpoint may believe that they actually represent the true views of their group, Morrison said.

One example is views about alcohol use among college students.

In a series of studies, Morrison and her co-author found that college students who were extremely pro-alcohol were more likely to express their opinions than others, even though most students surveyed were moderate in their views about alcohol use.

“Students who were stridently pro-alcohol tended to think that their opinion was much more popular than it actually was,” she said.”

Morrison conducted the study with Dale Miller of Stanford University. Their research appeared in a recent issue of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

The studies were done at Stanford University, which had a policy of prohibiting alcohol usage in common areas of all freshman dorms. In the first study, 37 students were asked to rate their own views about this policy. The average student’s views were near the mid-point of the scale — but most rated the typical Stanford student as more pro-alcohol than themselves.

“There’s this stereotype that college students are very pro-alcohol, and even most college students believe it,” Morrison said.

In the next two studies, students again rated themselves on similar scales that revealed how pro-alcohol they were. They were then asked how willing they would be to discuss their views on alcohol use with other Stanford students.

In general, students who were the most pro-alcohol were the most likely to say they wanted to express their views, compared to those with moderate or anti-alcohol views.

However, in one study the researchers added a twist: they gave participants fake data that indicated other Stanford students held relatively conservative, anti-alcohol views.

When extremely pro-alcohol students viewed this data, they were less likely to say they were willing to discuss alcohol usage with their fellow students.

“It is only when they have this sense that they are in the majority that extremely pro-alcohol students are more willing to express their views on the issue,” Morrison said.

However, students who had more extreme anti-alcohol views were not more likely to want to express their views, even when they saw the data that suggested a majority of their fellow students agreed with them.

“Their views that they are in the minority may be so deeply entrenched that it is difficult to change just based on our one experiment,” she said.

This finding shows that not all extremists are more willing to share their opinions — only those who hold more extreme versions of the group’s actual views.

These results have implications for how Americans view the political opinions of their communities and their political parties, Morrison said.

Take as an example a community that tends to be moderate politically, but leans slightly liberal.

People with more extreme liberal views in the community may be more likely than others to express their views because they think the community supports them.

“Everyone else sees these extreme opinions being expressed on a regular basis and they may eventually come to believe their community is more liberal than it actually is,” Morrison said. “The same process could occur in moderately conservative communities.”

OSU prepares to offer H1N1 vaccines to some dependents

November 18, 2009

Last month, faculty, students and staff were encouraged to register to receive the H1N1 vaccine.

Now, Ohio State is preparing to offer vaccines to spouses, domestic partners and dependents of faculty, staff and students who meet the CDC guidelines for high-risk priority.

Those are:

• Pregnant women.
• Caregivers of children 6 months of age or younger.
• Children 6 months to 17 years of age.
• Young adults, 18-24, with chronic underlying health conditions.

Those wishing to register a dependent, spouse or domestic partner for the H1N1 vaccine should call 292-3581 or 4-4161. Callers will need a BuckID or employee ID to access the telephone-based registration system.

Faculty, students and staff who have not registered for the vaccine are still encouraged to do so, but they will not be contacted until high-risk populations first have been inoculated.

The registration process is the same: Call 292-3581 or 4-4161 with a BuckID or employee ID.

Employees will be notified via e-mail once they’ve completed the registration process for either themselves, their spouse, domestic partner or dependents. A second e-mail will be sent at a later date, to notify those who have registered when the spouse, domestic partner or dependent’s inoculation can be scheduled.

This e-mail also will provide instructions and an access code that will be needed to make the appointment.

Employees will be asked to accompany their spouse, domestic partner or dependents to the vaccination site or to provide the proper Ohio State identification or insurance card.

Supervisors are asked to share this information with those employees who may not have seen it elsewhere, to inform them of the registration process, then remind them to check their e-mail daily for vaccine notification.

Anyone with questions about the process may send an e-mail to emergencymanagement@dps.ohio-state.edu.

More information about the telephone registration is available at flu.osu.edu.

History professor, author to speak at autumn ceremony

November 18, 2009

Boyle’s most recent book was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize

Humanities Distinguished Professor of History Kevin Boyle will speak at Ohio State’s autumn quarter commencement.

About 2,100 students will receive degrees at the ceremony, which begins at 2 p.m. Dec. 13 at the Schottenstein Center.

Boyle, who teaches 20th-century American history with an emphasis on class, race and politics, received the National Book Award for non-fiction in 2004 for Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights and Murder in the Jazz Age.

Arc of Justice also received the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize, the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Tolerance Book Award and the Society of Midland Authors Book Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. It also was named a New York Times notable book for 2004, a State of Michigan notable book for 2005 and the 2007 selection for the Detroit metropolitan area’s community-wide reading program.

Boyle’s other books include The UAW and the Heyday of American Liberalism, 1945-1968; Muddy Boots and Ragged Aprons: Images of Working-Class Detroit, 1900-1930, which he co-authored with Victoria Getis; and an edited volume, Organized Labor and American Politics, 1894-1994: the Labor-Liberal Alliance.

He is at work on a new book, The Splendid Dead: An American Ordeal, which is to be published by Houghton Mifflin.

His articles have appeared in Diplomatic History, The Journal of American History, Labor History, The Michigan Historical Review and various anthologies.

He also has published essays and reviews in The Baltimore Sun, The Chicago Tribune, The Detroit Free Press, Inc. Magazine, The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Boyle has held fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Fulbright Commission, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation.

In 1997-98 he held the Mary Ball Washington Chair in American History at University College Dublin in Ireland. He serves on the advisory board for the Walter P. Reuther Library and on the editorial boards of Labor History and Labor: Studies in Working-Class History of the Americas. He also is a Fellow of the Society of American Historians and a member of the PEN American Center.

During the ceremony, Ohio State will award the honorary doctor of public service to Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, the president of Iceland.

The university also will present Distinguished Service Awards to Mildred Chavous, retired staff member of Ohio State’s Graduate School, and Jack Creighton, a 1957 graduate of the Moritz College of Law and Strategic Director of Madrona Venture Group, a Seattle-based venture capital company.

Gateway to partner with Wexner Center for film space

November 18, 2009

Campus Partners and the Wexner Center for the Arts have formed a partnership that will significantly expand the range and quality of film offerings within the entire region.

Scheduled to debut in early January, the Gateway Film Center will augment its current programming of the best of mainstream film with significantly increased programming of award-winning independent, international and cutting-edge titles — by devoting two of its screens to Wexner Center-selected films on a continuous basis.

“We are excited by the new direction and the opportunities this will bring to the wonderful arts community in central Ohio,” said Doug Aschenbach, president of Campus Partners, the developer of South Campus Gateway. “The physical and programming changes will not only mean a reinvention of our products and services but will allow us to serve an even larger group of central Ohio moviegoers.”

“This novel partnership between the Wexner Center and Gateway Film Center is an ideal collaboration — one where each brings to the table its respective resources and expertise for the benefit of both,” said Sherri Geldin, director of the Wexner Center. “We’re delighted to join with Campus Partners to expand the cinematic repertoire for the campus community, our members and the filmgoing public alike.”

Campus Partners for Community Urban Redevelopment, a non-profit redevelopment corporation established by Ohio State in 1995, is the developer of South Campus Gateway and has spearheaded the neighborhood planning and revitalization efforts.

South Campus Gateway and the Gateway Film Center are an important strategic investment in the larger revitalization plan for the University District.

Campus Partners has tapped theater industry veteran Chris Hamel to serve as president of the Gateway Film Center. Hamel brings more than 20 years cinema experience, most recently serving as executive director of sales for Unique Screen Media, a Cinedigm company. Previously, Hamel has served as Columbus promotions director for Cinemark Theaters, director of operations for CAPA (Ohio, Palace and Southern theatres), vice president of operations for the Drexel Theatres Group and president and executive director of Movie Media.

“Our goal is to create a memorable experience for moviegoers that will add to the urban vitality that the University District has brought to the area,” said Hamel. “Our patrons can expect an experience unlike what they’d find at any other theater in the city, especially in the exciting and challenging titles the Wexner film/video program will bring to the programming mix.”

Wexner Center Film/Video Curator David Filipi has been with the center since 1994. He oversees 170 screenings each year in the Wexner’s landmark building at 15th and High, mixing acclaimed new films from festivals around the world, director’s retrospectives, restored classics and an active visiting director series with such luminaries as Milos Forman, Jim Jarmusch, Gus Van Sant and dozens of others.

“For 20 years, the Wexner Center’s film/video program has successfully mixed art-house titles with archival restorations, retrospectives and experimental fare,” Filipi said. “We’re thrilled that our partnership with the Gateway will provide us with two additional screens so we can give selected films a longer run than we’ve been able to do on our single screen here at the Wexner.”

The films programmed by the Wexner Center will fall under the “Wex@Gateway” tag. Wexner Center members will receive member rates for Wex@Gateway films at all times and for other Gateway films shown Sunday through Thursday.

New center’s challenge: Feed world’s growing population

November 4, 2009

The Ohio State University is investing $3.75 million over the next five years in a new food center that will address global issues in food supply, food policy and nutrition and health.

The Food Innovation Center: Foods for Global Security, Safety, and Health Promotion will focus efforts around four themes: Designing foods for health, ensuring food safety, advancing biomedical nutrition in disease prevention and health promotion and examining global food strategy and policy. It involves more than 80 faculty members from 12 colleges.

They’re taking on a tremendous challenge, said Ken Lee, professor of food science and technology and project director of the new center.

“Feeding the rapidly growing world population — a projected 8 billion by 2025 — will require a 40 percent increase in the world food supply,” Lee said. “At the same time, we are wasting 40 percent of the current supply due to challenges in economics, safety, health, nutrition, security, technology and food policy. But it’s this kind of mission-oriented research that can tackle these issues. This center will allow faculty at Ohio State to do what we are uniquely good at, in a way that improves quality of life.”

Steve Clinton, another principal investigator of the center and a professor of internal medicine, said the center capitalizes on Ohio State’s strong and diverse academic programs.

“You can count on a few fingers the number of academic institutions that have colleges of agriculture, business, public health and veterinary medicine, integrated programs in human nutrition and food science, as well as a comprehensive cancer center, on one single campus,” said Clinton, who also leads the Molecular Carcinogenesis and Chemoprevention program within Ohio State’s Comprehensive Cancer Center — James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute. “The new Food Innovation Center is exactly the mechanism that can propel us to academic prominence in this field and contribute solutions to critical global challenges in food and nutrition.”

The center is one of two new Centers for Innovation strategically funded by the university as a way to boost interdisciplinary efforts to improve the quality of the human condition. Funded jointly by the Office of Academic Affairs and Office of Research, each new center will receive $750,000 a year for a five-year period. It is expected that centers will become self-sufficient in five years.

Lee, who also is the director of the College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences’ Center for Food Safety and Agrosecurity, recently met with Howard Goldstein, professor of human development and family science. Goldstein leads the only other new Center for Innovation, the OSU International Poverty Solutions Collaborative.

“There very well could be some synergies between the two centers,” Lee said. “We’re both interested in health and well-being, and food and poverty issues have similar challenges.”

Lee envisions that the Centers for Innovation will make major contributions toward Ohio State becoming the “One University” — not a separated set of programs and activities — that is the first of President Gordon Gee’s strategic imperatives.

“Having renowned food experts within walking distance of each other is a rare gift that this center allows us to build upon,” Lee said. “Large-scale collaboration works when people value each other.”

Besides the College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and the Comprehensive Cancer Center, other entities involved in the Food Innovation Center are the College of Biological Sciences; the College of Education and Human Ecology; the College of Engineering; the Fisher College of Business; the John Glenn School of Public Affairs; The Moritz College of Law; the College of Medicine; the College of Optometry; the College of Pharmacy; the College of Public Health; and the College of Veterinary Medicine.

More information on Ohio State’s Centers for Innovation is available at research.osu.edu/innovation.

Depressed pregnant women at higher risk for severe flu

November 4, 2009

By Emily Caldwell, Research Communications

Pregnant women with significant symptoms of depression tend to have a stronger biological reaction to the seasonal flu vaccine than do women with lower depression levels, according to a new study.

The finding provides an argument in favor of flu vaccination during pregnancy, researchers say, because it suggests that the immune systems in depressed pregnant women are not functioning typically. That could affect symptom severity among women who become infected with influenza.

Previous studies have established a link between some preterm births and gestational high blood pressure cases and infection or inflammation. Avoiding the flu with a safe vaccine might be one way to lower the chances of complications, according to researchers.
An internal inflammatory response to vaccination is not uncommon — it’s an essential part of the process the immune system initiates to prepare for a successful fight against an actual infection. But it’s also expected to be a weak and brief response.

“Inflammatory responses to vaccination do no harm, are mild and typically go away within a few days. But an extended inflammatory response to vaccination, such as the one seen in women with the most depressive symptoms, isn’t expected and it serves as a way to estimate how somebody might respond to an actual infection or illness,” said Lisa Christian, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Ohio State University and lead author of the research.

Despite public health recommendations that pregnant women get seasonal flu shots, only an estimated 12 percent to 13 percent of pregnant women in the United States have done so in recent years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

“It will be interesting to see how that might change this year,” said Christian, in light of CDC recommendations that pregnant women receive both seasonal and H1N1 flu vaccinations.

Christian’s study appears online and is scheduled for print publication later in the journal Brain, Behavior and Immunity.

She and colleagues also recently published a study in the same journal indicating that pregnant women experiencing depressive symptoms and certain stressors had higher levels of inflammatory markers in their blood than did pregnant women with lower depression and stress levels.

Though this mind-body connection is well established in people with chronic stress, Christian said few studies have examined the effects of depression and stress during pregnancy. Research has shown that pregnancy suppresses certain functions of the immune system to prevent rejection of the fetus and to protect the fetus from inflammation that accompanies fevers and other illnesses.

“Our basic starting question was, do those same relationships between depression and immune function hold during pregnancy?” said Christian, also an investigator in Ohio State’s Institute for Behavioral Medicine Research. “And these studies suggest that they do. We see immune dysregulation during pregnancy due to stress and depression.”

In the flu vaccine study, 22 pregnant women completed questionnaires about their depressive symptoms and gave blood samples before they received a seasonal influenza shot. Between six and nine days later, a second round of blood samples was collected.

Researchers assessed the women’s depressive symptoms using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale, a series of 20 questions about physical, emotional and cognitive symptoms. The women were classified in three groups: Having either no or minimal depression; mild or moderate depressive symptoms; and significant depressive symptoms. A diagnosis of depression can be made only after an interview with a doctor.

The scientists analyzed the post-vaccination blood samples for the presence of macrophage migration inhibitory factor, or MIF, a protein that promotes inflammation by suppressing other substances in the blood that fight inflammation.

A week after receiving the flu shots, the women with the highest scores on the depression scale had about twice as much MIF in their blood as did women reporting minimal symptoms.

“The more depressive symptoms the women had, the more MIF they had after vaccination,” Christian said. “In the context of an actual illness, the response would be expected to be much more robust and more extended. And then we might have concerns about whether women who show an exaggerated inflammatory response would be more susceptible to complications.”

The next step will be to follow more women, for longer, to see if psychological factors during pregnancy can be linked directly to birth outcomes.

This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health, American Psychological Association awards, the American Psychological Foundation/Council of Graduate Departments of Psychology Scholarship Program, Ohio State’s Department of Women Studies, the Coca-Cola Critical Difference for Women Grant Program, an OSU Alumni Grant for Graduate Research and Scholarship, and Ohio State’s Center for Clinical and Translational Science (formerly the General Clinical Research Center).

Faculty, staff encouraged to register for H1N1 vaccine

The H1N1 vaccine is being dispensed to the university on a weekly basis. It is anticipated that there will be enough vaccine for all who wish to receive it, but registration is required.

A telephone-based registration system has been established, and those interested in the vaccine should call 514-H1N1 (514-4161). If using an Ohio State campus telephone, use the five-digit dialing by calling 4-4161. A BuckID or Employee ID is needed to register for the vaccine, which will be free at campus-area clinic locations. As a part of the registration process, employees will receive an e-mail notification when it is their turn to receive the vaccine.

The registration system also identifies high-risk populations who will receive first priority when initial shipments of the H1N1 vaccine arrive. The following categories have been identified as high-risk and will be inoculated first:

• Pregnant, live with or care for a child under 6 months of age.
• A healthcare worker, including health professional students.
• 17 or younger and have an underlying long-term health problem.
• 24 or younger.
• Between the ages of 25 and 64 and have an underlying long-term health problem.

The university is working to secure the H1N1 vaccine but cannot predict when it will have a sufficient supply to vaccinate anyone who wishes to receive it. H1N1 vaccines also are being distributed through public health departments, and high-risk employees may be able to receive the vaccine sooner by contacting these departments.

Visit columbuspandemicflu.org or call 211 for information about local clinics in the Columbus area. In other counties, contact the local city or county board of health (healthguideusa.org/ohio_county_health_departments.htm).

OSU to help drive state of Ohio’s new energy economy

November 4, 2009

Designation as state Center of Excellence in advanced energy will help attract even more top minds in the field

Gov. Ted Strickland has named Ohio State an Ohio Center of Excellence in advanced energy.

The selection recognizes Ohio State’s wide range of research expertise in the areas of climate, energy and the environment and ties the university’s work directly to the state’s economic development strategies.

In a news conference, Gov. Strickland designated nine Ohio Centers of Excellence in advanced energy. Each of the centers will focus their academic and research activities within advanced energy to undertake world-class research that ultimately drives the competitiveness of Ohio’s economy. Each also will help the state meet the requirements of Senate Bill 221, the landmark energy reform legislation enacted last year.

Caroline Whitacre, vice president for research at Ohio State, says the award recognizes the university’s unique capacity to assemble comprehensive teams that can focus on critical problems such as global warming, carbon sequestration and a range of sustainable new energy and transportation technologies.

“Ohio State has the people and programs in place to help take energy research in Ohio to the next level,” Whitacre said. ”More than 300 Ohio State researchers are focused on some aspect of climate, energy and the environment. We already partner with many businesses and nonprofits, entities that have helped make Ohio a top-five producer of clean energy jobs. This recognition will help strengthen those partnerships and attract the best researchers, faculty and students who are committed to this important field.”

Whitacre said the Centers of Excellence take to a new level the existing synergies and opportunities for collaboration in the energy area already established by the University Clean Energy Alliance of Ohio.

“In a time of scarce resources, we think it’s important to leverage the strengths of all the state’s public institutions in addressing Ohio’s future,” she said. “There are a lot of potential connections between us that will benefit not only Ohio State but also the other universities and, ultimately, the citizens of Ohio — by educating the best students and in facilitating cutting-edge research and development that will serve as an economic driver for the state’s future.”

Creating Centers of Excellence at Ohio’s public universities is part of the University System of Ohio’s Strategic Plan for Higher Education, 2008-2017.

The idea draws upon the distinctive research strengths of each institution to make Ohio competitive in the country and in the world. It is a way of organizing research excellence across the state to solve problems, create new technologies and propel promising state industries.

In response to the request, Ohio State created five Centers of Excellence that draw faculty and researchers from across the institution to contribute in the most immediate ways to the economic health of our state and to its position in a global economy: Climate, Energy and the Environment; Health and Well-Being, Human Behavior and Bioinformatics; State, Regional and Urban Development; Food Production, Supply and Safety; and Materials, Manufacturing Technologies and Nanotechnologies.

Advanced energy represents the first round of announcements of Centers of Excellence that align with the state’s targeted industries and keep talent in Ohio.

The additional university Centers for Advanced Energy are located at Bowling Green State University, Case Western Reserve University, Central State University, the University of Cincinnati, the University of Dayton, Ohio University and the University of Toledo.

Ohio State dedicates more than 300 researchers to the nation’s quest for environmentally sustainable energy solutions that promote economic growth in Ohio and safeguard our planet.

Comprehensive teams at Ohio State build on extensive expertise to sequester carbon; refine carbon trading; generate cleaner, less expensive and renewable power and protect natural resources. They track the effect of climate change on water resources, from retreating glaciers to rising sea levels and water tables across the globe. And they partner with advanced materials experts to make solar energy collection even more commercially viable.

Inflammatory response could hinder spinal cord repair

November 4, 2009

By Emily Caldwell, Research Communications

The inflammatory response following a spinal cord injury appears to be set up to cause extra tissue damage instead of promoting healing, new research suggests.

Scientists analyzing this response in mice discovered that the types of cells recruited to the site of the injury are dominated within a week by those that promote inflammation. When chronic, inflammation can prevent healing, and these inflammatory cells are believed to remain at the injury site indefinitely.

Meanwhile, similar cells that are typically involved in a later phase of injury repair and that are anti-inflammatory were found to promote effective growth of axons that connect nerve cells. However, these cells disappear shortly after an injury, making it unlikely that they get a chance to complete their work under naturally occurring circumstances.

All of the responding cells in question are macrophages, but the study revealed that they have slightly different characteristics that define their functions. The research suggests that changing the balance of how these cells are activated in favor of the anti-inflammatory macrophages could be a potential treatment strategy for spinal cord injury.

Scientists have not yet discovered a way to repair nerve cells that are damaged or killed when the spinal cord is injured. An estimated 1.3 million people in the United States are living with a spinal cord injury.

“If these pro-inflammatory macrophages are a big part of the reason cells are dying, and we can figure out how to shut off that death cascade that they start, we might be able to minimize the amount of tissue damage,” said senior study author Phillip Popovich, a professor of neuroscience and molecular virology, immunology and medical genetics at Ohio State.

“If that could be achieved by injecting a drug or giving a patient a pill for a set number of days after injury, that could improve a lot of function and quality of life for people who suffer a spinal cord injury.”

The research appears in the Oct. 28 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.

Popovich, also director of Ohio State’s Center for Brain and Spinal Cord Repair, has known about the presence of macrophages after spinal cord injury for a long time. What he didn’t know was exactly what they did, how they did it or whether there could be more than one function among these cells.

In this study, he and colleagues compared the spinal cords of mice with injury to the spinal cords of uninjured mice. The mouse injuries resembled the most common contusion/compression spinal cord damage in humans that occurs when a vertebral bone or a disc bumps into the cord, causing a lesion and bleeding.

The researchers used chemicals to stain the spinal cords with markers that would indicate what types of cells were active at the injury site. They named the pro-inflammatory macrophages M1 cells and anti-inflammatory macrophages M2 cells.

Immediately after the injury, the researchers observed an intermingling of M1 and M2 cells at the site of the spinal cord injury. In just a few days, all of the anti-inflammatory M2 cells had disappeared. The pro-inflammatory M1 population persisted for a month after injury — the longest period scientists have ever observed.

Once they knew how these cells were distributed at an injury site, the researchers created in vitro models in which they examined the effects of M1 and M2 macrophages on neurons, the cells that make up most of the spinal cord and brain.

The M1 macrophages killed neurons or stimulated a sprouting type of growth among their axons, which function as arms on neurons that reach out to connect with other cells or to send and receive signals. This type of sprouting of axons is associated with misguided circuits and can actually cause chronic pain.

The M2 cells, on the other hand, promoted long-distance axon growth without causing toxicity. This is the kind of axon growth required to regenerate spinal cord tissue and is the type of axon growth that is normally inhibited by proteins and cells that accumulate in the spinal cord after injury.

Researchers still must determine whether changing the balance of macrophages in an injured spinal cord to favor the activation of M2 cells would be beneficial in a human body.

Popovich conducted the work with Kristina Kigerl, John Gensel, Daniel Ankeny, Jessica Alexander and Dustin Donnelly, investigators in the Center for Brain and Spinal Cord Repair. The National Institutes of Health and National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke supported this research.

Reviews: TWP serves ‘vital, unique’ purpose

October 21, 2009

By Jeff McCallister

Clearly Deb Ballam is pleased about — and a little bit proud of — the institutional advances women have earned at Ohio State during her time as director of The Women’s Place.

But at the same time, she knows there’s still much to be done, and as she leaves her position there to return to full-time faculty in the Fisher College of Business, she knows TWP is in a strong position to affect even more positive change. Continue reading ‘Reviews: TWP serves ‘vital, unique’ purpose’

Silver nanoparticles give polymer solar cells a boost

October 21, 2009

By Pam Frost Gorder

Small bits of metal may play a new role in solar power.

Researchers at Ohio State are experimenting with polymer semiconductors that absorb the sun’s energy and generate electricity. The goal: Lighter, cheaper and more-flexible solar cells. Continue reading ‘Silver nanoparticles give polymer solar cells a boost’

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