Latest Ohio State University Stories

When hospital patients need assistance breathing and are placed on a mechanical ventilator for days at a time, their lungs react to the pressure generated by the ventilator with an out-of-control immune response that can lead to excessive inflammation, new research suggests. While learning that lungs perceive the ventilation as an infection, researchers also discovered potential drug targets that might reduce the resulting inflammation - a tiny piece of RNA and two proteins that have roles...

Researchers who are studying a new magnetic effect that converts heat to electricity have discovered how to amplify it a thousand times over - a first step in making the technology more practical. In the so-called spin Seebeck effect, the spin of electrons creates a current in magnetic materials, which is detected as a voltage in an adjacent metal. Ohio State University researchers have figured out how to create a similar effect in a non-magnetic semiconductor while producing more...

CINCINNATI, June 26, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The first landmark randomized clinical trial for a cardiac drug regimen in Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is testing whether earlier treatment can stop or slow down heart damage that usually kills people with the disease. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110406/MM79025LOGO) The study is a collaboration of Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Ohio State University (OSU) and The Christ Hospital in...

COLUMBUS, Ohio, June 12, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Ohio Virtual Academy (OHVA), a tuition-free online public charter school for students in Ohio, honored its 2012 graduates during a ceremony that took place at The Palace Theater in Columbus this past Saturday, June 9. The graduating class is one of the brightest in school history, and amassed a total of over $1.5 million in college scholarship money offered. The ceremony was planned by a committee of graduating seniors and...

Skin cancer patients whose childhood included periods of neglect or maltreatment are at a much greater risk for their cancers to return when they face a major stressful event, based on a new study. The research suggests that such experiences during a person's youth can set a lower level of immune response for life, which in turn might make them more susceptible to the kind of cancers that are often successfully fought by the immune system, so-called immunogenic tumors. While the...

Many first-time parents - particularly mothers - actually increase the amount of time they spend on Facebook after the birth of their child according to a small exploratory study. The results shown 44% of mothers said after giving birth their facebook use increased. 27% said it decreased while 29% said their use stayed the same. For the fathers, 31% said their use increased, 19% said it decreased and 51% said it stayed the same. This study is the first to investigate new parents’...

COLUMBUS, Ohio, June 4, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- More than 2000 Ohio graduates received diplomas from ECOT (Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow), the nation's largest K-12 online charter school, in a ceremony Sunday, June 3 at The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. Animal expert Jack Hanna, Director Emeritus at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, addressed the largest graduating class of any school in the nation with over 2,000 students in ECOT's Class of 2012. "I've spoken to...

COLUMBUS, Ohio, May 21, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- On Monday, May 21, 2012 the final beam will be lifted into place at the new James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute and Critical Care Center under construction on The Ohio State University medical campus. When completed, the 21-floor, $1.1 billion hospital will be one of the 15 tallest hospitals in the country. OSU President E. Gordon Gee and dignitaries from the state, including Mayor Michael Coleman, community and...

For the first time, researchers have been able to combine different climate models using spatial statistics - to project future seasonal temperature changes in regions across North America. They performed advanced statistical analysis on two different North American regional climate models and were able to estimate projections of temperature changes for the years 2041 to 2070, as well as the certainty of those projections. The analysis, developed by statisticians at Ohio State...

When you “lose yourself” inside the world of a fictional character while reading a story, you may actually end up changing your own behavior and thoughts to match that of the character, a new study suggests. Researchers at Ohio State University examined what happened to people who, while reading a fictional story, found themselves feeling the emotions, thoughts, beliefs and internal responses of one of the characters as if they were their own - a phenomenon the researchers call...