Thirteen Arts and Sciences researchers are among 12 others at Ohio State receiving funding through the new partnership between Ohio State and the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP): Ana Alonso, assistant professor, molecular genetics; Dennis Bong, associate professor, chemistry and biochemistry; Luis Casian, professor and chair, mathematics; Andrea Doseff, associate professor, molecular genetics; Mark Foster, professor, chemistry and biochemistry; H. Lisle Gibbs, professor, EEOB; Erich Grotewold, professor, molecular genetics; Terry Gustafson, professor, chemistry and biochemistry; Ulrich Heinz, professor, physics; Alvara Montenegro, assistant professor, geography; Abhay Satoskar, professor, microbiology; F. Robert Tabita, professor and Ohio Eminent Scholar, microbiology; and Julian Thayer, professor and Ohio Eminent Scholar, psychology. Ohio State and FAPESP are contributing $700,000 each to begin a five-year program to collaborate in new ways to support research and innovation.
 

Juan Alfonzo, associate professor, microbiology, is senior author of a study finding a tiny, unexpected change to a segment of RNA in a single-cell organism, which looks a lot like a mistake, is a change to genetic information essential to the organism’s survival. The finding of this RNA “edit” in Trypanosoma brucei, a parasite causing sleeping sickness in Africa and Chagas disease in Latin America, could lead to a new drug target to fight the parasite. The study appears online in the journal Molecular Cell and is scheduled for print publication on October 24.

 

Economics Professor Lucas Coffman, uses novel experimental methods to better understand how people make decisions in important economic contexts. He is particularly interested in the process by which poor families in developing countries decide to send their children to work or to school. Read about his research in Brazil, published in the Journal of Political Economy.

 

Zhong-Lin Lu, Distinguished Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences and director, Center for Cognitive and Brain Sciences; and Center for Cognitive and Behavioral Brain Imaging, is lead author of a new book, Visual Psychophysics, From Laboratory to Theory (MIT Press, 2013). The book is a comprehensive treatment of visual psychophysics, which studies the relationship between the physical world and human behavior.

Work from physics Professors Lou DiMauro and Pierre Agostini in collaboration with colleagues at Kansas State University appears on the cover of the September issue of LaserFocusWorld, p. 15. Interviewed for LaserFocusWorld, DiMauro showcases LIED’s ability to directly image small molecules with femtosecond and picometer resolutions, “The dream would be to use LIED as an ultrafast imaging method for producing molecular movies to understand the dynamics of matter on its natural time scale,” he said. 

 

The Center for Urban and Regional Analysis (CURA) hosts William Murdock, executive director, Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission (MORPC), for a conversation on regional development in Central Ohio, Friday, October 11, 3:30-5 pm, 1080 Derby Hall. Murdock brings knowledge and expertise in the areas of community services, and urban planning and redevelopment, which is critical as MORPC continues to grow and adapt to the changing needs of the region.

 

The October undergraduate student e-Newsletter highlights the Earth sciences major, the English Undergraduate Organization (EUGO), a student internship in NYC, an upcoming faculty/student dinner, Science Sundays, Mexico Global May, freshman seminars, and summer STEM research. To submit content suggestions or to be added to the mailing list, contact Ann Rottersman, director of student programs. Newsletter Archives.