Columbus/Central Ohio : Buzz

Southwestern Ohio is the newest breeding ground for the United States military high-tech defense mechanism--the drone. At the Springfield Air National Guard base, they're working on becoming ground control operations for the MQ-1 Predator after being awarded a new mission from the Department of Defense and Air Force.

Drones, or pilotless jets, are the newest weapon of choice for the U.S. Read more here.

A Central Ohio business is creating a niche market in the world of social media by offering small businesses a chance to connect with each other and then track that interaction. By measuring how a small business interacts with other small businesses, it can create a more powerful connection. Read more here.

Biomedical research could someday look a lot like playing video games, thanks to an Ohio State University team that has figured out how to manipulate cells with the swerve of a joystick, reports LiveScience.com.

The team at OSU put the device through its paces with magnetically-tagged T-cells, the body's guardians against infection. They snapped the cells to attention at one end of the chip, marched them down to the other end, and made them hop from one wire to another, reaching speeds of about 20 microns, or about a one-fifth the width of a human hair, per second.

Original source: LiveScience.com
Read the full story here.

A $1-billion expansion project for the Ohio State Medical Center campus has received final approval from the OSU board of trustees, reports The Lantern.

The revamped plan, which was unanimously approved by the university Board of Trustees, is estimated to save at least $50 million over the initial plan and create 10,000 full-time jobs in central Ohio by 2015, officials said. The expansion is the largest building project in university history.

Original source: The Lantern
Ready the full story here.