Probably unrelated to OU Bombing, but interesting and worth noting anyway... The men arrested stole a "stoppered glass vial" from Richards Hall. No mention of what was in the vial, or what is housed in this particular building.
Yes, no reason to be alarmed. Most jackazz'd burglars steal vials of anything handy- just for kicks. You know, "see how stupid you folks are being, we love this Country- big time- long time- no zzhitt."
The walls of Hopla's office in Richards Hall are lined with wooden boxes that hold the more than 50,000 flea specimens the OU George Lynn Cross Research Professor Emeritus of Zoology has collected and studied during most of his 50-plus-year career.
An internationally known expert in zoonotic diseases-those transmitted from animals to humans-Hopla, at age 85, still travels the world to participate in medical conferences, sharing his vast and always-expanding body of knowledge. In December, he chaired a session and moderated another at a conference in Bangkok, Thailand, where a decade ago he helped establish a comparative medicine program at one of that country's leading universities.
He also continues his research, mostly in Caddo Canyon, Oklahoma, approximately 60 miles west of Norman, where he has converted a 1930s farmhouse and some acreage into a field laboratory. While the flea is his primary subject these days, Hopla also studies diseases transmitted to mammals by the cliff swallow, a single-brooded bird that migrates to South America each winter and back to North America each spring. In collaboration with scientists from the Centers for Disease Control and Infection in Atlanta, he has isolated a virus transmitted by the cliff swallow that is very similar to the West Nile virus, as well as a handful of others that he is trying to fully identify.