I don't know if I care for this nanotech == Ohio stuff, but seeing a commitment made to nanotech is cool. I'd probably be willing to go into college to get a degree in nanotech, even if it means taking a buch of chemisty and biology clases (I'm a Physics/Computer Science/Pure Math kinda guy). If only relatively few people are working on nanotech, like right now, then the field will never have a chance to take off like it ought to.

You are correct. There are some character combinations that show up as gaps when the entry is posted to the system. I have been trying to watch for this and correct when posting new items. There is a preview feature, but the gaps sometimes don't appear until after the item has been previewed and submitted to the server.

I have edited the URL in the main item to something simpler that accesses the same page.

Once again, there is a gap in the URL. Try Ohio State to Host First Worldwide Biomedical Nanotechnology Conference. I suspect that there is something in the user interface for people who review and actually post stories to nanodot, that makes it easy to break URLs and to leave in broken URLs.