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August 20, 2008 9:04 AM |
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H9N2 Avian Flu Strain Has Pandemic Potential Back To School Experts - 2008 Edition UM Wins International Robot Competition UM's Fall Semester to Focus on All Aspects Of War |
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Highlighted News Items, August 15
College Presidents Seek Debate on Drinking Age
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Maryland Moments, July, 2005
University Initiatives
(Honors, New Programs)
A NASA team of the University of Maryland, the California Institute of Technology's Jet Propulsion Laboratories and Ball Aerospace Engineering, hit the bull's eye 83,000,000 miles into space on July 4 by crashing an impactor vehicle into the Comet Tempel 1. The result: the first time humans made contact with a comet in space and a niagara of research information to last for years. That research could answer some of the questions of how the solar system came to be. Michael A'Hearn, professor of astronomy, was the guiding force behind the science of the mission and was the entire event's principal investigator. He and colleagues from the department of astronomy did the unlikely, overcoming pre-mission hurdles--the inevitable surprises, budgets, bringing together hundreds of scientists--to set up a mission that performed flawlessly on its way to the history books.
UM is again among the leaders in educating minority students, as the journal Black Issues in Higher Education publishes its graduate school rankings, which are based on number of degrees awarded. Top 25 programs at UM: Doctorate Degrees
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All Disciplines Combined
- African American Doctorate, No. 13
- Total Minority Doctorate, No. 16
- African American Doctorate, No. 13
- Education
- Total Minority Doctorate, No. 12
African American Doctorate, No. 9
- Psychology
- Total Minority Doctorate, No. 21
- African American Doctorate, No. 18
- Asian American Doctorate, No. 15
- Social Sciences and History
- Total Minority Doctorate, No. 15
- African American Doctorate, No. 4
- All Disciplines Combined
- African American Master's, No. 12
- African American Master's, No. 71
- Asian American Master's, No. 49
- Agriculture, Agriculture Operations and Related Sciences
- Total Minority Master's, No. 21
- Engineering
- Total Minority Master's, No. 27
- African American Master's, No. 7
- Mathematics
- Total Minority Master's, No. 15
- African American Master's, No. 6
- Social Sciences and History
- Total Minority Master's, No. 20
- African American Master's, No. 6
The Robert H. Smith School of Business is taking its information technology expertise to North Africa. Smith and the South Mediterranean University's Mediterranean School of Business join to offer a masters of science degree in management of information systems and technology in Tunisia. The MIST program will be a one-year course "targeting professionals in the technology or management arenas across all industry sectors."
Ten students and two professors from the School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation and School of Public Policy tackle a problem Montgomery County officials have also been trying to address: Now that downtown Silver Spring has gone from shabby to chic, with such big-name chains as Starbucks and Borders, what will become of the original merchants? "When you get revitalization like what's happening in Silver Spring, a lot of these small businesses and ethnic businesses get squeezed out," said Marie Howland, an urban studies and planning professor who oversaw the study.
The Maryland Industrial Partnerships program, based at the Clark School of Engineering, approves 15 projects pairing UM faculty and faculty from other University System of Maryland schools to develop technology-based products. The companies will kick in about $1.8 million for the assistance, and the program will contribute about $1 million. Projects include development of a supersonic combustion jet engine that would allow space flights from airports, a landslide-detection system and an "antimicrobial tablet" meant to purify municipal water supplies.
100 promising young scientists from around the country donned their lab coats and goggles at UM to experience scientific advances first-hand. Sponsored by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, UM and the College of Chemical & Life Sciences, Jump Start introduced students to the frontiers of biotechnology, including, Forensic Science, Biomedical Science and Animal Behavior and Physiology.
The Center for Energetic Concepts Development in the Clark School of Engineering partners with the College of Southern Maryland and the Naval Surface Warfare Center at Indian Head to house an energetics technology center in Charles County. The center will train engineers and conduct research and development in explosives. Other partnership entities are N-STAR, the Office of Naval Intelligence, the United States Naval Academy, and Iktara and Associates.
Society & Culture
The Program on International Policy Attitudes in the School of Public Policy releases a poll revealing how Americans feel about the controversial Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), which entered the rapid waters of Congress and conflicting special interests. "Fifty percent of those polled supported the agreement with Central American nations and the Dominican Republic, known as CAFTA-DR and 39 percent opposed it, according to the Program on International Policy Attitudes, a joint effort by the Center on Policy Attitudes and the University of Maryland's Center for International and Security Studies."
UM archaeologist Mark Leone and a team of students discover evidence of hoodoo, a New World variant of ancient West African mystical traditions carried across the Atlantic by black slaves, in Annapolis. The Annapolis Captial: "Sifting through the debris of an 18th-century townhouse being renovated in Annapolis last month, the archaeologist and his students found what they were looking for under the brick floor near the kitchen hearth."
A vast majority of Americans disagree with President George W. Bush's stance on global warming, according to a poll released at the start of the G8 meeting in Scotland. (The main items on the agenda, relief for Africa and global warming, were put into the background by the terror attack in London, set off to coincide with the meeting.) "Going into the G8 Summit, nearly all Americans feel that the U.S. should not be a laggard, but should be ready to do as much as most other developed countries to reduce emissions that cause climate change," said Steven Kull, director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes.
A Maryland research project may be the last chance for tobacco farming in Maryland, reported the Washington Post The story focuses on the federally funded Alternative Uses of Tobacco Project at the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, an effort to grow the crop for non-traditional uses and then extract its valuable proteins. "Inside the project's processing facility, a building at the College Park campus that once produced ice cream, researchers removed heaps of tobacco from a walk-in refrigerator and demonstrated the extraction process�. 'Ready to go!' Y. Martin Lo, an associate professor of food bioprocess engineering, yelled to two assistants�. A green mist filled the air as the tobacco toppled into a machine that pulverized the leaf�. Although farmers in Maryland are waiting to see if the UM project pans out, biotechnology experts say tobacco is one of the plants most likely to produce beneficial drugs in the near future."
Dan Goodman, the chief executive officer of venture management firm Zernike USA, is named the first technology commercialization fellow at the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship at the Smith School of Business. The Daily Record: "A new business leader at the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship hopes to bring a slightly more international viewpoint to the business program.... Rudy Lamone, the center's co-founder and a member of its board of advisors, said the center has proved itself to be an important resource for fledgling entrepreneurs. He said that while the center began as a way to help all entrepreneurs -- Maryland university students as well as business people in the surrounding community -- for the past several years it has shifted to focusing more on the students. 'We help them make connections,' Lamone said. 'We do a lot of the things needed to get a business up and running.' "
University of Maryland: Drivers Use Seat Belts
According to a survey conducted by the College of Health and Human Peformance, more Maryland drivers are buckling up. The percentage of drivers who say using seatbelts and other restraints is critical jumped from 58 in 2004 to 74 this year. The percentage of those who say they always buckle up also increased, from 95 percent to 98 percent. The study also found that an overwhelming majority of drivers surveyed -- 90 percent -- believe that drunken driving, speeding and aggressive drivers are the biggest threats on the road.
Science & Technology
Reuters spreads the news worldwide about research coordinated by Jason Matheny, a doctoral student in agricultural and resource economics at UM. "Laboratories using new tissue-engineering technology might be able to produce meat that is healthier for consumers and cut down on pollution produced by factory farming, researchers said on Wednesday. While NASA engineers have grown fish tissue in lab dishes, no one has seriously proposed a way to grow meat on commercial levels. But... Jason Matheny and his colleagues describe two possible ways to do it. Writing in the journal Tissue Engineering, Matheny said scientists could grow cells from the muscle tissue of cattle, pigs, poultry or fish in large flat sheets on thin membranes. These sheets of cells would be grown and stretched, then removed from the membranes and stacked to increase thickness and resemble meat."
Science Daily: "At home in the deep, dark Arctic Ocean, the marine bacterium Colwellia psychrerythraea 34H keeps very cool--typically below 5� degrees Celsius. How does the bacterium function in this frigid environment? To find out, scientists at The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) and collaborators have sequenced and analyzed C. psychrerythraea's genome." Bahram Momen, assistant professor in natural resource sciences & landscape architecture, was on the team that sequenced the chilly genome.
Oysters are a way of life, too, in a state whose heart is the Chesapeake Bay. The state Department of Natural Resources releases a study on how Marylanders feel about the revival of the bay's oyster beds, which are in steep decline. "Marylanders are uncertain about what to do about oysters in the Chesapeake Bay -- not ready yet to give up on the native oysters and uneasy about introducing a new species into the bay, according to a survey released Thursday by the state Department of Natural Resources. "There is a widespread sense that (oyster) restoration, as we've done it, has not worked," said Michael Paolisso, an anthropologist at UM and principal author of the study."
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Information provided by the Office of University Communications