Making Skis Strong Enough for Olympians to Race on

Feb 12, 2018 / 5 minutes of reading

What’s inside Olympians’ skis? AP Photo/Luca Bruno by Marc Zupan, University of Maryland, Baltimore County Olympians expect top-notch performance from their minds and bodies, but they get crucial advantages from the very best equipment for their sports and the weather conditions they’re competing in. Skis, for example, must stand up to near-constant changes in stress during races. The ideal ski provides a stiff and rigid platform for skiers’ boots to attach to, flexes to carve through turns, doesn’t break under the pressure of jumps and landings and is light enough not to slow the athlete down. But that’s not all: Skis… Continue Reading Making Skis Strong Enough for Olympians to Race on

Our People, Our Land, Our Images: AOK Library Gallery Through March 18

Jan 19, 2018 / 2 minutes of reading

Above image: Erica Lord, Athabaskan/Inupiaq (b. 1978), Untitled (I Tan to Look More Native) from the series Tanning Project, 2006, Inkjet C-print. Opportunities to view indigenous peoples through the eyes of indigenous photographers are rare and recent. Through March 18, UMBC’s Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery presents Our People, Our Land, Our Images, a landmark exhibition bringing together 26 indigenous photographers from throughout the United States, Canada, Peru, and New Zealand. Distinctive in its historical reach, the exhibition includes newly discovered 19th-century trailblazers, members of the next generation of emerging photographers, and well established contemporary practitioners varying in style, from straightforward documentary… Continue Reading Our People, Our Land, Our Images: AOK Library Gallery Through March 18

Studying circadian rhythms in plants and their pathogens might lead to precision medicine for people

Nov 29, 2017 / 7 minutes of reading

Hua Lu, Associate Professor of Biological Sciences, UMBC, and Linda Wiratan, B.S. Student of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, UMBC Above photo: CC BY-ND At dusk, the leaves of the tamarind tree close, waiting for another dawn. Androsthenes, a ship captain serving under Alexander the Great, made the first written account of these leaf movements in the fourth century B.C. It took centuries longer to discover that he was describing the effects of the circadian clock. This internal time-sensing mechanism allows many living organisms to keep track of time and coordinate their behaviors along 24-hour cycles. It follows the regular day/night and seasonal… Continue Reading Studying circadian rhythms in plants and their pathogens might lead to precision medicine for people

How To be a Critical Consumer of Media

Oct 3, 2017 / 4 minutes of reading

With Jason Loviglio, Founding Chair and Associate Professor, Media and Communication Studies The phrase “ fake news” may sound current, but as long as there have been written and visual media, readers and audiences have puzzled and debated over how to interpret what is true. With The War of the Worlds, Orson Welles created one of the best-known early examples of broadcast audiences mistaking fiction for fact, when a small fraction of listeners tuning in to the 1938 radio broadcast reacted with panic, certain that aliens, or Germans, were invading. Today’s media consumers must filter input from various sources quickly… Continue Reading How To be a Critical Consumer of Media

The Big Build

Oct 3, 2017 / 3 minutes of reading

Seniors in Neil Rothman’s capstone mechanical engineering class experience the ups and downs of designing for real-life clients. By Megan Hanks In the real world, the more projects and problems an engineer works on, the better they get at coming up with solutions that actually work. That’s why, during the final year of UMBC’s mechanical engineering curriculum, students spend a semester working through the “hard knock design experiences” they need to succeed as engineers. The projects are presented to the class at the beginning of each semester by Neil Rothman, professor of practice of mechanical engineering, and come from a… Continue Reading The Big Build

Gun Show

Oct 2, 2017 / 1 minute of reading

For decades, artist David Hess has assembled life-size sculptures of assault rifles from what he calls “rescued” objects — everything from an old black sneaker and vintage turquoise sewing machine, to a raggedy crutch and pink Barbie bike frame — to foster dialogue about one of the most volatile issues of our time. UMBC’s Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture hosted “Gun Show,” the first-ever display of all 112 sculptures, this fall, as curated by Kathy O’Dell, associate professor of visual arts and special assistant to the dean for education and arts partnerships.

Beyond Coding

Oct 2, 2017 / 2 minutes of reading

The sun is pouring through the large windows in the Performing Arts & Humanities third floor dance studio. About 20 girls, 7th – 9th graders, are sprawled out on mats following the movements of the yoga instructor at the front of the room. They are learning about flexibility, how to “think outside the box, kind of like there’s no set answer to the question.” These girls are not at UMBC exclusively to learn yoga, however, but rather to challenge their computing skills. How Girls Code: Mind, Body, and Coding summer camp at UMBC is an extension of the after-school program… Continue Reading Beyond Coding

Broadcast Ready

Oct 2, 2017 / 2 minutes of reading

For most in sports media, working for ESPN is a dream, but UMBC has made that dream a reality for several students. Through a partnership with the America East Conference, UMBC’s Department of Athletics streams many athletic events live on the online channel ESPN 3, and students make up a large part of the broadcast team. Starting in 2016, UMBC’s Director of Athletics Tim Hall and head of athletic communications Steve Levy ’85, interdisciplinary studies, reached out to UMBC alum Eli Eisenberg ’86, interdisciplinary studies, the president of VPC (a video production company based in Owings Mills, Md.), to create… Continue Reading Broadcast Ready

Space Station-Bound

Oct 2, 2017 / 3 minutes of reading

A white box the size of a refrigerator, called Cosmic Ray Energetics and Mass (CREAM), headed to the International Space Station (ISS) in August, thanks to the work of UMBC astrophysicist Jason Link and colleagues. Inside, four scientific detectors will work together to detect cosmic rays coming from far flung regions of the universe. The instruments will transmit the data from the ISS to Earth, to scientists reckoning with the tantalizing question, “What is the universe made of?” Link, an astrophysicist with UMBC’s Center for Space Science and Technology, part of the recently-renewed Center for Research and Exploration in Space… Continue Reading Space Station-Bound

Seeing Without Eyes – The Unexpected World of Nonvisual Photoreception

Sep 27, 2017 / 6 minutes of reading

Thomas Cronin, University of Maryland, Baltimore County We humans are uncommonly visual creatures. And those of us endowed with normal sight are used to thinking of our eyes as vital to how we experience the world. Vision is an advanced form of photoreception – that is, light sensing. But we also experience other more rudimentary forms of photoreception in our daily lives. We all know, for instance, the delight of perceiving the warm sun on our skin, in this case using heat as a substitute for light. No eyes or even special photoreceptor cells are necessary. But scientists have discovered… Continue Reading Seeing Without Eyes – The Unexpected World of Nonvisual Photoreception

Discovery – Spring 2017

Sep 21, 2017 / 7 minutes of reading

Runaway Black Hole A team of researchers including UMBC’s Eileen Meyer and Markos Georganopoulos have found strong evidence of a striking astrophysical phenomenon: a supermassive black hole traveling away from the center of its galaxy at an incredibly rapid pace. A scenario like this has been predicted for some time. “The theory is great, but we’ve got to have some observations to see if our simulations are correct,” says Meyer, assistant professor of physics. Those observations are now in hand, with copious lines of evidence all supporting the team’s explanation. “There have been previous cases of systems like this,” says… Continue Reading Discovery – Spring 2017

Video: A Trip to Baltimore’s Oldest Markets

Jun 30, 2017 / 1 minute of reading

Want to learn more about how Kate Drabinski’s summer course is exploring food justice in Baltimore? UMBC Magazine’s Jenny O’Grady tagged along for a recent walking tour, exploring local historic food markets and a community garden. Learn more about UMBC’s Summer Session here.

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