Game Center is Apple's new social gaming network that allows your users to invite friends to play a game, start a multiplayer game through auto-matching, track their achievements, and compare their best scores on a leaderboard. Learn everything you need to know about developing your apps for Game Center, from understanding the fundamentals to updating your Game Center app once it's on the App Store. Log in to the iOS Dev Center

Game Center is Apple's new social gaming network that allows your users to invite friends to play a game, start a multiplayer game through auto-matching, track their achievements, and compare their best scores on a leaderboard. Learn everything you need to know about developing your apps for Game Center, from understanding the fundamentals to updating your Game Center app once it's on the App Store. Log in to the iOS Dev Center

As editor of the AASHE Bulletin, I am lucky to be able to highlight the positive steps toward sustainability that campuses make each week. The number of Bulletin submissions that detail higher education sustainability efforts is encouraging, in particular the steadily growing number of green building stories. In 2007, the Bulletin featured 60 green campus buildings that were planned or certified. In 2008, that number more than doubled with the planning, opening or green certification of 130 green campus buildings reported in the Bulletin. In 2009, another 165 eco-friendly campus structures were covered as opening or receiving green certification.

The green building social media community Green Building Pro dedicated the August issue of itsGreen Building Journalto sustainable schools. AASHE is featured in the issue with the article, A Look at the Growing Trend of Green Building in Higher Education. From student advocacy to the renovation of crumbling campus structures, the piece looks at emerging trends within campus green building. While green building often conjures up images of shiny new structures, campuses are also looking for ways to green without adding to campus square footage. The article features interviews with The Chronicle of Higher Education Senior Reporter Scott Carlson, U.S. Green Building Council Higher Education Sector Manager Jaime Van Mourik, and Emory University's Director of Sustainability Initiatives Ciannat Howard.

A composite of NASA satellite imagery, prepared by Ana I. Prados of the Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology (JCET) [http://jcet.umbc.edu/about/] for the U.S. Air Quality Smog Blog [http://alg.umbc.edu/usaq/], shows the extent of the Gulf oil spill on May 1, 2010. Prados used NASA MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) Terra visible imagery. JCET is a partnership between the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) and the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC).

Contact:
Chelsea Haddaway
Communications Manager:
Humanities and Social Sciences
(410) 455-6380
chaddaway@umbc.edu

Anthony Lane
Communications Manager:
Science, Technology and Environment
(410) 455-5793
alane@umbc.edu

Though BP has halted the flow of oil from its Deepwater Horizons well into the Gulf of Mexico, questions about the spill’s long-term effects could take decades to fully answer. Several researchers at UMBC offer unique perspectives as the national conversation turns to this disaster’s political, regulatory and ecological impacts.

Tim Brennan, a professor in the Department of Public Policy, can talk about the regulatory impacts of the oil spill, drawing both on his research interests, and his experiences working as an economist for the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and the White House Council of Economic Advisers. He is currently assessing proposals for tighter regulations or new liability rules to determine who would pay the long-term costs and whether the outcomes would be desirable

Scott Farrow, chair of the Department of Economics, can give a historical perspective on offshore oil drilling. A former member of the Dept. of the Interior Scientific Advisory Committee for Offshore Leasing, Farrow is the author of the 1990 book “Managing the Outer Continental Shelf Lands,” which presents the issues, institutions and people associated with the energy and mineral resources of the outer continental shelf of the United States.

Tom Schaller, associate professor in the Department of Political Science, is an expert on the American presidency and national politics. He is interested in the ways that the spill and its aftermath potentially impact upcoming elections.

Kevin Sowers, a professor in the Department of Marine Biotechnology, is an expert on marine microbes and their role in bioremediation of ocean and coastal pollutants. He can talk about naturally occurring and artificially enhanced microbial process that remediate oils and other contaminants.

Yonathan Zohar, chair of the Department of Marine Biotechnology, has done groundbreaking research on fish reproductive physiology, endocrinology and marine hatchery technologies. He and his colleagues have developed a sustainable aquaculture system that allows marine fish species to be raised indoors without pollution. He can talk about the need for alternative sources of seafood given concerns about water quality and seafood safety that have heightened in the wake of the Gulf oil spill.