UMBC political science professor Thomas Schaller continues his commentary on the presidential election today with new columns in Salon and the Baltimore Sun.

In “Obama takes his case to the swing states,” Schaller explores the implications of the president’s post-State of the Union speaking tour. Schaller writes, “For the past three months, political eyes have been focused squarely on the Republican White House contenders. But after his State of the Union speech, the commander-in-chief shifts himself into campaigner-in-chief mode, whether or not the GOP has settled on a candidate yet.”

Schaller’s latest Baltimore Sun column explores the GOP field, arguing that so far “no Republican candidate has been able to consolidate the support of discontented conservative populists.” He suggests the first GOP presidential candidate to articulate a thoughtful plan that effectively appeals to middle-class Republicans “could very well claim the nomination.”

Is there water on Vespa? Timothy Stubbs and his colleague, Yongli Wang think so.  In a NASA special Web feature Stubbs talks about their findings.

“”Near the north and south poles, the conditions appear to be favorable for water ice to exist beneath the surface,” says Timothy Stubbs of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Stubbs and Yongli Wang of the Goddard Planetary Heliophysics Institute at the University of Maryland published the models in the January 2012 issue of the journal Icarus. The models are based on information from telescopes including NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.”

At the November meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, Robert Provine, professor of psychology, and his student co-authors presented a poster entitled “When the whites of the eyes are red, yellow, and super-white: A uniquely human communication medium.”

Provine’s co-authors included Marcello Cabrera ’12, psychology; Skylar Spangler ’12, psychology; Jessica Nave-Blodgett ’12, psychology; Schnaude Dorizan ’13, psychology; and Iman Kennedy ’12, psychology.

An article on their work ran in the February issue of the Swedish magazine Modern Psykologi.

All is not lost, at least when it comes to plant species richness, the number of different plants, in an ecosystem.  Erle Ellis and his colleagues suggest in their recent paper, All is Not Loss: Plant Biodiversity in the Anthropocene, published in PLoSone, that rather than human interventions decreasing species richness they’ve increased it.

“The evidence is quite strong,” says Ellis, “that we are increasing plant species richness overall in most regional landscapes.” Ellis says increased species richness is due largely to human-facilitated introduction of exotic species.

But what does that mean for biodiversity?  Ellis says that, “if you want to live on a planet full of undisturbed native ecosystems, that planet is long gone.” But he adds, “if you want to engage in conserving biodiversity and building a better, more sustainable human nature, the prospects are good, and getting better as we learn more about how to better manage biodiversity in novel ecosystems.”

For more information see:

• the Web site for the project which summarizes the major results and offers online maps and data
• Erle Ellis’ blog post about the paper
• Erle Ellis’ piece for the New York Times blog, Dot Earth

Lansdowne Community Association president Brian Bailey ’07, public policy, is moving to Arizona, taking with him a wealth of devotion to a town he’s called home his entire life, the Baltimore Sun reports.

“It’s the personal relationships here that I’ll miss the most,” Bailey said. “I’m excited to continue hearing about the things that are happening here.

“Lansdowne will always be my home,” Bailey said…”

Over the years, Bailey has served on numerous community committees in Lansdowne, as well as serving as chairman of the Baltimore County Democratic Party, co-chairman of the Southwest Area Educational Advisory Council, treasurer of the Southwest Leadership Team and chair of a committee for the Wilkens Police and Community Relations Organization.

Bailey, public policy manager for the American Urological Society, will leave for Phoenix next month where he will head up the Arizona Petroleum Marketers Association.

Read the full story in the Sun.

UMBC political science professor and national political commentator Thomas Schaller appeared on CurrentTV’s “Young Turks” show last night, weighing in on the question “Should liberals root for Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich?” Schaller suggested, “Newt will get the base fired up, but… a vote cast with intensity counts the same as a vote cast reluctantly. It doesn’t matter how juiced up the conservative id is. The votes in the middle are going to matter.”

Schaller also weighed in on the GOP candidates’ abilities to collect delegates, in The Daily Beast‘s primary coverage. Whereas neither Gingrich nor Santorum will appear on the Virginia ballot, Schaller says Romney is “going to collect delegates at every stop. He’s on the ballots; he’s going to get his 25 percent … He’s the best prepared.”

On Saturday, January 21, more than 200 people attended Create Baltimore, an “unconference” organized around the idea of building a creative community in Baltimore. Among them was Lee Boot, associate director of the Imaging Research Center, who presented a session with photographer John Dean on bringing street commerce to Baltimore.

“I spent time in Istanbul and John spent time in Florence this fall and we were both blown away by how different the concept of street commerce is in other parts of the world from the way we do it here in Baltimore (and most of the states),” Boot wrote on the website, explaining their topic. “We think it could be the missing link for jobs, making the city a destination, and bringing life to struggling neighborhoods.”

The “unconference,” and Boot’s session, were covered in a January 24 Baltimore Brew blog post entitled “Arts and tech community gather for Create Baltimore.”

Deer are cute, but pigeons are “rats with wings.” And rats are just gross. Why do we love seeing some wild animals in the city, and loathe others? Dawn Biehler, assistant professor of geography and environmental systems, discussed this issue on the Canadian Broadcasting Company program “DNTO (Definitely Not the Opera).”

“Humans have a little bit of an anti-urban bias,” she explained. “So when one of these representatives of the wild comes to the city, we feel really flattered that they would want to come and be in this place where we have this concentration of human life.”

The episode, “City, meet wildlife… wildlife, meet city” aired on the program on January 21. It can be heard here; Biehler’s segment begins at 43:45.

By day, Sam Eitel ’10 works in business administration for Beltway International Trucks. By night (and weekend, and every other spare moment he can find), Eitel indulges his true passion: dreaming up and making his own line of longboard skateboards.

Though Sam has only been out of college a few years, it’s clear from the moment you meet him that he is passionate about his labor of love: Roots Board Company. After a childhood spent body surfing and longboarding during family trips to Ocean City, in fall of 2009, Eitel found himself wondering just how hard it would be to make his own board. He combined his own experiences as a rider with some guidance from his uncle on the finer points of woodworking, and voila: his own hand-made long board.

“I just tried making one,” says Sam. “My friends loved it.” And since that first board, Eitel hasn’t looked back. He’s been refining the process ever since, experimenting with different types of wood, painting styles, and hardware. He started making boards for friends, and in the last two years, he’s made more than 70 custom longboards.

When asked how he finds the time outside of his career and family obligations, Eitel explains that his passion for the work inspires him to make the time for it.

“I like to be on the go constantly and I delegate time to it, especially on the weekends,” he says. “If the sun is up, I’m out there [in the woodshop] cutting, sealing, and shaping boards.”

Right now, Eitel makes most of his boards for custom orders, but he’d love to branch out into local shops and to even establish his own storefront in the next 5-7 years. In part, Eitel says, this dream is the direct result of his education at UMBC.

“I’d always been infatuated with business and how to run one, but I never thought about how to start my own company,” admits Sam. “UMBC pushed me in that direction.”

“I really enjoy this,” says Eitel. “I can see myself doing this [making longboards] as long as I can ride them.”

Learn more about Roots Board Company.

UMBC junior Liam Paddock and seniors Vince Savarese and Andy Streilein were named to the National Soccer Coaches Association of American 2011 University Division Men’s Scholar All-East Region team.

Paddock earned second team All-East honors, while Savarese and Streilein were tabbed as Honorable Mention. All three had been previously named to the America East Men’s Soccer All-Academic Team in the fall.

Read more on umbcretrievers.com.