A piece and call-to-action regarding the India Supreme Court's recent recriminalization of LGBTQH identity by Dr. Harjant Gill, assistant professor of anthropology at Towson University.

"In July of 2009, the Delhi High Court "read down" Section 377, the 153-year old sodomy laws instituted by the British, making sex between two consenting adults, regardless of their gender, legal. This was a monumental victory for the LGBTQH (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Hijra) communities in India, and their struggle for equal rights. Indians living abroad like myself, who have been working to promote visibility and acceptance of sexual minorities in South Asian communities in diaspora, welcomed and cheered the news. We felt an incredible sense of pride in our nation, and its judicial system that privileged human dignity and equal rights over political campaigns based on religious bigotry, intolerance, policing public morality and using fear to drum up support. Now the nation's highest court is trying to make us into criminals -- again..."

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UMBC is once again hosting the Global Gam Jam this January. It will run from 5pm Friday, January 24th to 5pm Sunday, January 26th, just before classes start. Once again, thanks to a generous donation by NextCentury, registration is free. Space is limited, so sign up now! 

For anyone who hasn’t participated, the global game jam is a 48 hour game development event with hundreds of host sites around the world. At 5pm local time, introduce the jam and announce this year’s theme. Previous year’s themes have ranged from a phrase (“as long as we’re together there will always be problems”) to a word (“extinction”) to an image (ouroboros: a snake eating its tail), to a sound (the recording of a heartbeat). Participants brainstorm game ideas around the theme, form into teams, and spend the weekend building games that are designed to be both fun and express the theme.

The UMBC site is not restricted to just students. In previous years, we have had a mix of UMBC students, faculty, alumni, students from other schools, game development professionals, and just people with an interest in game development. More details at gaim.umbc.edu/global-game-jam. However, we are limited to just 40 participants, so sign up early if you want to come. If the UMBC site fills, other local(ish) sites include the Unviersity of Baltimore, American University, and George Mason University.

Professor Gymama Slaughter received a research award from the National Science Foundation to support her work on a self-powered biosensing microsystem that simultaneously generates bioelectricity and monitors glucose.

The four-year award in the amount of $400,000 is from NSF’s prestigious Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program, which supports junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research.

With the support from NSF, Professor Slaughter and the students in her Bioelectronics Laboratory will fabricate and characterize a self-powered biosensing microsystem that simultaneously generates bioelectricity and monitors glucose. This will be accomplished using an inertial power scavenging design by converting interstitial glucose into energy through the coupling of enzymes and three-dimensional nanowire arrays to power implantable glucose monitors.

The self-powered biosensing microsystem will monitor sugar levels and embodies two key technical contributions: it eliminates the need for a potentiostat circuit and an external power source or batteries, leading to dramatic improvements in both speed and energy efficiency, and it demonstrates an autonomous, self-powered, low-power biosensing microsystem that can be adapted for other uses. For people suffering from diabetes, continuous, self-powered monitoring of glucose will improve their quality of life and can save lives.

Professor Slaughter notes that the educational component of the project enriches and complements other programs at UMBC designed to increase minority and female participation in STEM fields. The exposure of these students to a real-world problem and its solution will enable them to better appreciate the contribution of scientific research.