By Patrick Coyle, UMBC

Since its inception in 1987, artists and researchers across disciplines have collaborated in the creative environment of UMBC's Imaging Research Center (IRC), a state-of-the-art R&D studio for digital media, animation and visualization.

One of the IRC's most recent projects is Euphoria, a full-length feature film about the pursuit of happiness. Written, directed and narrated by Lee Boot, the IRC's associate director, Euphoria received a gold medal for best documentary at the WorldFest-Houston festival and had its Baltimore premiere at the Maryland Film Festival in May. (Watch a trailer for the film online.)

As a teacher with 15 years experience, a classically trained artist with a degree in painting and owner of the Baltimore-based educational media company InfoCulture, Boot is in a unique position to bring his life experience to the role of director, researcher, artist, but above all, educator. Here, he talks about the IRC's research mission and the making of Euphoria.

Would you describe the IRC as a comprehensive imaging lab?

Yes, but we take that word "imaging" and we stretch it a lot, and I think that's important. One of the reasons the IRC is more than a traditional imaging lab is that we don't want to be just a service bureau or technical design shop. We do research, that's our mission.

We produced a high-end kiosk for the Baltimore Museum of Art, digitally recreating the Cone sisters' incomparable collection of early 20th Century painting. Now a lot of museums want us to create something similar for them. But I say no, because to repeat ourselves doesn't constitute a research challenge, but a production challenge, and that's not our goal.

Is this imaging in a philosophical sense?

It is. In fact, a major goal of the IRC is to be a part of research that increases our ability to track the way research affects culture.

Euphoria is a full-length film, with graphics and editing done by the IRC, that will hopefully revolutionize the approach to education films. How is it different?

Euphoria is an attempt to create an "information-based film" for entertainment. Specially, it's a film that conveys what we know about what creates long-term fulfillment, happiness, euphoria-including neuroscience, psychology, the history of the pursuit, etc.

The story is told by juxtaposing visual metaphors against information-based narration, so essentially the story is told with metaphors, a very different way to approach this information. Initially some worried that it would be too challenging for teenage audience members, but nobody thinks twice in high school about teaching difficult texts and artwork like Shakespeare, Faulkner, Van Gogh. They're not considered beyond the high school mind. We'd like to raise this media to a higher form of art. We count on the teacher to deconstruct them. So we're asking, "Why should an informational film always be understood completely in real time?"

What was the research process for the film?

Similar to the way a researcher might proceed with a science grant, I targeted a program at the National Institutes of Health that promoted neuroscience education, and began to assemble a team. I was able to recruit two neuroscientists, one oriented toward the physiology of the neuron and another with a more global orientation to the brain, an addiction psychiatrist, a science-media expert, a great anthropologist and two people from different ends of the film business.

Then I set out to learn how to write the research grant, which was very hard and new for me because my background is not in science-I'd never done it. The grant came in two phases, the first to prove feasibility and the second to produce the full film and evaluate its effect on teenagers' beliefs, attitudes and intentions. Sometimes I find that people think we were paid by the NIH to make a film. That's not true. The NIH supported a research question which asked: is our plan a way to make a different kind of science education film that teenagers will find engaging enough to really hear the information and allow it to help them find a way to feel good without drugs?

How would you describe Euphoria's potential effects on culture?

Euphoria is funded by the National Institutes of Health, in particular, the National Institute of Drug Abuse, because they believe that by talking about what does create "euphoria" in a believable way, it could go a long way toward preventing kids from becoming dependent on substances. They also like our approach that we're aiming for something beyond a typical educational film. There's also an extensive Web site that teachers can use at www.TheEuphoriaProject.com .

* * *

The IRC is currently working on a new project called Fieldtrip, a plan to use an array of media to help students and their parents better understand a range of issues related to learning, so they can make informed choices and take a more active role in education.. This will likely include the IRC's first-ever video game, which will complement the Fieldtrip Web site and film.

Learn more about the IRC at www.irc.umbc.edu .

Watch a Maryland Public Television feature on the IRC.

(7/05)

Assistant Professor of History Kate Brown recently received two significant awards for A Biography of No Place: From Ethnic Borderland to Soviet Heartland (Harvard University Press, 2004). The book received the American Historical Association's prestigious George Louis Beer Prize, given for outstanding historical writing on any phase of European international history since 1895. She previously received the Heldt Prize awarded by the Association for Women in Slavic Studies.

"Kate Brown is already an extraordinarily accomplished scholar, one of the rare historians to win one of the profession's major prizes so early in a career," said John Jeffries, professor and chair of the history department. "She also deserves recognition as an innovative teacher who is committed to enhancing student engagement and learning in her classes."

A Biography of No Place is a travelogue, an unusual genre for a study of archival history. "I wrote this history as a travelogue because it is about marginalized people who did not leave a mark in archives, and so the historian must go in search of the traces they left behind," said Brown.

In her book Brown describes her travels throughout the borderland between Russia and Poland, where people later identified as Poles, Germans, Jews, Ukrainians and Russians lived side by side in 1925. Over the next three decades, these cultures were homogenized out of existence, the result of Soviet and Nazi rule. By the 1950's, this "no place" emerged as an ethnically-pure Ukrainian heartland, because the diversity that defined the region was destroyed. Combined with ethnography and research in recently opened archives, her experiences and oral interviews provide a poignant story of the annihilation of a rich, culturally complex borderland.

"If we widen the scope of history to include people at the margins of society, we can see the destruction that lies in the wake of progress," said Brown. "The deportees are some of the most inspiring people I've ever met in my life. They are amazed that someone cared about their stories, but they're not bitter; despite deportation and a life in exile, they carry on."

(7/05)

UMBC Astrophysicist Leads International Team of Scientists, Satellites

Contact: Chip Rose
UMBC News
410-455-5793
crose@umbc.edu
View/download High Resolution Images & Animation Online

An international team of scientists led by a UMBC astrophysicist has uncovered a rare type of neutron star so elusive that it took three satellites to identify it. The discovery highlights the complementary nature of European and U.S. satellites to reveal new insights about star birth and death in our galaxy.

The neutron star, an ultradense ember of an exploded star, was first seen by the European Space Agency's INTEGRAL satellite. The neutron star is in a "double hiding place," the scientists said: deep in a spiral arm of our Milky Way galaxy, obscured by dust; and buried in a two-star system enshrouded by dense gas.

The scientists couldn't immediately decipher the nature of the object, so they enlisted NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer and the newly launched Swift satellite to observe it in different wavelengths.

"Our Galaxy's spiral arms are loaded with neutron stars, black holes and other exotic objects," said Volker Beckmann of NASA and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County’s Joint Center for Astrophysics, lead author on a paper appearing in the Astrophysical Journal. "The problem is, the spiral arms are too dusty to see through. The right combination of X-ray and gamma-ray telescopes can reveal what's hiding there. And this provides new clues about the true star formation rate in our Galaxy."

Neutron stars are the core remains of supernovas, exploded stars once about ten times as massive as the Sun. Neutron stars contain about a sun's worth of mass compacted into a sphere about 15 miles across. The subject of today's announcement is a neutron star called IGR J16283-4838 in the direction of the spiral arm Norma, about 20,000 light years away.

IGR J16283-4838 is the seventh so-called "highly absorbed," or hidden, neutron star identified. Neutron stars, born of fast-burning massive stars, are intrinsically tied to star formation rates. They are also energetic beacons from a region too dusty to study in detail otherwise. As more and more are discovered, new insights about what is happening in the Galaxy's spiral arms begin to emerge, Beckmann said.

IGR J16283-4838 revealed itself during an outburst on or near its surface. Neutron stars such as IGR J16283-4838 are often part of binary systems, orbiting a normal star. Occasionally, gas from the normal star, lured by gravity, crashes onto the surface of the neutron star and releases a great amount of energy. Outbursts can last for weeks before the system returns to dormancy for months or years.

INTEGRAL, the Rossi Explorer and Swift each detect X rays and gamma rays, which are far more energetic than the visible light our eyes can detect. Yet each satellite has different capabilities. INTEGRAL has a large field of view, enabling it to scan the Milky Way galaxy for neutron star and black hole activity.

Swift contains a high-resolution X-ray telescope, which allowed scientists to zero in on IGR J16283-4838. The Rossi Explorer has a timing spectrometer, a device used to uncover properties of the light source, such as speed and rapid variations on the order of a millisecond. The Galaxy's spiral arms block visible light from reaching us, but not energetic X rays and gamma rays.

Simona Soldi, a doctoral candidate at INTEGRAL Science Data Centre in Geneva discovered the new, bright source with INTEGRAL on April 7, 2005. "We are always hunting for new sources," she said. "It's exciting when we find something so elusive. How many more like this are out there?"

Because gamma rays are hard to focus into sharp images, the science team used the X-ray Telescope on Swift on April 13 and 15 to determine a precise location. Swift confirmed that the light was "highly absorbed," which means the binary system was filled with dense gas from the stellar wind of the companion star. Starting on April 14, the scientists used the Rossi Explorer to observe the source as it faded away. This observation revealed a familiar light signature clinching the case for a fading "high-mass X-ray binary" with a neutron star.

"Piece by piece we solved this puzzle," said Dr. Jamie Kennea of the Swift science team at Penn State. "Swift was built primarily to detect gamma-ray bursts, so it was thrill to use the X-ray Telescope to do something quite different, to discover a neutron star."

INTEGRAL, the International Gamma Ray Astrophysics Laboratory, was launched in 2002. The Rossi Explorer and Swift launched in 1995 and 2004, respectively.

Thanks to NASA Goddard News for sharing this story.

Edwards and Kelcey Moves Baltimore Office

bwtech@UMBC, the University of Maryland, Baltimore County's on-campus research and technology park, announced today that two new corporate tenants have agreed to relocate to the park’s second building, 5523 Research Park Drive, recently completed by international property developer Grosvenor.

The new tenants are the healthcare communications and technology firm Physicians Practice, Inc., formerly of Glen Burnie, and the engineering/design firm Edwards and Kelcey, which moves its Baltimore office to UMBC from Caton Avenue.

Physicians Practice is publisher of Physicians Practice: The Business Journal for Physicians, the most widely circulated practice management journal for physicians in the country. The firm is also known for its award-winning Web site, www.PhysiciansPractice.com, and a weekly e-mail newsletter, Physicians Practice Pearls.

Physicians Practice comes to UMBC thanks in part to the close ties to the University by president, co-founder and UMBC alumnus Scott Weber, who graduated in 1985 with a degree in interdisciplinary studies. Weber, a former president of the UMBC Alumni Association, continues to advise students in UMBC's Alex. Brown Center for Entrepreneurship on starting up and running a successful business. The company, which will occupy most of the second floor, currently employs 45 people.

"UMBC offers an excellent strategic location for us to grow our business, with its thriving technology environment, wealth of intellectual capital, and convenient proximity to transportation," said Gerry Hartung, chief executive officer and co-founder of Physicians Practice. "We look forward to partnering with UMBC as our business continues to grow throughout the region and country."

Edwards and Kelcey is a nationally recognized engineering, design, planning and construction management firm which has been in business since 1946. Headquartered in Morristown, NJ, Edwards and Kelcey has 900 employees, 23 regional offices and is ranked 68th among the Top 500 U.S. Design Firms by Engineering News-Record (ENR). Edwards and Kelcey employs 25 transportation engineers and planners locally, and is currently providing services to the Maryland Aviation Administration, Maryland State Highway Administration, City of Baltimore, and other local DOTs.

K.R. Marshall, EK's Baltimore Office Manager said, "Our new location at UMBC will allow us to optimally service our transportation clients in the Baltimore region. With convenient access to BWI and downtown Baltimore, coupled with partnership opportunities with the UMBC engineering department, Edwards and Kelcey looks forward to continued success in the Maryland market."

"UMBC's thriving business community consists of nearly 40 companies in various industries," said Ellen Hemmerly, executive director of UMBC Research Park Corporation. "We are delighted to welcome Physicians Practice and Edwards and Kelcey to our entrepreneurial, research intensive campus."

"UMBC's research and technology park demonstrates the impact of higher education and business coming together," said David S. Iannucci, executive director for the Baltimore County Department of Economic Development. "The mix of new tenants at bwtech@UMBC represents the range of entrepreneurial organizations that will benefit from this unique facility."

bwtech@UMBC's first two buildings were developed by Grosvenor, one of the largest private real estate companies in the world with a global property portfolio of $7 billion. The park's 62,000 square-foot first building has been leased by the information technology firm RWD Technologies since 2001.

UMBC's research park and incubator have received public and private sector funding from the Maryland Economic Development Corporation, the State of Maryland, the City of Baltimore, Baltimore County, the U.S. Department of Commerce, The Abell Foundation, and the Maryland Technology Development Corporation. In 2003, bwtech@UMBC became part of Baltimore County's Southwest Enterprise Zone, making companies moving to the park eligible for credits on real property and income taxes, as well as credits for creating new jobs.

UMBC's Center for Urban Environmental Research and Education (CUERE) will release on Thursday, May 12 "The State of the Inner Suburbs: An Examination of Suburban Baltimore, 1980 to 2000." Like so many American cities, many of Baltimore's older suburbs are mimicking the problems of the central city: household income is declining; the population is shrinking and aging; and the infrastructure is weakening - yet housing costs are skyrocketing. The prospects for stable neighborhoods and affordable housing are not encouraging, unless action is taken in certain key neighborhoods.

Metropolitan Baltimore is unique in that there is essentially one government - Baltimore County - rather than dozens or even hundreds of municipalities as surround other cities, such as Cleveland, Philadelphia and Chicago. Opportunities, already becoming recognized, include the possibilities for growth in the inner suburbs close to the Interstate and close to the water.

The report, available as a PDF file at www.umbc.edu/cuere/inner_ring, is co-authored by Bernadette Hanlon and Thomas Vicino, both of whom are Ph.D. candidates in UMBC's Department of Public Policy, is embargoed until Thursday, May 12. (NO exceptions.)

Hanlon and Vicino's research suggests that the state of Greater Baltimore's inner suburbs raises important and worrying public policy issues just as they also have the potential for easing housing strains and providing opportunities for growth.

UMBC's Alex. Brown Center for Entrepreneurship hosts rare opportunities for startup companies and other high-tech firms to learn more about partnering with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the National Security Agency with direct insights from key DHS and NSA technology and procurement officials at two workshops this month.

The Center also invites the Greater Baltimore business community to be part of the National Business Incubation Association conference, to be held in Baltimore May 15-18.

Doing Business with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
May 11
8-10 am
Main Seminar Room
techcenter@UMBC

Learn more about business opportunities within the Department of Homeland Security's $11 billion budget and 22 government agencies directly from DHS Chief Procurement Officer Mui Erkun. Other speakers include: Gloria Berthold, National Government Marketing Expert, TargetGov; and Marty O'Neill, techcenter@UMBC Technology Entrepreneur-in-Residence.

For more information visit http://www.umbc.edu/techcenter/images/dhs.051105.pdf. Sponsored by Whiteford, Taylor & Preston. Free and open to the public.

Business Workshop featuring the National Security Agency
May 18
10 a.m. - 1 p.m.
5523 Research Park Drive
bwtech@UMBC Research & Technology Park
UMBC Campus

NSA Director of Information Assurance Daniel Wolf will give Baltimore/Washington tech firms a rare, firsthand look at how business and academia can partner to meet the future technology and research needs of the NSA. UMBC President Freeman Hrabowski will discuss the importance of multi-level partnerships. Hosted by BWI Business Partnership, Inc. Sponsored by bwtech@UMBC Research and Technology Park.

For more information visit http://www.umbc.edu/techcenter/images/nsa.051805.2.pdf or call 410-859-1000.

National Business Incubation Association Conference
May 15-18 in Baltimore

Hosted by the Maryland Business Incubation Association, this year's NBIA national conference offers a wealth of opportunities to learn about proven best practices and explore the latest trends in angel investing, assisting women entrepreneurs, working with bioscience companies, funding incubator programs and creating cross-border partnerships.

Keynote speeches by Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development (DBED) secretary Aris Melissaratos, co-founder of the Prairie Angels Capital Fund/entrepreneur Barry Moltz, UMBC President Freeman Hrabowski and bwtech@UMBC executive director Ellen Hemmerly. Highlights include tours of several regional incubators and the 2005 NBIA Incubator of the Year Awards.

For more information visit http://www.nbia.org/nbia_events/conf2005/index.php.

Soccer Star Brandi Chastain Leads Hundreds of Middle School Girls, Parents, Teachers, in day of fun, hands-on, high-tech

Women's soccer icon Brandi Chastain takes aim at the technology gender gap instead of Olympic gold as she joins hundreds of middle-school girls, parents and teachers from across Maryland for Computer Mania Day at UMBC on April 9.

Best known for her championship-winning goal on a penalty kick in the 1999 Women's World Cup, Chastain brings a "you can do anything," girl-power message to Computer Mania Day at UMBC, an annual day of free, hands-on, high-tech, fun activities for adults and kids.

Sponsored by UMBC's Center for Women and Information Technology (CWIT), the half-day event helps to get girls interested in technology and computing careers while teaching parents and teachers ways to sharpen their own computer skills. While boys are welcome, the focus is on girls because of their continuing under-representation in science, technology, engineering and math.

Research shows that the information technology (IT) gender gap opens as early as the middle school years, when girls are most image-conscious and do not want to be labeled as "geeks" or "nerds." Girls also make up only 14 percent of Advanced Placement students in computer science, a key to success in IT-related fields at the college level.

Computer Mania Day offers free, fun, hands-on activities for kids and adults plus free lunch and the chance to meet Chastain. Workshops are led by positive female role models from UMBC along with business, government and education leaders.

Girls' events highlights include "Hardware Rocks," digital art and imaging, and the physics of do-it-yourself hot air balloons. Adult workshop highlights include how to prepare your kids for college, "Computers 101," and "Cyber Safety: Keeping Your Child Protected Online."

Authors, Journalists, Policy Experts to Speak on Education, Prison Reform, Gender, Health Policy, Cuba, More

UMBC hosts a diverse group of expert speakers on social and political challenges facing Maryland and the U.S. this Spring in the University's 2005 Social Sciences Forum series.

Authors, journalists and policy experts including Alan Elsner of Reuters, Tom Gjetlen of National Public Radio and Mary Ann Saar, Maryland's Secretary of Public Safety, will bring new insights to issues such as testing and standards in public education; state and federal prison crises and reform; gender and health policy; and the future of Cuba after Castro.

All lectures are free and open to the public and will last approximately one hour, followed by a question and answer period and a reception.

Wednesday February 9 at 4 p.m.
Albin O. Kuhn Library, 7th floor

"High-Stakes Education Testing and the 'Lost Curriculum'"

Panel Discussion featuring Lori Meyer, National Association of State Boards of Education and UMBC Public Policy graduate student; Dan Ritschel, Associate Professor of History and Director of the Center for History Education, UMBC; Linda Baker, Professor of Psychology, UMBC; Mary Ann Mears, sculptor and Chairperson, Arts Education in Maryland Schools Alliance.

Tuesday, February 22 at 4 p.m.
University Center, Room 312

"Neuroeconomics: Brain Imaging and Economic Decision-Making"

Kevin McCabe, Professor of Economics and Law, George Mason University.

Tuesday, March 1 at 4 p.m.
Albin O. Kuhn Library, Room 767

"Gender and Health Policy: An Historian Activist's Perspectives"

Susan Reverby, Wellesley College and Organization of American Historians Distinguished Lectureship Program

Monday, March 7 at 4 p.m.
Albin O. Kuhn Library, 7th floor

"The Crisis in America's Prisons and Why You Should Care"

Alan Elsner, National Correspondent for Reuters

Thursday, April 7 at 4 p.m.
Albin O. Kuhn Library, 7th floor

"A Crisis in Confidence? Ethics and Accountability in the Nonprofit Sector"

Peter Berns, Maryland Association of Nonprofit Organizations

Monday, April 11 at 1 p.m.
Albin O. Kuhn Library, 7th floor

"Cuba after Castro: Predicting the Unpredictable"

Tom Gjelten, National Security Correspondent for National Public Radio

Monday, April, 25 at 4 p.m.
Albin O. Kuhn Library, 7th floor

"Maryland's Project RESTART: A New Direction in Corrections"

Mary Ann Saar, Maryland Secretary of Public Safety and Correctional Services

Monday, May 2 at 4 p.m.
Albin O. Kuhn Library, 7th floor

"Promoting Employment for Persons with Disabilities: Are the New Incentives Sufficient?"

David Salkever, Professor of Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins University Professor of Public Policy, UMBC (effective August, 2005)

Directions to UMBC and campus locations of the lectures

For directions go to: http://www.umbc.edu/socsforum/directions.html"

As the national debate on gender and science in higher education heats up, the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)is an excellent example of how a campus can increase the presence andsuccess of women faculty in science and technology.

Led by President Freeman A. Hrabowski, UMBC is a public researchuniversity with a national reputation for academic excellence and diversity. Over the last six years, UMBC has expanded campus-wideinitiatives to attract and support female faculty and graduate studentsin science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields.

"Since 2000, when we first began studies on how to tackle the problem, the number of UMBC's tenured or tenure-track women faculty in the STEM fields has more than doubled from 17 to 36," said Lynn Zimmerman, ViceProvost for Academic Initiatives and Professor of Biology at UMBC.

UMBC now requires all departments to form diversity plans prior to starting faculty job searches. The campus also redesigned its family and medical leave policy to be more visible and attractive to women faculty.

"Good things can happen once there is a genuine commitment to the issue," said Zimmerman. "UMBC's work is by no means finished, but I am excited about our progress in such a short period of time."

Initiatives and Expert Sources on Women and Science:

Hrabowski is leading gender diversity efforts on the campus as the principal investigator for ADVANCE at UMBC, a $3.2 million, five year,National Science Foundation (NSF) institutional transformation grant. ADVANCE is designed to change the campus structure and culture to improve recruitment, retention, career advancement and mentoring for talented women STEM faculty.

"Programs like ADVANCE show that what's good for women is good for the entire university," said Zimmerman, who also leads the university's day-to-day efforts for ADVANCE and other science diversity programs.

In 2001, UMBC appointed Janet Rutledge Associate Dean of the Graduate School. Rutledge was instrumental in bringing the PROMISE program to UMBC. Through this $2.5 million NSF grant, UMBC leads an effort by Maryland's three public research universities to increase the number and diversity of Ph.D. graduates in the sciences and engineering who go onto academic careers.

As the first African American female to receive a Ph.D. from Georgia Tech's electrical engineering program, Rutledge knows firsthand the challenges that women and other minorities face in academia. "There's a feeling of invisibility," said Rutledge, who focused on the scarcity of minority science Ph.D.s at the NSF prior to coming to UMBC.

In 2000, Zimmerman and fellow biological sciences professor Phyllis Robinson founded UMBC's faculty group Women in Science and Engineering(WISE). The informal support group for women STEM faculty became the foundation for ADVANCE and other efforts at UMBC.

In 2004, UMBC was one of only five U.S. institutions to receive an award to establish a Clare Boothe Luce Professorship. The Clare Boothe Luce Program is among the most significant sources of private support for women in science, engineering and mathematics in the U.S. When hired,the new professor will make UMBC's Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering faculty over 50 percent female.

UMBC is home to the Center for Women and Information Technology (CWIT),which is dedicated to strengthening the nation's technology workforce by increasing the participation and advancement of women and girls in information technology (IT) and IT careers.

Claudia Morrell, Executive Director of the Center, has led a dramatic expansion at CWIT, including the development of a scholars program with a 93 percent retention rate and a $6.5 million increase in scholarships,research, and program funding.

Anne Spence is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at UMBC and a member of WISE and CWIT's Advisory Board. An aerospace engineer, Spence is used to the challenges of being a woman in a technical field.

"One of my college professors told me that women should not be engineers, so I got the highest grade in the class to prove him wrong," she said. "When I graduated I had six job offers. I did encounter initial resistance, but I was always able to get rid of it by proving myself."

Spence is a volunteer for CWIT's annual educational outreach event,Computer Mania Day. The event works to break stereotypes by building interest in technology among middle school girls, their parents and teachers via hands-on education and mentorship. She is also an advisor for UMBC's chapter of Mentor Net, a national mentoring program for women studying engineering and computer science.

The best way to relieve congestion on Route 32 between Interstate 70 and Route 108 in Maryland is to adopt the State Highway Administration (SHA) plan to widen Route 32 to four lanes, according to a study by graduate students in the UMBC Department of Public Policy.

The study, Maryland Route 32: A Policy Analysis, examined alternatives for addressing the congestion on the heavily traveled, undivided two-lane stretch of road in Howard County. The SHA proposed that the road be widened to four lanes, with interchanges and service roads, and received an exemption from the Maryland's Smart Growth law to allow state funding for the project. However, community activists and environmental groups oppose the SHA plan, and one group has announced that it will file suit to stop state funding for the $220 million expansion.

Continue reading full story.