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Several news organizations including the Kennebec Journal and the Sun Journal of Lewiston carried a Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting article on the testimony of nearly a dozen of the state’s top environmental groups during a legislative hearing Thursday to urge the state to revive its climate change planning. Members of the University of Maine’s Climate Change Institute asked lawmakers to resume work on a report started in 2009 by the group that was designed to guide the state through challenges caused by climate change.

WVII (Channel 7) reported that Matt Erskine, deputy assistant secretary for economic development for the U.S. Economic Development Administration, and U.S. Rep. Mike Michaud toured the University of Maine’s Advanced Structures and Composites Center on Thursday.

The Bangor Daily News reported preliminary work has begun on renovations to the 87-year-old University of Maine Field House. The $15 million project will update the Field House and Memorial Gymnasium facilities.

Medical Xpress included an article on University of Maine doctoral student Beth Logan’s research on children exposed to methadone in the womb.

As part of a national project to raise awareness of genocide in Africa, the University of Maine Office of Multicultural Student Affairs is taking part in One Million Bones, a large-scale social arts practice. Participants in Maine will make bones out of clay or recycled materials that will be used in a campus event at 2 p.m. Saturday, April 13 in King Plaza.

In the UMaine observance, Maine participants hope to place 1,000 of the handmade bones in the plaza in a reflective effort to remember victims and survivors of genocide. Each bone created through this initiative generates a $1 donation through the Bezos Family Foundation to CARE for its work in Somalia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Before the April 13 event, members of the UMaine community can create a clay bone or donate $5 to have one made for them at the following times and locations: 3 p.m. April 6, Coe Room, Memorial Union; 7 p.m. April 7, Office of Multicultural Student Affairs, Memorial Union; 6 p.m. April 9, Somerset Hall; and 7 p.m. April 11, Totman Room, Memorial Union.

Students from the Office of Multicultural Student Affairs hope to take the bones to the national One Million Bones event June 8–10 on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. More information is online.

The University of Maine Department of Art will hold an opening reception and award ceremony for the annual Juried Student Exhibition from 5:30–7 p.m. Friday, April 5 at the Lord Hall Gallery on campus.

The exhibition is free and open to the public from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday until May 5.

For more information or to request disability accommodations, call the Department of Art at 207.581.3245.

Click here to view the “Asparagus Bed Preparation” video on YouTube.

Click here to view the “Extending the Growing Season Using Raised Beds, Part 1″ video on YouTube.

University of Maine alumnus Lawrence Bender, the producer of films that have won a total of six Academy Awards®, will return to his alma mater May 11 to receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree and share remarks during Commencement ceremonies.

Bender will address both the 10 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. ceremonies as part of UMaine’s 211th Commencement in Harold Alfond Sports Arena.

“Lawrence is one of our truly outstanding alumni,” says University of Maine President Paul Ferguson. “We are so pleased to award him a Doctor of Humane Letters in recognition of his excellent contributions to the arts through film and his deep commitment to addressing some of the major issues facing our society. I am confident our new graduates will enjoy and value hearing how his UMaine degree provided a foundation for such success and passion.”

Bender graduated from UMaine in 1979 with a degree in civil engineering. His successful career as a producer and activist spans two decades. His films, which include such noteworthy projects as “Inglourious Basterds,” “Pulp Fiction” and “Good Will Hunting,” have been honored with 29 Academy Award® nominations, including three for Best Picture, and have won six.

His film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” which raised unprecedented awareness about climate change, won the Academy Award® for Best Documentary Feature. His documentary, “Countdown To Zero,” which features Tony Blair, Pervez Musharraf, Mikhail Gorbachev, Frederik De Klerk and Jimmy Carter, among others, details the urgent risk posed by proliferation, terrorism and accidental use of nuclear weapons.

Bender’s other films include: “From Dusk Till Dawn” (1996), “Anna and the King” (1999), “The Mexican” (2001), “Innocent Voices” (2004) and Quentin Tarantino’s “Reservoir Dogs” (1992), “Jackie Brown” (1997), and “Kill Bill” — Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 (2003–04). He has also produced “Havana Nights: Dirty Dancing 2”; “Knockaround Guys”; “A Price Above Rubies”; “White Man’s Burden”; “Killing Zoe”; and “Fresh.” His most recent film, “Safe,” which stars Jason Statham, was released worldwide early last year.

Bender is also a passionate social and political activist. In 2003, he co-founded the Detroit Project, a campaign advocating vehicles that will end the U.S. dependence on foreign oil. He also traveled to the Middle East with the Israeli Policy Forum, meeting with heads of state. Bender is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Pacific Council. He received the ACLU’s Torch of Liberty Award and was named a Wildlife Hero by the National Wildlife Federation.

In 2009, Bender was one of five alumni honored by the University of Maine Foundation at its 75th anniversary celebration. He also was inducted into the College of Engineering’s Francis Crowe Society as a distinguished engineer in recognition of extraordinary accomplishments to society and his profession. Bender returned to campus that fall to give an address at the Maine Business School.

Contact: Margaret Nagle, 207.581.3745; 207.949.4149

Longitudinal studies of children exposed to methadone in the womb need to accompany methadone maintenance treatment for drug-addicted pregnant mothers, according to a research team led by a University of Maine doctoral student in psychology.

While methadone maintenance treatment “is associated with increased stability in maternal and infant health, when compared with illicit opiate use,” long-term effects of prenatal methadone exposure on fetal and infant development are not well known, says Beth Logan, a doctoral student in developmental-clinical psychology at UMaine.

Logan conducted the research in collaboration with Dr. Mark Brown, a neonatologist at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, Maine, and Marie Hayes, a UMaine professor of psychology, cooperating professor of the Graduate School of Biomedical Science and allied scientist at EMMC.

The issue of methadone maintenance therapy during pregnancy is important locally, Logan says, as prescription opiate abuse in rural Maine has reached epidemic proportions.

It’s well documented that methadone causes neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) in some newborns. NAS can result in gastrointestinal symptoms such as vomiting and diarrhea, as well as slow feeding and growth and, in more severe cases, seizures.

Breastfeeding, Logan says, has been shown in this and other studies to reduce the severity of NAS in opiate-exposed infants.

To better understand long-term implications of prenatal methadone exposure on infant and toddler development, Logan and the UMaine team are conducting a longitudinal study of 200 methadone-exposed and nonexposed demographically matched families.

According to Logan’s dissertation research, at 9 months of age, 37.5 percent of the methadone-exposed infants demonstrated clinically significant motor delays compared with typical development in the nonexposed group. Motor deficits, she says, were particularly prominent in the milestones of sitting independently and crawling.

Maternal alcohol and tobacco use also affect cognitive and motor development of infants, Logan says, and should be considered when evaluating treatment possibilities. Logan also found that electroencephalogram (a test that measures electrical brain activity) markers of learning deficits are associated with comorbid (a medical condition that exists simultaneously and generally independently of another condition) prenatal alcohol exposure in methadone-exposed infants.

In addition, Logan says it appears environmental risks “conspire with” prenatal exposures to pose immediate and long-term developmental implications.

The findings were published in the March 2013 issue of Clinical Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Contact: Beth Staples, 207.581.3777

University of Maine undergraduate research will be highlighted in the 4th annual Undergraduate Research and Academic Showcase, 8 a.m.–5 p.m., Tuesday, April 16 at Wells Conference Center.

The event, sponsored by UMaine’s Center for Undergraduate Research and open to any undergraduate at the university, will feature presentations from 117 students, consisting of 77 posters, 32 oral presentations or performances, and eight exhibits.

Students presenting projects that receive the highest scores from judges in each format will receive awards ranging from $50 to $200 in various categories, according to Diane Belanger, graduate assistant with the Center for Undergraduate Research.

The UMaine community and general public are welcome to attend the free event. For more information or to request disability accommodations, contact Diane Belanger, 207.581.3583.

Vice President for Research Mike Eckardt will give opening remarks at 9 a.m. UMaine President Paul Ferguson is expected to give closing remarks during the awards presentation starting at 4:30 p.m., followed by the announcement of the Summer Research and Creative Academic Achievements Fellowship winners by Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost Susan Hunter. Six students will be awarded the $3,000 fellowship.

More information on the showcase is available on the Center for Undergraduate Research’s website.

Contact: Elyse Kahl, 207.581.3747

Several news organizations including WLBZ (Channel 2), WVII (Channel 7), WABI (Channel 5) and the Bangor Daily News covered the University of Maine’s 63rd annual Paper Days. During the Wednesday event, the university unveiled the nation’s first Cellulose Nanofiber Pilot Plant and Sen. Angus King and U.S. Rep. Mike Michaud spoke.

The donation by Sappi Fine Paper to the University of Maine Pulp & Paper Foundation for $100,000 worth of scholarships over the course of four years was picked up by several media outlets, including the websites Daily Markets, Stockhouse and The Sacramento Bee.

The Penobscot Bay Pilot wrote an article about the upcoming trip to Alaska by University of Maine climate change researchers to collect an ice core record of Arctic climate change over the past 1,000 years. Karl Kreutz, professor in UMaine’s Climate Change Institute and School of Earth and Climate Sciences; UMaine graduate student Seth Campbell; and Nobleboro Central School teacher Ken Williams are among the researchers who will take the trip to Denali National Park from April 29 to June 30.

The Bangor Daily News blog “Act out with Aislinn” by BDN reporter Aislinn Sarnacki included an entry about a project by students in a University of Maine advanced art education course taught by Constant Albertson. The students are making and selling mugs to benefit the Hirundo Wildlife Refuge in Alton.

Pine Tree Watchdog reported on University of Maine honors student Shelbe Lane’s March 27 testimony of LD 1001, a bill she helped write. “An Act To Improve Laws Governing Financial Disclosure by Legislators and Certain Public Employees and Public Access to Information Disclosed” was proposed by Gov. Paul LePage and sponsored by Democratic legislator Sen. Emily Cain. Lane gave lawmakers a tutorial on the legislation as part of her Honors College thesis.

UMaine’s Advanced Manufacturing Center (AMC) is the focus of an April 2 story in Mainebiz about how it works with Maine companies such as Newfield Communications, a start-up in West Newfield what saved $50,000 in the last six months with the help of AMC students and faculty. UMaine and the University of Southern Maine have helped businesses in the state bring nearly 400 products and manufacturing processes closer to market, according to the story. “The idea is that anyone can go into our center or USM and say ‘Hey, I need help with this’ and get a quote,” says AMC Director John Belding.

In a story in the March 31 Huntington, W.Va., Herald-Dispatch, Len Kaye, director of UMaine’s Center on Aging, is cited as one of the presenters in the 7th annual Cabell County Drug Prevention Summit, April 11 in Huntington, W.Va., sponsored by the Cabell County Substance Abuse Prevention Partnership. The annual prevention summits address growing concern about increased drug trafficking and substance abuse, and associated crime, in the Huntington area. Kaye will speak on prescription drug abuse prevention strategies.

In the Portland Press Herald blog “Pedal On: Tips, info and events for people who love their bikes,” author Karen Beaudoin says the Bicycle Coalition of Maine is looking for volunteers to help at both of its Great Maine Bike Swaps. The Orono swap is set for Sunday, April 14 at the University of Maine New Balance Student Recreation Center and the Portland event is April 28 at the University of Southern Maine gym, according to Beaudoin.

UMaine mathematics majors Nathan Dunn and Stuart Lathrop each scored 10 points (out of 100), placing them in the 70th percentile in the 37th William Lowell Putnam Competition that took place Dec. 1. This competition is regarded as the most difficult college-level mathematics contest in North America. In all, 4,277 students from 578 colleges and universities in the United States and Canada competed. Only seven contestants received 69 or more points, including one perfect score. About half of the participants did not earn any points at all, according to Eisso Atzema of the UMaine Department of Mathematics and Statistics.