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International student numbers at the University of Colorado at Boulder will drop 6 percent this year, following a trend throughout the United States that has intensified as national security measures tighten and the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia move to attract students discouraged by U.S. policies. International student enrollment peaked on the Boulder campus in 2002 at 1,165 and has been soft or declining since then, following a downward trend in international student numbers nationwide, said Larry Bell, director of the CU-Boulder Office of International Education.

As part of their "low- to no-petroleum" pledge for the 2005 Solar Decathlon competition, University of Colorado students are getting ready to transport their solar home to Washington, D.C., this month using 100 percent biodiesel fuel made from vegetable oil. The 800-square-foot solar home, which is now in the final week of construction, is scheduled to begin its cross-country journey Sept. 21 and will arrive in the nation's capital Sept. 29.

The extraordinary politics, science and secrecy of the former Rocky Flats nuclear bomb factory are now part of an Internet multimedia "virtual museum exhibit" developed by University of Colorado at Boulder Associate Professor Len Ackland and a team of researchers. The "Rocky Flats Virtual Exhibit" is an experimental project that uses audio, video, photographs and text to describe a potentially catastrophic 1969 fire at the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant eight miles south of Boulder. The exhibit is sponsored by the Center for Environmental Journalism at CU-Boulder.

A new survey of the world's top universities cited in the Sept. 8 issue of The Economist ranks the University of Colorado at Boulder as the 11th best public university. A total of 500 international institutions were ranked in the 2005 survey, undertaken by the Institute for Higher Education at Jiao Tong University in Shanghai, China. The survey ranked Harvard University first, followed by Stanford University, the University of Cambridge, the University of California-Berkeley and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology among all universities, both public and private.

An Aboriginal tribe's knowledge of the stars, and its culture, stories and music will be explored at the University of Colorado at Boulder's Fiske Planetarium Sept. 22-23. John Stocke, a CU-Boulder professor of astrophysical and planetary sciences, will be joined by Aboriginal elder Bill Yidumduma Harney and Australian storyteller and educator Paul Taylor to present "Aboriginal Skies" at 7:30 p.m. on both days. Harney, an elder of the Wardaman tribe of the Northern Territory in Australia, will share his traditional knowledge of Aboriginal life, land and sky.

A self-lighting candle and "elephant snot" are among the demonstrations that will illustrate concepts of heat and thermodynamics at the Sept. 17 CU Wizards show "Too Hot to Handle." University of Colorado at Boulder faculty member Janet deGrazia of the department of chemical and biological engineering will lead the presentation starting at 9:30 a.m. in Cristol Chemistry and Biochemistry Building room 140. The show is free and open to the public.

The University of Colorado at Boulder received $257.6 million in sponsored research awards during the 2005 fiscal year, roughly half of it from the National Science Foundation, NASA and the Department of Health and Human Services. The 2005 sponsored research total was down by about 1 percent from last year's record total of $259.7 million received by CU-Boulder. The campus first topped the $200 million mark in 1999.

A team of University of Colorado at Boulder geophysicists is leading a study funded by the National Science Foundation to precisely measure the ground movement and earthquake potential of the Rio Grande Rift in Colorado and New Mexico. Using state-of-the-art Global Positioning System instruments at 24 sites in Colorado and New Mexico, the research team will track the rift's movement in millimeters during most of the next three years. The study will provide unprecedented data about the volcanically active region.

Leading local and national corporate governance experts will speak on the growing challenges of board liability and oversight during a University of Colorado at Boulder Leeds School of Business seminar in September. The 2005 Corporate Governance Seminar is being offered by the Leeds School's executive development program and will be held Sept. 22-23 at the Denver Country Club.

Humans have been tinkering with greenhouse gas levels in Earth's atmosphere for at least 2,000 years and probably longer, according to a surprising new study of methane trapped in Antarctic ice cores conducted by an international research team.