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Skiers and snowboarders may soon have a smoother ride through halfpipes and snow terrain parks thanks to two grant-winning University of Colorado at Boulder student inventors. David Kubicka and Kegan Paisley's "Halfpipe Helper" is a specially designed rakelike tool intended to make it easier for workers to create and maintain halfpipes, jumps and other ski area terrain features. The National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance awarded the students $6,600 for development of the tool.

Former U.S. Sen. Alan Simpson and his brother Peter, a University of Wyoming professor, will give talks in Boulder and Denver Nov. 11-12 as distinguished lecturers of the CU-Boulder Center of the American West. "High Plains Politics: A Dialogue with the Simpson Brothers of Wyoming," will be presented from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. on Nov. 11 in the Boulder Public Library Auditorium, 11th Street and Arapahoe Avenue, and from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Nov. 12 at the Denver Public Library, 10 W. 14th Ave. Parkway, in the lower level B2 conference room.

The rapid increase of nitrogen falling from the sky as a result of fossil-fuel combustion and crop fertilization, combined with carbon stored in Earth's soils, could change the rate of the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, rising into the atmosphere, according to a new study.

A photographer from Guatemala and a German ceramic sculptor will each present free public talks in November as part of the University of Colorado at Boulder fine arts department's Visiting Artists Lecture Series. Luis Gonzalez Palma and Kerstin Abraham will speak on Nov. 5 and Nov. 12, respectively. Both lectures will begin at 7 p.m. in the Sibell-Wolle Fine Arts Building on the CU-Boulder campus, room N141.

Fiske Planetarium at the University of Colorado at Boulder will present a series of programs focused on American Indian tribes and the sky beginning Thursday, Nov. 7, through Tuesday, Nov. 12. The programs, which will be in the planetarium, celebrate the relationship three American Indian communities have with the sky. The planetarium will host six shows, including four live presentations.

Music composed for tabla and computer has earned University of Colorado at Boulder Assistant Professor Michael Theodore the first annual Eric Siday Musical Creativity Award from the International Computer Music Association. "Goatsong, for Tabla Drums and Computer" was selected from more than 400 submissions to the 2002 ICMA Festival and Conference in Göteborg, Sweden. Theodore, who teaches classes in music composition and technology at the CU-Boulder College of Music, received a $2,300 prize. His piece was performed for a large audience at the festival.

The University of Colorado at Boulder physics department will continue its new monthly Saturday Physics Series with a presentation on Saturday, Nov. 9, at 2 p.m. in Duane Physics room G1B20. Associate Professor Steven Pollock of the physics department will present "Making the Invisible Visible," in which he will demonstrate and explain some of the tools used by nuclear and particle physicists to see things that are normally invisible to the human eye.

Nobel laureate Carl Wieman, distinguished professor of physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder, has launched a new science education project using part of his Nobel Prize money. The Physics Education Technology Project, or PhET, is supported by the Kavli Institute of Oxnard, Calif., the National Science Foundation, CU-Boulder and the Nobel Prize award.

CU-Boulder School of Law Professor Kevin R. Reitz will give the 28th annual Austin W. Scott Jr. lecture Nov. 7 at 7 p.m. in the Fleming Law Building. The lecture titled "Rebuilding America's Law of Criminal Sentencing: The New Model Penal Code" is free and open to the public. In 2001, Reitz was appointed reporter for a revision of the Model Penal Code, the first since its adoption by the American Law Institute in 1962. The project will rewrite the code's provisions on sentencing and corrections.

Fulbright grant winners from universities in Morocco and Turkey are conducting research at the University of Colorado at Boulder while five CU-Boulder faculty winners are in Africa, Asia and Europe to teach and do research. Provost Phil DiStefano said the CU-Boulder faculty, "continue to be recognized throughout the world for their academic expertise, and it is also noteworthy that faculty from other countries want to conduct their research at our campus."