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Two ice shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula known as the Larsen B and Wilkins are in "full retreat" and have lost nearly 3,000 square kilometers of their total area in the last year, say scientists in Colorado and the United Kingdom. Researchers at the University of Colorado at BoulderÂ’s National Snow and Ice Data Center and the British Antarctic Survey attribute the retreats to a regional warming trend. The trend has caused the annual melt season to increase by 12 days to a total of 20 days over the last 20 years, they said.

The University of Colorado at BoulderÂ’s department of applied mathematics has been awarded a major equipment grant from Sun Microsystems of Sunnyvale, Calif. Valued at about $120,000, the grant includes a large Sun Enterprise server and 15 high-performance graphic workstations. The grant supplements a $35,000 equipment grant from the National Science Foundation. CU-BoulderÂ’s College of Arts and Sciences, the Graduate School and the applied mathematics department provided matching funds.

Award-winning author and poet C.L. Rawlins will present a lecture titled "In Gravity National Park: Peaks and Depths of the New West," on Wednesday, April 21. The talk will be held at 7 p.m. in the Chautauqua Community House in Boulder. Rawlins will read selections from his newest book, "In Gravity National Park," which recently won the Mountain and Plains Bookseller's Award for poetry. His poetry is known for expressing praise of and respect for landscape and nature. A book signing will take place after the lecture.

The student chapter of the National Lawyers Guild at the University of Colorado at Boulder School of Law will hold a two-day conference titled "Civil Rights for All: NOW!" at the Fleming Law Building beginning on Friday, April 16th. The first day will feature nine discussions and will open with a debate on the protection of hate speech featuring David Yun, a Denver attorney, and Kristen Mix from the ACLU, and will close with live music at the Fleming Law Building featuring "CommunistsÂ’ Party." The Friday proceedings will run from noon to 11 p.m.

The city of Grand Junction and the Chamber of Commerce have asked the Real Estate Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder to evaluate the cityÂ’s development process. Byron Koste, director of the center, will lead a panel of five experts who will work with Grand Junction-area developers, builders, business leaders and other constituencies that have expressed concern with the cityÂ’s growth plan.

Two students in the Applied Mathematics program at the University of Colorado at Boulder tied for first place in a national statistics competition that required them to build a statistical model for predicting whether one of 4,000 different mushrooms would be poisonous.

Equality and democracy, justice and responsibility are among the issues to be addressed by philosophers and educators at a forum on social philosophy April 23-24 at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The 23rd annual Bertram Morris Colloquium will examine "Equality in an Unequal World." According to Stuart Rachels, a member of the philosophy department, the topic is a timely one. "Right now in the United States, 1 percent of the population controls 40 percent of the wealth," he said. "Bill Gates alone is richer than 20 percent of the population combined."

Bill Joy, co-founder and chief scientist at Sun Microsystems and one of the most influential people in the computer industry today, will present a public lecture at the College of Engineering and Applied Science at CU-Boulder on Thursday, April 15.

NEWS TIP SHEET Jeff Kopstein, associate professor of political science and director of Central and East European Studies at CU-Boulder, has lived in Eastern Europe for about five years and supports current NATO action. "What is happening in Kosovo is a humanitarian disaster," he says. "We (the U.S.) have the money, the wherewithal and the moral authority to take action." He can discuss just about any aspect of the situation, including history and regional politics. Kopstein can be reached at his office at 303-492-7138 or at home, 303-258-9186.

The CU-Boulder Office of News Services has changed its name to the Office of News Services, according to Bobbi Barrow, executive director of Institutional Relations. The name change reflects the office's role within the larger office of Institutional Relations, which Barrow established following her appointment in September 1997. In addition to News Services, Institutional Relations includes the offices of Community Relations, Web Communications, Student Affairs Communications, Publications and Marketing, and Internal Communications.