Good year expected for viewing Perseid meteor shower Aug. 10-13, says CU planetarium director

Aug. 7, 2013

University of Colorado Boulder astrophysicist Doug Duncan says this year's annual Perseid meteor shower and its natural nighttime light show will be particularly good as the display becomes visible over Colorado Aug. 10-13. "The moon will be nearly new, so it's an especially good time to see the meteor shower," said Duncan, director of CU-Boulder's Fiske Planetarium.

CIRES and NOAA scientists observe significant methane leaks in a Utah natural gas field

Aug. 5, 2013

CIRES news release On a perfect winter day in Utah鈥檚 Uintah County in 2012, scientists from the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) and colleagues at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) tested out a new way to measure methane emissions from a natural gas production field.

CU-led MAVEN mission spacecraft arrives at Florida launch site

Aug. 5, 2013

The spacecraft for NASA鈥檚 Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN, or MAVEN, mission to Mars being led by the University of Colorado Boulder has arrived in Florida in anticipation of a November launch. The spacecraft was shipped on Friday, Aug. 2, aboard a U.S. Air Force cargo plane from Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora, Colo., to the Shuttle Landing Facility at NASA鈥檚 Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, Fla. Lockheed Martin had previously assembled and tested MAVEN in its Littleton, Colo., facility.

Conservation efforts might encourage some to hunt lions, CU-Boulder-led study finds

Aug. 5, 2013

Conventional wisdom holds that East Africa鈥檚 Maasai pastoralists hunt lions for two distinct reasons: to retaliate against lions that kill livestock or to engage in a cultural rite of passage. But that view reflects mistranslations of Maasai terms and a simplification of their cultural traditions and their relationship with wildlife, a team of researchers led by a University of Colorado Boulder geographer has concluded.

CU-Boulder team develops new water splitting technique that could produce hydrogen fuel

Aug. 1, 2013

A University of Colorado Boulder team has developed a radically new technique that uses the power of sunlight to efficiently split water into its components of hydrogen and oxygen, paving the way for the broad use of hydrogen as a clean, green fuel.

A week鈥檚 worth of camping synchs internal clock to sunrise and sunset, CU-Boulder study finds

Aug. 1, 2013

Spending just one week exposed only to natural light while camping in the Rocky Mountains was enough to synch the circadian clocks of eight people participating in a University of Colorado Boulder study with the timing of sunrise and sunset. The study, published online today in the journal Current Biology , found that the synchronization happened in that short period of time for all participants, regardless of whether they were early birds or night owls during their normal lives.

Ice-free Arctic winters could explain amplified warming during Pliocene

July 29, 2013

Year-round ice-free conditions across the surface of the Arctic Ocean could explain why the Earth was substantially warmer during the Pliocene Epoch than it is today, despite similar concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, according to new research carried out at the University of Colorado Boulder. In early May, instruments at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii marked a new record: The concentration of carbon dioxide climbed to 400 parts per million for the first time in modern history.

NASA mission involving CU-Boulder discovers particle accelerator in heart of Van Allen radiation belts

July 25, 2013

Using data from a NASA satellite, a team of scientists led by the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and involving the University of Colorado Boulder have discovered a massive particle accelerator in the heart of one of the harshest regions of near-Earth space, a region of super-energetic, charged particles surrounding the globe known as the Van Allen radiation belts.

Animal Behavior Society meeting at CU-Boulder to feature public talks, activities, film festival

July 24, 2013

The 50th annual meeting of the international Animal Behavior Society to be held at the University of Colorado Boulder July 28-Aug. 2 will feature several public events, including lectures, scientific demonstrations and a film festival. The public lectures, to be held at the Glenn Miller Ballroom in the University Memorial Center, are part of the Applied Animal Behavior Public Day on Sunday, July 28, titled 鈥淐reating Quality Lives for Dogs and Cats Through the Science of Animal Behavior.鈥�

Ryan Chreist named CU-Boulder assistant vice chancellor for alumni relations

July 23, 2013

The University of Colorado Boulder today announced that Ryan Chreist has been named assistant vice chancellor for alumni relations. Chreist, who most recently served as the director of recruitment, operations and system integration for the CU-Boulder Office of Admissions, starts this week.

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