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Note to Editors: Media are welcome to attend the trebuchet challenge, the boat building and racing event, and other activities. Please contact Gloria Nelson or Carol Rowe to obtain a detailed schedule. More than 260 high school students from 27 schools around Colorado will test their skills at building boats and medieval siege machines, called trebuchets, during the Colorado Mathematics Engineering Science Achievement Fall Fling at the University of Colorado at Boulder Nov. 2 and 3.

The Sommers-Bausch Observatory at the University of Colorado at Boulder is hosting an open house, weather permitting, to view a rare "Mercury transit" of the sun on Wednesday, Nov. 8, from 11:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Using the observatory's heliostat -- a specialized solar telescope that transfers the sun's light via a series of mirrors and lenses and projects it on a flat surface for safe viewing -- people will see Mercury's silhouette on the sun's surface as it passes between Earth and the sun.

A servicing mission for the Hubble Space Telescope announced today by NASA will include the insertion of a $70 million instrument designed by the University of Colorado at Boulder that was built with Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. of Boulder to probe the nearby galaxies and the distant universe.

"Spectacle and Illusion," the winning project of the Colorado Creed's Community Betterment competition, debuts at CU's Old Main Theater on Nov. 4th and Nov. 10 and 11 at 7 p.m. and 9:15 p.m. nightly. Tickets are $15 for adults and $10 for students and children. Â鶹ÒùÔº are producing, promoting and starring in the Las Vegas style magic and illusion show, which could raise as much as $10,000. All ticket sales benefit the American Cancer Society.

Education researchers and the media need to work together better to help inform the public on critical education policy issues increasingly being put before voters through ballot initiatives, according to University of Colorado at Boulder researchers. Associate Professor Michele Moses of CU-Boulder's School of Education and Lauren Saenz, a CU-Boulder graduate student, studied nearly 300 print news articles about a Michigan ballot initiative to outlaw affirmative action to be voted on during the Nov. 7 election.

Editors: Reporters and photographers are welcome to attend this event without charge. A playwright who uses wit and humor to describe his Minnesota boyhood and other adventures will be the keynote speaker at an assistive technology conference co-sponsored by the University of Colorado at Boulder.

The Hispanic National Bar Association has appointed Lorenzo Trujillo, assistant dean at the University of Colorado at Boulder School of Law, as its general counsel. Trujillo will provide legal advice and representation to the association's president and board of governors. The appointment was announced Oct. 16. Trujillo said he was honored to have the "trust and respect of the president and board of governors."

NEWS TIP SHEET o Clare Huntington, associate professor of law. Huntington specializes in immigration law, citizenship law and family law. From 1999 to 2004, Huntington served as an attorney in the Office of Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice where she gave statutory and constitutional advice on immigration cases. She also can address earlier immigration programs such as the 1942 Bracero Treaty and whether the criminalization of undocumented workers is a feasible option. She can be reached by calling (303) 735-5994 or (303) 444-3325.

Bob Castellino will present his latest book "Boulder, Yesterday and Today -- a Photographic Retrospective" at the University of Colorado at Boulder Friends of the Libraries' fall "Treasures" event on Sunday, Nov. 12. The free, public event will be held at 2 p.m. in room 150 of the Eaton Humanities Building on the CU-Boulder campus. A reception and book signing will follow his presentation.

A new, multimillion-dollar grant awarded to the University of Colorado by the National Institutes of Health for the study of pulmonary hypertension in children will include the creation of 200 patient-specific computer models that will be used to help refine diagnosis and improve treatment of the life-threatening disease.