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An intensive University of Colorado at Boulder project charting long-term ecological changes in the high mountains of Colorado will continue for at least six more years as a result of a $4.9 million grant from the National Science Foundation.

Planetary expert Larry Esposito of the University of Colorado at Boulder will share the "Latest News from Saturn and Titan" on Jan. 20 in the first of the "Newsworthy at CU" lecture series sponsored by the CU-Boulder Alumni Association. Esposito, of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, will speak at 4:30 p.m. at the Koenig Alumni Center, 1202 University Ave. All lectures in the series are free and open to the public.

Joe E. Roy, II, has been appointed chief of police at the University of Colorado at Boulder effective Feb. 1. Roy was selected through a rigorous search process following the August announcement of Police Chief Jim Fadenrecht's retirement on Jan. 31. Fadenrecht became chief in 1991 and leaves after 30 years of service to the department.

The University of Colorado is preparing to implement the College Opportunity Fund in fall 2005 and has begun notifying students about the program at campuses in Boulder, Denver and Colorado Springs.

The University of Colorado at Boulder will host a public open house Jan. 14 featuring a live broadcast of the European Space Agency's coverage of the Cassini mission's Huygens probe descending onto Saturn's moon, Titan, via NASA TV.

The CU-Boulder campus will host a donation drive for Red Cross relief efforts in tsunami-devastated South Asia during the men's and women's basketball games on Saturday, Jan. 15. The men's team will play No. 2-ranked Kansas at 2 p.m. and the women's team will play No. 13-ranked Texas Tech at 7 p.m. Tickets are still available for both games. Volunteers from the Red Cross and CU-Boulder staff will be stationed around the Coors Events Center with buckets to receive donations. The funds will go to the Red Cross for its relief efforts in the devastated areas.

Note to Editors: Contents embargoed until 9:20 a.m. PST on Jan 10. New ultraviolet observations indicate a Milky Way star is spinning nearly 200 times faster than Earth's sun, the probable result of a merger between two sun-like stars whose binary orbit recently collapsed, according to a University of Colorado at Boulder astronomer.

The University of Colorado at Boulder is one of six core academic partners in a new effort to study terrorism funded by a $12 million shared grant from the Department of Homeland Security. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge announced the grant today at the University of Maryland, where the new research center will be headquartered. The new center is part of a consortium that includes CU-Boulder, UCLA, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of South Carolina and the Monterey Institute of International Studies.

The Thai Student Association at the University of Colorado at Boulder will raise funds for tsunami relief efforts for four days during Jan. 10-14 at the University Memorial Center. With the exception of Wednesday, Jan. 12, the student group will operate a booth in the UMC from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. each day. The booth will feature information and pictures of what is happening in Thailand as a result of the tsunami disaster, said Arunee Tanvisuth, an association member and a doctoral student in business strategy and entrepreneurship.

A study investigating whether protected public lands play a positive or negative role in the economic health of nearby communities will be presented at a free lecture Jan. 12 at 7 p.m. on the University of Colorado at Boulder campus. Ray Rasker, the author of the study, will talk about "Prosperity in the 21st Century: the Role of Protected Lands" in Eaton Humanities Building room IB050. Rasker is director of the SocioEconomics Program of the Sonoran Institute, a nonprofit organization that promotes community-based strategies for conservation and development.