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Discoveries and Accomplishments

Faculty and student researchers:

• Spearheaded the discovery of the human gene for an enzyme known as telomerase, a key to the uncontrolled growth of cells. The new finding could lead to improved cancer diagnosis and treatment.
  
  
• Created a new form of matter called Bose-Einstein condensate, predicted by Albert Einstein in 1924. The condensate occurs when individual atoms meld into a "superatom" behaving as a single entity at temperatures near absolute zero. The achievement, which was awarded the 2001 Nobel Prize in physics, may lead to the creation of precise measuring devices and lasers that could dispense beams of atoms for micro-assembly purposes.
  
  
• Developed a Geographic Information System model, or GIS, to pinpoint rapidly melting glaciers and ice fields believed to hold human artifacts and other materials that could revolutionize anthropological theories and provide invaluable clues to human migration, colonization and adaptation dating back thousands of years.
  
  
• Analyzed satellite imagery revealing the largest Antarctic ice shelf collapse in 30 years. A total of 1,250 square miles of ice shelf area disintegrated in a 35-day period.
  
  
• Designed and developed a powerful X-ray telescope prototype that is expected to exceed the resolution of the Hubble Space Telescope by 300,000 times, allowing astrophysicists to peer into voracious black holes. The telescope should be able to resolve an object the size of a Frisbee on the sun.
  
  
• Found the Colorado Student Assessment Program test for 10th grade mathematics was more difficult than a national college placement exam. The researchers determined that to be proficient on the state test, a student had to score at the 90th percentile or above on the American College Testing Program's PLAN test, given to predict 10th graders' scores on the ACT.
  
  

A team of CU students won the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon contest held on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., in October 2002. The team of students from CU-Boulder’s College of Engineering and Applied Science and CU-Denver’s College of Architecture and Planning beat out 14 other university teams competing to design and build the best solar-powered home.

• Discovered and excavated the best preserved prehistoric village in Latin America, revealing the everyday lives of farming people who lived 1,400 years ago in present-day El Salvador.
  
  
• Led a five-year national study that concluded the cost of U.S. natural hazards has averaged about $1 billion per week and is expected to keep rising. The team of 32 experts from around the country concluded that steps taken to reduce the impact of natural hazards sometimes make the situation worse.
  
  
• Discovered and excavated the best preserved prehistoric village in Latin America, revealing the everyday lives of farming people who lived 1,400 years ago in present-day El Salvador.
  
  
• Found that regular, moderate walking by women using hormone replacement therapy restored the flexibility of their large arteries, most likely reducing the risk of heart disease.
  
  
• Determined global sea levels likely will rise more by the end of this century than has been predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2001. The researchers collected new data showing the world's glaciers and ice caps lost significant ice in the 20th century, and based their projected sea-level rise on this ice melt.
  
  
• Designed and built a $9 million spectrograph for the Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Observer, an orbiting NASA observatory launched in 1999 that is expected to shed light on the birth of galaxies and stars and provide new information on quasars, black holes and interstellar space.
  
  
• Were awarded a multi-year, multi-million dollar grant by the National Institutes of Health to establish and maintain a General Clinical Research Center for teaching and conducting clinical research studies on humans.
  
  
• Initiated a grant-supported study of the impact of HIV and AIDS on people living in sub-Saharan Africa, including children and the elderly. CU-Boulder's Population Aging Center will focus on the effects of HIV and AIDS on the elderly, children and families, and on making better estimates of HIV infection.
  
  
• Operate the Mountain Research Station west of Boulder to support research by students and faculty in ecology, chemistry and geology. The station's study area is the only long-term ecological research site funded by the National Science Foundation that is located in an alpine environment.
  
  
• Found new evidence about the migration patterns of Anasazi in about A.D. 1300. While many Anasazi groups abandoning the Four Corners area migrated south to settle in northern Arizona and northern New Mexico, others made swift, southerly migrations up to 250 miles long.
  
  
• Present the annual Colorado Business Economic Outlook Forum. Delivered by CU business faculty, the forum summarizes the state of Colorado's economy overall and in 11 distinct sectors.
  
  

Colorado kids in grades K-12 will be able to get high-tech, individualized help with reading and comprehension skills as a result of $8.4 million in grants to CU researchers. The National Science Foundation funding will be used to install unique software in school computers.

• Spearheaded the discovery of a genetic link to dyslexia, a finding that could eventually lead to early remediation of the reading disorder.
  
  
• Discovered and excavated the best preserved prehistoric village in Latin America, revealing the everyday lives of farming people who lived 1,400 years ago in present-day El Salvador.
  
  
• Designed and built a $12 million instrument now speeding toward Saturn on NASA's Cassini mission. The instrument will probe the atmosphere, rings and moons of the planet upon its anticipated arrival in 2004.
  
  
• Spearheaded the Colorado Space Grant Consortium, a NASA-funded project that has allowed students at 16 higher education institutions statewide to design, build and launch three sounding rocket experiments and three space shuttle experiments.
  
  
• Control more satellites than any university in the world and is one of only a few univer-sities in the country that operates a satellite control center.  CU-Boulder was the first university ever to control a NASA satellite, the Solar Meosphere Explorer from 1981 to 1989.  Satellites currently controlled by CU-Boulder include SNOE, SORCE, ICEsat and QUIKscat.  CU-Boulder scientists designed and built three instruments launched aboard the SNOE satellite and designed and built all five of the instruments aboard the SORCE satellite.