News Headlines

Taking breaks from the stress of a startup improves experienced entrepreneurs’ mental well-being, but not inexperienced entrepreneurs’ well-being, says a study led by the University of Colorado Boulder.

A small satellite designed and built by a team of University of Colorado Boulder students to better understand how atmospheric drag can affect satellite orbits was successfully launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California Sunday morning. The satellite, known as the Drag and Atmospheric Neutral Density Explorer satellite, or DANDE, will investigate how a layer of Earth’s atmosphere known as the thermosphere varies in density at altitudes from about 200 to 300 miles above Earth. The commercial Falcon-9 SpaceX rocket lifted off the launch pad at about 10 a.m. MDT carrying DANDE, a small beach ball-sized satellite developed over a period of about six years by roughly 150 students, primarily undergraduates, as part of the Colorado Space Grant Consortium, or COSGS.

It’s popular to frame issues of variation in human health, intelligence and other traits as a question of “nature vs. nurture.” But, armed with new research methods and a burgeoning body of knowledge, leading scholars in the social sciences increasingly find that such dichotomous discussions fail to convey the nuance they observe in their research. In a post-conference discussion on Oct. 12, researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder and the University of Wisconsin will give the public a closer and deeper look at their state of understanding.

A pair of breakthroughs in the field of silicon photonics by researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Micron Technology Inc. could allow for the trajectory of exponential improvement in microprocessors that began nearly half a century ago—known as Moore’s Law—to continue well into the future, allowing for increasingly faster electronics, from supercomputers to laptops to smartphones.

When the conversation turns to global warming, many Americans are inclined to turn away. And why not? After all, it’s a vast and complicated subject. Truly understanding it seems to require specialized knowledge most people don’t possess. And perhaps most notably, it’s become such a hot-button political issue that it easily inflames passions. The trick is figuring out how to reach people without turning them off. Using the arts to inspire an emotional connection to and a deeper understanding of a difficult subject is the idea behind a series of events at CU-Boulder Oct. 1-6.

The University of Colorado Boulder will host a conference that explores the phenomenon of slavery from a global, historical perspective on Sept. 27-28. The event will include scholars specializing in the study of slavery in ancient, medieval and modern contexts and in global regions that include Western, pre-Columbian, African, Asian and Muslim. Titled “What is a Slave Society: an International Conference on the Nature of Slavery as a Global Historical Phenomenon,” the event will be held in the British and Irish Studies room of Norlin Library.

Ana Maria Rey, a theoretical physicist and a fellow of JILA, a joint institute of the University of Colorado Boulder and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, today was named a winner of a 2013 MacArthur Fellowship, commonly known as the “genius grant.” Rey also is an assistant research professor in the CU-Boulder Department of Physics. She teaches undergraduate and graduate classes.

An intriguing study led by the University of Colorado Boulder may provide a powerful new tool in the quiver of forensic scientists attempting to determine the time of death in cases involving human corpses: a microbial clock.

Our brains give us the remarkable ability to make sense of situations we’ve never encountered before—a familiar person in an unfamiliar place, for example, or a coworker in a different job role—but the mechanism our brains use to accomplish this has been a longstanding mystery of neuroscience.

A panel of science experts will convene at the University of Colorado Boulder on Wednesday, Sept. 25, to discuss weather and climate related to the recent devastating floods.