Science & Technology

The Later Stone Age emerged in South Africa more than 20,000 years earlier than previously believed -- about the same time humans were migrating from Africa to the European continent, says a new international study led by CU-Boulder researcher Paola Villa, a curator at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History .

The Later Stone Age emerged in South Africa more than 20,000 years earlier than previously believed -- about the same time humans were migrating from Africa to the European continent, says a new international study led by the University of Colorado Boulder.

Michael Radelet , professor of sociology, is an expert on the use of the death penalty in Colorado and the United States. He has documented all of Colorado’s executions and notes that Colorado abolished the penalty between 1897 and 1901, came within one vote of abolishing it again in 2009 and has executed only one person since 1967. “We've always debated the death penalty in Colorado, and the general thrust of our history is in the direction of abolition,” he said.

Kenneth Foote , professor of geography, studies how events of violence and tragedy are memorialized and remembered. He has visited hundreds of sites that have been scarred by incidents of violence or tragedy in the United States and abroad, and is the author of the book “Shadowed Ground: America’s Landscapes of Violence and Tragedy.” He can be reached at kfoote@colorado.edu or 303-641-3346.

When a young caller for the University of Colorado Boulder’s annual giving program asked Roe Green a decade ago if she would consider increasing her $100 annual gift to $150, he was the first to get the hint that Green might become a key part of the theater program from which she’d graduated in 1970. “I told the caller, ‘Oh, I think I’d like to give more,’ ” recalled Green.

In a day and age when the arts are often overlooked by those seeking more “career-oriented” pursuits, Green—who is on numerous boards including the College of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Advisory Council and the honorary board of the Colorado Shakespeare Festival—stands up for the importance of theater. “Theater helps in all walks of life,” Green says. “It gives you an opportunity to speak in front of people. What makes us human are the arts.”

University of Colorado Boulder researchers will be watching closely when South African bilateral leg amputee and sprinter Oscar Pistorius, dubbed “The Blade Runner,” makes his way to the starting block for the 400-meter sprint in the 2012 London Olympics.

An international team including University of Colorado Boulder researchers has found the first direct evidence for a new particle that likely is the long sought-after Higgs boson, believed to endow the universe with mass.

A new study led by the University of Colorado Boulder indicates air pollution in the form of nitrogen compounds emanating from power plants, automobiles and agriculture is changing the alpine vegetation in Rocky Mountain National Park.