Climate & Environment

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<p>An interdisciplinary team of student and faculty engineers from the University of Colorado Boulder has won a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for its proposal to develop a solar-biochar toilet for use in developing countries throughout the world.</p>
<p>The grant is part of the Reinvent the Toilet Challenge, or RTTC, initiated by the Gates Foundation to address a sanitation challenge affecting nearly 40 percent of the world’s population.</p>

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<p>An international research team led by the University of Colorado Boulder and the University of Helsinki has discovered a surprising new chemical compound in Earth’s atmosphere that reacts with sulfur dioxide to form sulfuric acid, which is known to have significant impacts on climate and health.</p>

<p>Despite sharp increases in carbon dioxide emissions by humans in recent decades that are warming the planet, Earth’s vegetation and oceans continue to soak up about half of them, according to a surprising new study led by the University of Colorado Boulder.</p>

<p>A variety of public health issues plague the refugees from Burma living on the Thai border, not the least of which is drinking water contaminated by bacteria and pesticides. Yet few low-cost, sustainable and appropriate treatment technologies are available to people in rural and developing communities to ensure water safety.</p>

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.

<p>The California condor is chronically endangered by lead exposure from ammunition and requires ongoing human intervention for population stability and growth, according to a new study led by the University of California, Santa Cruz, and involving the University of Colorado Boulder. </p>

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<p>It’s no secret that Mars is a beaten and battered planet -- astronomers have been peering for centuries at the violent impact craters created by cosmic buckshot pounding its surface over billions of years. But just how beat up is it?</p>

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<p>Increases in the diversity of parasites that attack amphibians cause a decrease in the infection success rate of virulent parasites, including one that causes malformed limbs and premature death, says a new University of Colorado Boulder study.</p>

<p>Assistant Professor Paul Romatschke of the University of Colorado Boulder physics department will receive a five-year, $750,000 grant as part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Early Career Research Program created to bolster the nation’s scientific workforce with top young researchers.</p>
<p>Romatschke was among 68 winners selected nationwide from a pool of 850 applicants from universities and national laboratories</p>

<p>A revolutionary research and teaching facility opening at the University of Colorado Boulder will facilitate work on a wide swath of pressing societal challenges ranging from biomedical issues like cancer, heart disease and tissue engineering to the development of new biofuels.</p>