Science & Technology

<p>When their romantic partners are not quintessentially masculine, women in their fertile phase are more likely to fantasize about masculine-looking men than are women paired with George Clooney types.</p>

<p>Colorado business leaders' confidence bounced back to pre-recession levels going into the first quarter of 2011, according to the most recent quarterly Leeds Business Confidence Index, or LBCI, released today by the University of Colorado Boulder's Leeds School of Business.</p>

<p>In the first-ever quantification of energy expended by humans during sleep, a University of Colorado team has found that the metabolic cost of an adult missing one night of sleep is the equivalent of walking slightly less than two miles.</p>

<p>Wind turbines in Midwestern farm fields may be doing more than churning out electricity. The giant turbine blades that generate renewable energy might also help corn and soybean crops stay cooler and drier, help them fend off fungal infestations and improve their ability to extract growth-enhancing carbon dioxide from the air and soil.</p>

<p>Rising concentrations of zinc in a waterway on Colorado's Western Slope may be the result of climate change that is affecting the timing of annual snowmelt, says a new study led by the University of Colorado at Boulder.</p>

<p>A novel project using cameras mounted on unmanned aircraft flying over the Arctic is serving double duty by assessing the characteristics of declining sea ice and using the same aerial photos to pinpoint seals that have hauled up on ice floes.</p>

<p>During the holidays, no matter how you celebrate or what your beliefs, music is almost always an important part of the celebration, according to Thomas Riis, a musicologist and director of the American Music Research Center in the University of Colorado at Boulder's College of Music.</p>

<p>NASA Administrator Charles F. Bolden has selected University of Colorado at Boulder faculty member Waleed Abdalati to serve as the agency's chief scientist effective Jan. 3 for a two-year appointment.</p>

<p>The University of Colorado at Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., today announced the formation of a new collaborative research center dedicated to the study of the sun's effect on Earth's climate.</p>

<p>Two students tweak the ramp of a skateboarder in Energy Skate Park, sending her on a steep track that ends in a wild loop. They measure the energy of her motion as she goes. The skate park may sound like an after-school hangout, but it's a cutting-edge computer simulation that -- along with animated cousins like Electric Field Hockey and John Travoltage -- is a boon to students and science teachers alike.</p>