Science & Technology

<p>The public is invited to attend a watch party at the University of Colorado Boulder on Sunday, Sept. 21, when NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft, designed to understand past climate change on Mars, inserts itself into orbit after a 10-month journey to the planet.</p>

<p>Continuing its commitment to improving America’s drinking water, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Sept. 9 announced more than $8 million in grants to create two national centers for research and innovation in small- to medium-sized drinking water systems.</p>

<p>After spending nearly six months on the International Space Station, University of Colorado Boulder astronaut-alumnus Steve Swanson is slated to drift back to Earth in a Russian space capsule Sept. 10 before banging down on the steppe of Kazakhstan.</p>

<p>Two University of Colorado Boulder student aerospace engineering science teams have won prestigious international and national awards for the design of real-world space missions to Mars and the moon.</p>

<p>Tweets sent during last year’s massive flooding on Colorado’s Front Range were able to detail the scope of damage to the area’s infrastructure, according to a study by the University of Colorado Boulder.</p>
<p>The findings can help geotechnical and structural engineers more effectively direct their reconnaissance efforts after future natural disasters—including earthquakes, tsunamis and tornadoes—as well as provide them data that might otherwise be lost due to rapid cleanup efforts.</p>

<p><span>The public is invited to attend free, Saturday programs led by University of Colorado Boulder faculty on popular topics as part of the CU on the Weekend series, which begins Sept. 6.</span></p>
<p>With topics ranging from the sweeping stories behind celebrated musical compositions to the micro-level study of bacteria that uniquely forms each person’s microbiome, CU on the Weekend programs are designed to satisfy the community’s curiosity surrounding some of the intriguing research conducted at CU-Boulder.</p>

<p>The importance of Mars exploration and how the aerospace industry partners with university researchers to advance one of Colorado’s leading economic sectors will be featured at a free program Monday, Sept. 8, in south Denver.</p>

<p>Just as diamonds with perfect symmetry may be unusually brilliant jewels, the quantum world has a symmetrical splendor of high scientific value. Confirming this exotic quantum physics theory, JILA physicists led by theorist Ana Maria Rey and experimentalist Jun Ye have observed the first direct evidence of symmetry in the magnetic properties—or nuclear “spins”—of atoms. </p>

<p>An international research effort organized by the University of Colorado Boulder conducted the first multiple, unmanned aircraft interception of a telltale rush of cold air preceding a thunderstorm known as a “gust front” as it rolled across the Pawnee National Grassland in northeast Colorado on Aug. 14.</p>

<p>A genetic sleuthing effort led by the University of Colorado Boulder that resulted in the identification of Colorado’s “true” native greenback cutthroat trout two years ago has come full circle with the stocking of the official state fish into Colorado’s high country.</p>