Science & Technology

<p><em>A Midsummer Night's Dream</em> kicks off the <a href="http://www.coloradoshakes.org/">2013 Colorado Shakespeare Festival</a> season, with a preview performance on Friday, June 7 and opening night on Saturday, June 8. Dream a little dream of love and laughter as Shakespeare's most beloved comedy casts its spell on the enchanting Mary Rippon stage.</p>

<p>A team of researchers led by the University of Colorado Boulder has discovered a protein complex that could be targeted with drugs to stunt tumor growth.</p>
<p>As tumors expand, their centers are deprived of oxygen, and so tumors must flip specific genetic switches to survive in these hypoxic environments.</p>

<p>CIRES news release</p>
<p>The cleanup of California’s tailpipe emissions over the last few decades has not only reduced ozone pollution in the Los Angeles area. It has also altered the pollution chemistry in the atmosphere, making the eye-stinging “organic nitrate” component of air pollution plummet, according to a new study led by a scientist from <a href="http://www.noaa.gov">NOAA’s</a> Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the <a href="http://www.colorado.edu">University of Colorado Boulder</a>.</p>

<p>A new look at the diets of ancient African hominids shows a “game changer” occurred about 3.5 million years ago when some members added grasses or sedges to their menus, according to a new study led by the University of Colorado Boulder.<br /><br /></p>

<p>A chemical reaction between iron-containing minerals and water may produce enough hydrogen “food” to sustain microbial communities living in pores and cracks within the enormous volume of rock below the ocean floor and parts of the continents, according to a new study led by the University of Colorado Boulder.</p>
<p>The findings, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, also hint at the possibility that hydrogen-dependent life could have existed where iron-rich igneous rocks on Mars were once in contact with water.</p>

<p>Five University of Colorado Boulder students have partnered with a researcher at the University of Colorado Cancer Center to file a patent for a medical device that lets researchers quickly, easily and inexpensively isolate a patient’s cancer cells for genetic tests that allow doctors to target the disease. </p>

<p>A state application organized by the University of Colorado Boulder has been submitted to the Federal Aviation Administration for the development of one of <a href="http://www.faa.gov/news/press_releases/news_story.cfm?newsId=13393">six unmanned aircraft systems test sites slated to be established across the United States</a>.<br /><br /></p>

<p>University of Colorado Boulder faculty member Ivan Smalyukh is among 61 scientists to receive a 2013 <a href="http://science.energy.gov/early-career/">Early Career Award from the U.S. Department of Energy</a>.<br /><br />
Smalyukh, an assistant professor of physics and a founding fellow of the <a href="http://rasei.colorado.edu/">Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute</a>, or RASEI, has been awarded $750,000 over five years. RASEI is a joint venture between CU-Boulder and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.<br /></p>

<p>Inside the natural history museums of the world are billions of animal and plant specimens from birds, fish and beetles to flowers, mushrooms and grasses, all stacked, stored and preserved in jars and collection drawers.<br /><br />
The rich and diverse collections could be critical to understanding how the Earth’s biodiversity is changing in the face of a growing human footprint — if only the information were easily accessible.<br /><br /></p>

<p>Last July, something unprecedented in the 34-year satellite record happened: 98 percent of the Greenland Ice Sheet’s surface melted, compared to roughly 50 percent during an average summer. Snow that usually stays frozen and dry turned wet with melt water. Research led by the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences now shows last summer’s extreme melt could soon be the new normal.</p>