Climate & Environment
<p>Former NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless will present University of Colorado Boulder senior Jeni Sorli with a $10,000 scholarship from the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation during a free public campus event on Thursday, Oct. 30.</p>
<p>NASA鈥檚 MAVEN spacecraft has provided scientists their first look at a storm of energetic solar particles at Mars and produced unprecedented ultraviolet images of the tenuous oxygen, hydrogen and carbon coronas surrounding the Red Planet, said University of Colorado Boulder Professor Bruce Jakosky, the mission鈥檚 principal investigator.</p>
<p>NASA has awarded a team led by the University of Colorado Boulder more than $7 million to study aspects of the origins, evolution, distribution and future of life in the universe.</p>
<p>The perception that Colorado鈥檚 Front Range wildfires are becoming increasingly severe does not hold much water scientifically, according to a massive new study led by the University of Colorado Boulder and Humboldt State University in Arcata, Calif.</p>- <p>A new study led by the University of Colorado Boulder found that different strategies used by states to reduce power plant emissions -- direct ones such as emission caps and indirect ones like encouraging renewable energy -- are both effective. The study is the first analysis of its kind.</p>
<p>The gradual fall cooling on Colorado鈥檚 Front Range this September is helping to set up what could well be a prime-time show of gold, yellow and red leaves in the region鈥檚 aspen forests, according to a University of Colorado Boulder plant ecologist.</p>
<p>A NASA mission to Mars led by the University of Colorado Boulder is set to slide into orbit around the red planet Sept. 21 to investigate how its climate has changed over the eons, completing a 10-month interplanetary journey of 442 million miles.</p>
<p>The orbit-insertion maneuver will begin with six thruster engines firing to shed some of the velocity from the spacecraft, known as the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN, or MAVEN mission. The thruster engines will ignite and burn for 33 minutes to slow the spacecraft, allowing it to be captured into an elliptical orbit around Mars.</p>
<p>Three of the 62 scientists from around the world elected this week as American Geophysical Union Fellows are from the University of Colorado Boulder, tying the university for the most fellows elected in 2014 with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts and Oregon State University in Corvallis.</p>
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The CU-Boulder honorees include Professor Anne Sheehan of the Department of Geological Sciences, Professor Shijie Zhong of the Department of Physics and Senior Research Associate Tom Woods of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics.聽</div>
<p>A new study led by Old Dominion University and the University of Colorado Boulder indicates sea levels likely will continue to rise in the tropical Pacific Ocean off the coasts of the Philippines and northeastern Australia as humans continue to alter the climate.</p>
<p>Meet perhaps the tiniest hedgehog species ever:聽<em>Silvacola acares.聽</em>Its roughly 52-million-year-old fossil remains were recently identified by a University of Colorado Boulder-led team working in British Columbia.</p>
<p><span id="">The hedgehog鈥檚 scientific name means 鈥渢iny forest dweller,鈥 said CU-Boulder Associate Professor Jaelyn Eberle of the geological sciences department, lead author on the study. The creature -- a new genus and species to science -- was only about 2 inches long, roughly the length of an adult thumb.</span></p>