Department Features

THE KEY TO UNDERSTANDING OUR SOLAR SYSTEM CHUNKS OF SPACE ROCK HURTLING TOWARDS EARTH putting humanity in mortal danger makes an entertaining asteroid-inspired movie. While that scenario could actually happen someday, there are equally important reasons to study asteroids other than their potential to be threatening. As the bits and...

COMPUTER SCIENCE IS BOOMING IN BOULDER. In the fall of 2010, there were 267 undergraduate computer science majors. Four years later, there were 909, including the new Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science degree. To keep up with the tsunami of new students, talented faculty are being recruited from across...

GETTING STUCK IN RUSH HOUR TRAFFIC. Hammering your thumb. Paper cuts. All things that are miserable, but none may be as universally despised as going to the dentist to get a cavity filled. A new product developed by 3M ESPE—and based on technology invented by Christopher Bowman, distinguished professor of...

INFRARED CAMERA CREATES SHARP FOCUS FROM TEMPERATURE CHANGES “The applications are abundant,” Bright says. “You just have to have imagination.” The air temperature in Victor Bright’s office is mild, maybe 70 degrees. There aren’t any obvious drafts or pockets of warm or cold air. All the books on the shelves,...

WITH REAL-WORLD PROJECTS WHEN A TORRENT OF WATER RIPPED DOWN BOULDER CREEK in September 2013 during historic flooding, a pedestrian bridge connecting the Boulder Creek Path with Folsom Field was one of the casualties. For 50 civil engineering students, the bridge’s loss became an educational opportunity. During the 2014 fall...

THROUGHOUT HER CAREER, ZOYA POPOVIC'S RADIO FREQUENCY (RF) and microwave engineering research has been focused on communications and defense, with projects for organizations including NASA and the Navy, and companies like Boeing. The distinguished professor of electrical, computer and energy engineering designed a system that would use far-field beaming to...

Academics, athletics, administration commingle in 42-year career When Professor Dave Clough retires after 42 years in chemical and biological engineering,his stat sheet will show successes in triplicate. The admired educator spent six years as associate dean and serves as CU Boulder’s faculty athletics representative. Though peers were sometimes skeptical of...

Cracking the code on the least understood sense How do chemical messages rising from a piece of rotting food signal a mouse to turn left to find it? How does the shape and movement of that mouse’s odor plume alert a hungry predator that it’s getting close? And precisely what...

Tiny gadget captures every whoosh, thump and gurgle inside the body It looks like a small Band-Aid, but it’s powerful enough to allow a doctor to monitor the heart rate of a patient remotely or to enable someone to control a robot with voice commands. The “tiny, wearable stethoscope” was...

Far above Earth, a curious colony of spacefarers is sharing close quarters on the International Space Station as part of research that could one day help lead us to Mars. These are no ordinary astronauts, they are mice, and their journey could be key to solving a problem that vexes...