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The initial results are now coming in for a project led by CU-Boulder that is expected to eventually sequence the gut bacteria of tens of thousands of people around the world in hopes of better understanding nutrition and health. The crowd-funded effort, known as the American Gut project, or AG, has thus far sequenced microbes from the digestive tracts of 1,589 people and has received $615,000 in donations from more than 6,700 people and four companies. Led by CU-Boulder Professor Rob Knight of the BioFrontiers Institute, the effort is the largest crowd-funded science project ever undertaken.

The University of Colorado Boulder enrolled more international students during the 2012-13 academic year and sent more students abroad during the 2011-12 academic year than any other higher education institution in Colorado. The data, released today by the Institute of International Education in its annual Open Doors Report, shows that CU-Boulder was home to 1,910 international students during the 2012-13 school year, up from 1,681 in 2011-12. CU-Boulder sent 1,330 students overseas during the 2011-12 school year, up from 1,316 in 2010-11.

One of the first steps people take toward rebuilding their communities after a flood, wildfire or other disaster may not be the right step, according to the director of the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado Boulder. “When a disaster happens, people feel pressure to rebuild things just as they were before, when in fact a disaster should be a time when there is a pause, when we ask ‘How can we build it back better than it was before?’ ” said center Director Kathleen Tierney, also a professor of sociology.

Families seeking information about childhood psychiatric and developmental disorders are invited to a community open house with experts from the University of Colorado Boulder and the University of Colorado School of Medicine on Wednesday, Nov. 13, on the CU-Boulder campus. Experts will address emerging research on early onset bipolar disorder, prevention of schizophrenia, postpartum depression, attention and behavior disorders, and autism spectrum disorders. Each researcher also will describe their community services.

In an example of the challenges water-strapped Western cities will face in a warming world, new research shows that every degree Fahrenheit of warming in the Salt Lake City region could mean a 1.8 to 6.5 percent drop in the annual flow of streams that provide water to the city.

Attracting more talented foreign students to study at U.S. universities and encouraging them to launch entrepreneurial ventures here could help “revitalize innovation and economic growth” in this country, a trio of economists led by University of Colorado Boulder Professor Keith Maskus concludes. Maskus and co-authors Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak, associate professor at the Yale School of Management, and Eric T. Stuen, assistant professor at the University of Idaho College of Business and Economics, make this case in the Policy Forum of the Nov. 1 edition of the journal Science .

America’s once-abundant tallgrass prairies—which have all but disappeared—were home to dozens of species of grasses that could grow to the height of a man, hundreds of species of flowers, and herds of roaming bison. For the first time, a research team led by the University of Colorado Boulder has gotten a peek at another vitally important but rarely considered community that also once called the tallgrass prairie home: the diverse assortment of microbes that thrived in the dark, rich soils beneath the grass.

University of Colorado Boulder Distinguished Professor James Hynes of the chemistry and biochemistry department has been named a fellow of the American Chemical Society, one of 96 scientists honored in 2013. ACS Fellows are honored for their outstanding contributions in scientific research, education and public service.

Seven University of Colorado Boulder faculty and staff have received Fulbright grants to pursue research, teaching and training abroad during the 2013-14 academic year. One of their proposed projects involves research in India on the use of the tanbura -- a long-necked stringed instrument -- as an aid for developing musical perception and intonation. Another involves research and lecturing in the United Kingdom on the representation of violence in contemporary Irish and American fiction.

A new national report highlighting the success of 100 university spinoff companies tracing their roots to federally funded research includes two companies that sprang from cutting-edge research at the University of Colorado Boulder.