News Headlines

If the distance and difficulty of Colorado’s many organized bicycling events is any indication, a flat, 100-mile bicycle ride is not, for many riders, quite tough enough. That’s one reason the 11th annual Buffalo Bicycle Classic’s longest route will go farther and climb higher than any of the event’s courses so far. The “Buff Epic” will span 110 miles and ascend a total of 6,250 feet. It retraces much of the most mountainous section of Stage 6 of the 2012 USA Pro Cycling Challenge.

The fact that taller people also tend to be slightly smarter is due in roughly equal parts to two phenomena—the same genes affect both traits and taller people are more likely than average to mate with smarter people and vice versa—according to a study led by the University of Colorado Boulder. The study did not find that environmental factors contributed to the connection between being taller and being smarter, both traits that people tend to find attractive.

DOE news release Washington, D.C. – The U.S. Department of Energy today announced the members of the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board (SEAB). The nineteen member board comprised of scientists, business executives, academics and former government officials will serve as an independent advisory committee to Energy Secretary Moniz.

CU-Boulder is launching a new General Engineering Plus undergraduate degree with the CU Teach Engineering concentration this fall for current first-year and sophomore students interested in earning secondary school (grades 7-12) science or math teaching licensure.

The University of Colorado Boulder is launching a new General Engineering Plus undergraduate degree with the CU Teach Engineering concentration this fall for current first-year and sophomore students interested in earning secondary school (grades 7-12) science or math teaching licensure. The GE+ degree program offers an interdisciplinary, hands-on, design-based engineering core curriculum, coupled with an engineering disciplinary emphasis (aerospace, mechanical, environmental, architectural, or civil) and a “Design Your Own” concentration in an area within or external to engineering.

For female North American barn swallows, looking good pays healthy dividends. A new study conducted at the University of Colorado Boulder and involving Cornell University shows the outward appearance of female barn swallows, specifically the hue of their chestnut-colored breast feathers, has an influence on their physiological health.

A University of Colorado Boulder faculty member will travel to Africa later this month to test a mobile smartphone technology developed by his team to rapidly detect and track natural carcinogens, including aflatoxin, which is estimated to contaminate up to 25 percent of the global food supply and cause severe illnesses in humans and animals.

The University of Colorado Boulder’s newest residence hall, Kittredge Central, is welcoming students this week for the first time, 53 of whom are engineering students and will be immersed in Spanish through the building’s new Residential Academic Program, or RAP. Also, the nearby Kittredge West residence hall is reopening this week after being unoccupied last school year while renovations were underway. Both buildings comprise a number of “green” features to improve water and energy efficiency and to reduce the campus’s carbon footprint.

A standing-room-only crowd in the Wolf Law Building’s Wittemyer Courtroom and nearly 100 others in an overflow room gathered yesterday as EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy and Colorado Sen. Mark Udall discussed President Obama’s Climate Action Plan at the CU Law School.

The University of Colorado Boulder and Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction today announced the successful accreditation of their partnership program by the Engineering Accreditation Commission of ABET. The partnership program allows students to earn a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from CU-Boulder by taking classes delivered at CMU. The program offers the first-ever baccalaureate engineering degree on Colorado’s Western Slope.