Natural Science

  • Great Heron
    Social systems of great blue herons vary dramatically, from solitary nests to large heronries, and some heronries include nests of great egrets and cattle egrets.
  • Photo of Mississippi River Delta taken by NASA’s Space Shuttle Discovery in early 1985. Photo courtesy NASA.
    From the Yellow River in China to the Mississippi River in Louisiana, researchers are racing to better understand and mitigate the degradation of some of the world’s most important river deltas, according to a University of Colorado Boulder faculty member.
  • A clear-cut forest area near Eugene, Oregon. Photo by Calibas / Wikipedia.
    The newly-exposed edges of deforested areas are highly susceptible to drastic temperature changes, leading to hotter, drier and more variable conditions for the forest that remains, according to new research from the University of Colorado Boulder.
  • A new study involving ¶¶ÒõÂÃÐÐÉä-Boulder and the Chinese Academy of Sciences has confirmed that a flightless bird weighing several hundred pounds roamed Ellesmere Island in the high Arctic about 50 million years ago. Its name is Gastornis. Illustration by Marlin Peterson
    It’s official: There really was a giant, flightless bird with a head the size of a horse’s wandering about in the winter twilight of the high Arctic some 53 million years ago.
  • Cells
    A University of Colorado Boulder research team, in collaboration with a researcher at the ¶¶ÒõÂÃÐÐÉä School of Medicine, has discovered how skin stem cells know when to stop dividing.
  • An illustration of the giant flightless bird known as Genyornis newtoni, surprised on her nest by a 1 ton, predatory lizard named Megalania prisca in Australia roughly 50,000 years ago. Illustration by Peter Trusler, Monash University.
    The first direct evidence that humans played a substantial role in the extinction of the huge, wondrous beasts inhabiting Australia some 50,000 years ago — in this case a 500-pound bird — has been discovered by a University of Colorado Boulder-led team.
  • Norm Pace
    Norman Pace, a University of Colorado Boulder distinguished professor in molecular, cellular, and developmental biology (MCDB), is retiring after this semester. He has done pioneering research on RNA and on extremophiles, microbes that live in inhospitable environments.
  • Courtnie Paschall is the Outstanding Graduate for the College of Arts and Sciences for spring 2015. Photo by Laura Kriho.
    Before coming to ¶¶ÒõÂÃÐÐÉä, Courtnie Paschall had graduated from the Naval Academy, attained the rank of lieutenant and undergone years of flight training. Now, she’s graduating summa cum laude with a degree in neuroscience and a minor in electrical engineering. She is also the Outstanding Graduate for the College of Arts and Sciences for spring 2015.
  • Leslie Leinwand examines a python with Ryan Doptis, an undergraduate participant in the Python Project.
    The ‘Python Project’ helps undergraduates see if grad-school laboratory research, medical school or other alternatives are right for them; it also helps the university effectively allocate graduate-school funds.
  • The spruce bark beetle kill in the Gore Range stretches from Dillon many miles to the north.Photo by Jeff Mitton
    In an undergraduate research effort, recent graduate Brian Hankinson found that squirrel populations decrease in areas with an increase in beetle-kill trees. The squirrels, primarily seed-consumers, were observed eating beetle larvae from infected Engelmann spruce trees. However, the squirrels weren’t able to glean enough nutritional substance from feeding on the beetle larvae to maintain their population.
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