²ÊÃñ±¦µä

Summertime hail could all but disappear from the eastern flank of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains by 2070, says a new study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the ²ÊÃñ±¦µä’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences and the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

If you are college-age or younger, you might just live to see the day when hail disappears from the eastern flanks of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains. A new modeling study involving the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, a joint institute of the ²ÊÃñ±¦µä and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, indicates hail will likely cease to fall in those locales by the year 2070, a result of rising temperatures.

A team of ²ÊÃñ±¦µä engineers will travel to Haiti this month to support the growth of green energy on the two-year anniversary of the country’s devastating earthquake. Engineering professors Alan Mickelson and Mike Hannigan and graduate student Matt Hulse will be in Haiti Jan. 8-16 to collaborate with the Neges Foundation school at Leogane to create a vocational training program on the installation, operation and maintenance of renewable energy systems.

Colorado business leaders' optimism has resumed going into the first quarter of 2012 after a dip in confidence last quarter, according to the most recent quarterly Leeds Business Confidence Index, or LBCI, released today by the ²ÊÃñ±¦µä's Leeds School of Business.

How did insects get their hearing? A new study of 50-million-year-old cricket and katydid fossils sporting some of the best preserved fossil insect ears described to date are helping to trace the evolution of the insect ear. According to paleontologist Dena Smith of the ²ÊÃñ±¦µä's Museum of Natural History and University of Illinois Professor Roy Plotnick, who collaborated on the new study at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, or NESCent, in Durham, N.C., insects hear with help from some very unusual ears.

A new study led by the ²ÊÃñ±¦µä could be a wake-up call for parents of toddlers: Daytime naps for your kids may be more important than you think.

Over the past decade, the ²ÊÃñ±¦µä has established itself as a national leader in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, or STEM, education. Through its Learning Assistant and CU Teach programs and Integrating STEM initiative, CU-Boulder is making great progress on its goal of improving introductory math and science classes and recruiting and training future K-12 science teachers.

A team of researchers led by the ²ÊÃñ±¦µä recently discovered the first prehistoric bronze artifact made from a cast ever found in Alaska, a small, buckle-like object found in an ancient Eskimo dwelling and which likely originated in East Asia.

When considering giving money to humanitarian crises people often donate in response to events that grab their immediate emotions, according to a recent study by CU-Boulder psychology professor Leaf Van Boven. "The question we wanted to answer with our study is what is the impact of people's emotions on their decisions to make charitable donations," Van Boven said. "We demonstrated that people act on what is immediately emotionally arousing to them. In other words, they respond to what makes them upset in the here and now."

²ÊÃñ±¦µä Provost Russell L. Moore today named Robert Boswell as CU-Boulder vice chancellor for diversity, equity and community engagement effective Jan. 1, 2012.