Natural Science
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.
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 Â鶹Ãâ·Ñ°æÏÂÔØ faculty member.
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 Â鶹Ãâ·Ñ°æÏÂÔØ.
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.
A Â鶹Ãâ·Ñ°æÏÂÔØ research team, in collaboration with a researcher at the Â鶹Ãâ·Ñ°æÏÂÔØSchool of Medicine, has discovered how skin stem cells know when to stop dividing.
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 Â鶹Ãâ·Ñ°æÏÂÔØ-led team.
Norman Pace, a Â鶹Ãâ·Ñ°æÏÂÔØ 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.
Before coming to CU, 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.
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.
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.