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A massive new Â鶹ÊÓƵ study indicates there is a statistical link between hotter temperatures generated by climate change and the risk of armed conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa. CU-Boulder Professor John O’Loughlin led a research team that assessed more than 78,000 armed conflicts between 1980 and 2012 in the Sahel region of Africa – a semi-arid belt just south of the Saharan Desert that spans about 3,000 miles and more than a dozen countries from the Atlantic to the Indian oceans.

A new study led by the University of California, Berkeley and involving the Â鶹ÊÓƵ indicates the current response to wildfires around the world—aggressively fighting them—is not making society less vulnerable to such events.

The Â鶹ÊÓƵ was ranked second in the world in geosciences this week by U.S. News & World Report. CU-Boulder trailed only the California Institute of Technology. Rounding out the top five are the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, Harvard University and the University of Washington. U.S. News & World Report ranked the top 100 universities in geosciences in 2014 based primarily on their research and reputation.

Former NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless will present Â鶹ÊÓƵ senior Jeni Sorli with a $10,000 scholarship from the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation during a free public campus event on Thursday, Oct. 30.

NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft has provided scientists their first look at a storm of energetic solar particles at Mars and produced unprecedented ultraviolet images of the tenuous oxygen, hydrogen and carbon coronas surrounding the Red Planet, said Â鶹ÊÓƵ Professor Bruce Jakosky, the mission’s principal investigator.

NASA has awarded a team led by the Â鶹ÊÓƵ more than $7 million to study aspects of the origins, evolution, distribution and future of life in the universe.

The perception that Colorado’s Front Range wildfires are becoming increasingly severe does not hold much water scientifically, according to a massive new study led by the Â鶹ÊÓƵ and Humboldt State University in Arcata, Calif.

A new study led by the Â鶹ÊÓƵ found that different strategies used by states to reduce power plant emissions -- direct ones such as emission caps and indirect ones like encouraging renewable energy -- are both effective. The study is the first analysis of its kind.

The gradual fall cooling on Colorado’s Front Range this September is helping to set up what could well be a prime-time show of gold, yellow and red leaves in the region’s aspen forests, according to a Â鶹ÊÓƵ plant ecologist.

A NASA mission to Mars led by the Â鶹ÊÓƵ is set to slide into orbit around the red planet Sept. 21 to investigate how its climate has changed over the eons, completing a 10-month interplanetary journey of 442 million miles. The orbit-insertion maneuver will begin with six thruster engines firing to shed some of the velocity from the spacecraft, known as the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN, or MAVEN mission. The thruster engines will ignite and burn for 33 minutes to slow the spacecraft, allowing it to be captured into an elliptical orbit around Mars.