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When it comes to spending money in the pursuit of happiness, the "good life" may be better lived by doing things rather than by having things, according to a University of Colorado at Boulder researcher. In a society that thrives on the pursuit of happiness, a question that often comes to mind, especially around the holiday shopping season, is what really makes us happy. "We found that people receive more enduring pleasure and satisfaction from investing in life experiences than material possessions," said CU-Boulder assistant professor of psychology Leaf Van Boven.

Although rings around planets like Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are relatively short-lived, new evidence implies that the recycling of orbiting debris can lengthen the lifetime of such rings, according to University of Colorado researchers. Strong evidence now implies small moons near the giant planets like Saturn and Jupiter are essentially piles of rubble, said Larry Esposito, a professor at CU-Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. These re-constituted small bodies are the source of material for planetary rings.

The scientific properties of sound and air pressure are explained when CU Wizard Michael Dubson presents his show, "Boom! The Physics of Sound and Air Pressure," on Saturday, Dec. 20, at 9:30 a.m. in Duane Physics, room G1B30. During the free hour-long show, Dubson, a senior instructor in the physics department at the University of Colorado at Boulder, will implode a 50-gallon steel drum using air pressure, create a sonic boom with a bullwhip and stage a tug-of-war with the pressure of the atmosphere.

The belt of high-energy electrons that normally cradles Earth from afar was greatly enhanced and pushed unusually close to our atmosphere during the violent solar activity that occurred in late October, University of Colorado at Boulder researchers say.

Special recognition ceremonies to commemorate individual students will be held by most University of Colorado at Boulder schools and colleges in addition to the main university commencement ceremony on Dec. 19. Following is a schedule of special events in the schools and colleges. * School of Journalism and Mass Communication recognition ceremony, Thursday, Dec. 18, at 2:30 p.m. in Macky Auditorium. Fred Brown, former chief of the Denver Post's capitol bureau and one of the authors of the Society of Professional Journalists' Code of Ethics, is the speaker.

The student leaders of an effort to debunk the party school image at the University of Colorado at Boulder believe questionable social surveys on campus are harmful to both incoming freshmen and outgoing graduates in the job market. And, no, they don't fit the antisocial stereotype some might expect.

Nobel laureate Eric Cornell will give the commencement address and the University of Colorado at Boulder will confer 2,051 degrees during its winter commencement ceremony on Friday, Dec. 19. Cornell is a senior scientist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder and an adjoint professor of physics at CU-Boulder.

A biological terror attack defense system, a supersensitive cancer-detecting device and a rotary demolition hammer delivering 1,600 blows per minute are among the products and services proposed by University of Colorado at Boulder students in a business plan competition that will award more than $10,000 to winning teams Dec. 10 and 11. The finals of the 2003 Business Plan Competition, hosted by the Robert H. and Beverly A. Deming Center for Entrepreneurship at the Leeds School of Business, will take place Dec. 10 for undergraduate teams and Dec. 11 for graduate teams.

Graduation rates at the University of Colorado at Boulder are the highest in decades and, contrary to popular belief, most graduating students are earning their degrees in four years, university officials said. Sixty-eight percent of students who enrolled in 1997 as full-time freshmen at CU-Boulder graduated within six years, according to university statistics. And of those students who graduated within six years, more than half -- 54 percent -- graduated within four years.

Editors: Jacob Pritchard can be reached while he is in Central America by e-mail and by telephone at about 5 p.m. MST each day at 011-52-33-3631-5279. A University of Colorado at Boulder student leaves for Honduras Dec. 6 to document a $10 billion Central American road project that will connect the city of Puebla, located about 60 miles southeast of Mexico City, with Panama City, Panama.