Climate & Environment

��ƷSM��ӰƬ delivers impactful research and creative work, despite federal funding uncertainty

Megan Maneval — Fri, 31 Oct 2025 17:04:13 +0000

��ƷSM��ӰƬ delivers impactful research and creative work, despite federal funding uncertainty Megan Maneval Fri, 10/31/2025 - 11:04

��ƷSM��ӰƬ researchers continued to deliver meaningful, positive outcomes in the university's public research mission through strong results in fiscal year 2024–25. Highlights of their work include big innovations in quantum technology, improving our understanding of space weather, and enhancing environmental resiliency.

The pace of growth in research funding at ��ƷSM��ӰƬ tapered in the new year due to cuts and funding pauses by federal agencies, including the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), National Institutes of Health (NIH) and NASA. At $766.7 million, the newly released sponsored research funding numbers for ��ƷSM��ӰƬ reflect a 3.3% increase over the prior year.

��ƷSM��ӰƬ drives $5B boost to Colorado's economy

“The research, scholarship and creative work produced by ��ƷSM��ӰƬ faculty, researchers and students directly impacts people’s lives,” said Massimo Ruzzene, senior vice chancellor for research and innovation and dean of the institutes. “We are committed to advocating for the support needed to drive advances that strengthen our national security, enhance peoples’ health, ensure our nation’s continued leadership in scholarship and innovation, and spark economic development in Colorado and beyond.”

The bulk of the research funding, or 69%, comes from federal agencies, including NASA, the NSF, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), NIH, the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy. The state of Colorado contributed $15 million of the total. Nonprofits and international organizations supported ��ƷSM��ӰƬ research and creative work to the tune of $102 million; industry accounted for $31 million; and other universities provided $47 million of the funding.

Here are a few research program highlights from ��ƷSM��ӰƬ.

Innovating at a quantum scale

The NSF invested $20 million in ��ƷSM��ӰƬ to launch a facility known as the National Quantum Nanofab. In this facility, Colorado researchers and quantum specialists from industry and research institutions around the country will design and build devices that tap into the world of the tiny packets of energy that make up light.

Principal Investigator Scott Diddams, professor in the Department of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, alongside a team of physicists and engineers, leads the work in this makerspace.

Improving understanding of space weather

A team at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) has received $2 million to develop a concept study for a NASA mission that will investigate how Earth’s lower atmosphere influences the upper atmosphere. The results will improve and expand our understanding of the space weather system surrounding our planet.

The group, which is led by LASP researcher Aimee Merkel, is one of three selected by NASA to develop detailed proposals for the agency’s DYNAMIC (Dynamical Neutral Atmosphere-Ionosphere Coupling) mission.

Helping communities adapt to climate change

��ƷSM��ӰƬ’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) has received a new five-year, $1.4 million cooperative agreement to continue hosting the North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center (NC CASC) from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Since its founding in 2018, the center provides actionable science to help communities, ecosystems and economies in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Kansas and Nebraska adapt to climate change.

Led by William Travis, associate professor of geography, the center advances the development and delivery of actionable science to help fish, wildlife, water, land and people in the North Central region adapt to a changing environment.

Learn more about NC CASC here.

Pairing humans and AI to help students learn

��ƷSM��ӰƬ joined six other teams that make up the Learning Engineering Virtual Institute (LEVI). The institute's goal is to double the rate of middle school math learning within five years, focusing on students from low-income backgrounds.

Professors Sidney D'Mello and Tamara Sumner of the Department of Computer Science and Institute of Cognitive Science join professors Peter Foltz, Jennifer Jacobs and Jeffrey Bush of the Institute of Cognitive Science in leading the project team. ��ƷSM��ӰƬ's project is the Hybrid Human-AI Tutoring (HAT) platform.

Learn more about LEVI and HAT.

Creating a Band-Aid for the heart

In the quest to develop lifelike materials to replace and repair human body parts, scientists face a formidable challenge: Real tissues are often both strong and stretchable and vary in shape and size. A ��ƷSM��ӰƬ-led team, in collaboration with researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, has taken a critical step toward cracking that code:

They’ve developed a new way to 3D print material that is at once elastic enough to withstand a heart’s persistent beating, tough enough to endure the crushing load placed on joints, and easily shapable to fit a patient’s unique defects.

A significant amount of sponsored research funding is directed to programs and researchers with unique expertise, such as biotechnology and aerospace, which stimulates industry.

Sponsored research funding from federal, state, international and foundation entities targets specific projects to advance research in laboratories and in the field. Research funding also helps pay for research-related capital improvements, scientific equipment, travel and salaries for research and support staff and student assistantships. CU cannot divert this funding to non-research-related expenses.

��ƷSM��ӰƬ researchers continued to deliver meaningful, positive outcomes in the university's public research mission through strong results in fiscal year 2024–25.

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Naval grant to improve ionospheric research over the open ocean

Megan Maneval — Fri, 31 Oct 2025 16:54:39 +0000

Naval grant to improve ionospheric research over the open ocean Megan Maneval Fri, 10/31/2025 - 10:54

Brian Breitsch is improving our understanding of the upper atmosphere in some of the most isolated places on Earth, thanks to an $840,000 federal grant.

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Rapid assessment by CIRES dives deep into Pagosa Springs' 3rd-largest flood on record

Megan Maneval — Tue, 28 Oct 2025 16:09:24 +0000

Rapid assessment by CIRES dives deep into Pagosa Springs' 3rd-largest flood on record Megan Maneval Tue, 10/28/2025 - 10:09

CIRES

Compiled by Western Water Assessment, the report includes scientific and historical context to help decision makers and emergency responders.

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Exploring Colorado's untapped geothermal energy potential

Megan Maneval — Fri, 24 Oct 2025 13:58:32 +0000

Exploring Colorado's untapped geothermal energy potential Megan Maneval Fri, 10/24/2025 - 07:58

College of Engineering and Applied Science

A major question looms over Colorado's energy future: Why does geothermal energy, a renewable resource, remain virtually untapped? ��ƷSM��ӰƬ researchers will examine the technological and social barriers that have held back geothermal development in the state.

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On an iconic Colorado 14er, climate change is shifting the timing between flowers and pollinators

Yvaine Ye — Thu, 16 Oct 2025 19:09:14 +0000

On an iconic Colorado 14er, climate change is shifting the timing between flowers and pollinators Yvaine Ye Thu, 10/16/2025 - 13:09

Warming temperatures and earlier snowmelt are disrupting the long-running relationship between wildflowers and their pollinators on Colorado’s Pikes Peak.

In a new study published September 25 in the American Naturalist, ��ƷSM��ӰƬ researchers found many of the region’s plants and pollinators are now emerging earlier in the spring than they did a century ago. But some species are falling out of sync, potentially adding challenges for pollinators already under threat.

“Pollinators are so important to our ecosystem, supporting everything from wildflowers to the food we eat,” said Julian Resasco, the paper’s senior author and associate professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. “Having data from 100 years ago gave us a unique opportunity to take a glimpse of these long-term trends under a changing climate.”

Pseudomasaris vespoides, a pollen wasp is showing up much earlier than it used to in the historical study. (Credit: Julian Resasco/��ƷSM��ӰƬ)

Starting in 1910, ecologist Frederic Clements and his student Frances Long began documenting the interactions between local plants and their pollinators at the now-closed Carnegie Institution’s Alpine Laboratory on the slope of the 14,115-foot Pikes Peak near Colorado Springs.

Over the past century, Colorado has warmed by an average of 2.9°F, with the average winter temperature rising even faster, by 3.3°F. Climate change has also decreased the amount of snow accumulating on top of the mountains, or snowpack, in the western United States, reducing the amount of water available for mountain species in spring and summer.

Warming temperature and snowmelt are vital environmental cues for plants and insects to emerge from their winter inactive state.

As the climate warms and snow melts earlier, plants may begin flowering sooner and pollinators may start flying earlier. But not all species respond to it in the same way or at the same pace, said Leana Zoller, the paper’s first author and a former postdoctoral associate at ��ƷSM��ӰƬ.

Resasco, Zoller and their team returned to Clements and Long’s study area to see if the interactions between plants and pollinators have shifted over the past century. Because Pikes Peak is a protected wilderness area, its environment has remained largely undisturbed. This allowed the team to study the impact of climate change without other influences such as land use change.

Julian Resasco (right) and his two graduate students surveyed pollinators and wildflowers in the Pike National Forest near Colorado Springs. (Credit: Andrew Gaier/��ƷSM��ӰƬ)

Between 2019 and 2022, the research team analyzed 25 wild pollinator species, including bumblebees, wasps and flies, as well as 11 flowering plants the insects interact with, forming 149 pairs of interactions.

Of the species that could be compared between the historical and contemporary datasets, they found that wildflowers were blooming about 17 days sooner than a century ago, and pollinators started to fly 11 days earlier.

Out of the 149 pairs of plant-pollinator comparable interactions, nearly 80% have more overlap in their active periods than before. While this trend appears beneficial for pollinators now, the advantage may be short-lived.

Historically, pollinators were active earlier than plants started flowering. “In our study system plants have advanced more rapidly than pollinators. If the trends continue, we may see plants flower before pollinators become active in the future,” said Zoller, who is currently a postdoctoral associate at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

“Mismatches may occur among these currently overlapping pairs as plants and pollinators continue to respond differently to changing conditions,” she added.

Some species are already slipping out of sync.

The western bumblebee, for example, is emerging 12 days later than a century ago, which could leave it struggling to find enough food. Once common and widespread in the western United States and Canada, this species has sharply declined by at least 57% since 1998 due to a mix of disease, habitat loss and pesticides.

“This mismatch in the schedules of western bumblebees and the plants they historically fed on could add another stressor on top of everything else this species is facing,” Resasco said.

Pollinators, including domestic honeybees and wild species, contribute to the reproduction of 75% of the world’s flowering plants and about 35% of the world’s food crops. Their decline could have far-reaching effects on both natural landscapes and agriculture.

“Wild pollinators help maintain the biodiversity of plants in our ecosystems. We have a responsibility to make sure they don’t disappear,” Resasco said.

While some species are keeping pace with each other's changes, certain bumblebees may be struggling to find enough food.

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Bumblebee (Credit: Judy Gallagher/Wikimedia)

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Bumblebee (Credit: Judy Gallagher/Wikimedia)

North Atlantic dolphins are dying younger, new study shows

Yvaine Ye — Mon, 13 Oct 2025 19:15:37 +0000

North Atlantic dolphins are dying younger, new study shows Yvaine Ye Mon, 10/13/2025 - 13:15

Yvaine Ye

Common dolphins are among the ocean’s most abundant mammals, but they are living shorter lives in the North Atlantic, according to a new study published Oct. 10 in Conservation Letters.

Etienne Rouby

The ��ƷSM��ӰƬ-led research team discovered that the longevity of female common dolphins has declined by seven years since 1997, an alarming trend that the authors say threatens not only the species but also the marine ecosystem it helps maintain.

“There is an urgent need to manage the population better,” said Etienne Rouby, a postdoctoral researcher in the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR). “Otherwise, there is a risk for decline and, ultimately, extinction.”

About 6 million common dolphins roam tropical and temperate oceans around the globe. They are the world’s most common cetaceans, a group that includes all whales, dolphins and porpoises.

The Bay of Biscay in the Atlantic Ocean off the French coast is a popular destination for dolphins in winter, because its warmer, nutrient-rich waters attract smaller species of fish like anchovies and sardines that dolphins eat. But those same conditions also make it one of Europe’s fishing hotspots.

While dolphins are not the target of fishing, many of them end up in nets by accident, also known as “bycatch”. Most dolphins caught as bycatch die. Some studies estimate that in 2021, fishing bycatch was responsible for the death of 6,900 dolphins in the bay, from a winter population of 180,000.

Despite those numbers, traditional abundance monitoring methods previously suggested that the dolphin population in the bay was stable.

The common dolphin is the most abundant cetacean in the world. (Credit: Observatoire Pelagis - France)

Conventionally, scientists have estimated dolphin numbers by tallying individuals spotted from survey ships and planes. Because dolphins are constantly moving in and out of a region, this approach can miss population changes until drastic shifts occur. For long-lived animals that only produce a few offspring in their lifetimes, such as dolphins, recovery may not be possible once population declines are significant enough to show up in general counts, Rouby said.

He and his team set out to reevaluate how well these cetaceans were surviving using a new approach they developed: counting and analyzing deceased dolphins stranded on beaches in the bay.

Dolphins often come onto the shore because they are old, sick, injured or disoriented, and rarely any survives after being stranded. While stranded dolphins represent only about 10% of total dolphin deaths, changes in their mortality patterns over time can reveal broader population trends.

The team studied 759 common dolphins stranded on beaches along the Bay of Biscay between 1997 and 2019.

The Bay of Biscay. (Credit: Wikimedia)

“We wanted to capture changes in the population’s survival and fertility rates. These are more sensitive indicators of population health, and they enable us to identify the problems before they become irreversible,” he said.

By analyzing dolphin teeth, the team determined the age at which these animals died. The team found that female dolphins’ longevity decreased from 24 years in the late 1990s to just 17 years two decades later.

This decline has led to fewer calves born. The researchers estimated that the dolphin population growth rate has declined by 2.4% from 1997 to 2019. In ideal conditions, a healthy common dolphin population grows ideally at about 4% per year. This means if the population was thriving perfectly in 1997, it was only growing at 1.6% annually by 2019.

“The numbers are likely to be lower in reality,” Rouby said. If the trend continues, the growth rate could dip below zero, a threshold that would signal population decline, he added.

Since 2024, the French government has been closing the Bay of Biscay to fishing for one month every January to protect the dolphins. While some data has suggested the measure has been helpful, Rouby said a more flexible schedule could work better.

Depending on ocean conditions, dolphins may arrive at the bay earlier or later than the set period in January, so timing fishing restrictions to match dolphin visits would better protect the animals.

Etienne Rouby received the Best Young Researcher Award from the International Society for Ecological Modelling for the methology he used in this work in September. He pioneered the use of age-at-death data to estimate how well an animal population is doing.

Other cetaceans in the North Atlantic, including Harbor porpoise and bottlenose dolphins may also be experiencing similar declines. Studying how well their populations are doing could improve current conservation policies including the US Marine Mammal Protection Act and the European Marine Strategy Framework Directive, Rouby said.

“Dolphins are the top predators in the Bay of Biscay, and they play a very important role in the ecosystem. Without these predators, fish populations could become out of control, and they would in turn consume too much plankton and vegetation until the system collapses,” Rouby said. “As humans, we should make conscious decisions to protect the living and non-living things around us. Facing evidence of viability loss, we need to act before it is too late.”

The longevity of female common dolphins has decreased by seven years in the last two decades in regions of the North Atlantic, with many getting caught in commercial fishing nets.

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The common dolphin is the most abundant cetacean in the world. (Credit: Charles J. Sharp/Wikimedia)

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The common dolphin is the most abundant cetacean in the world. (Credit: Charles J. Sharp/Wikimedia)

Researchers wake up microbes trapped in permafrost for thousands of years

Daniel William Strain — Thu, 02 Oct 2025 17:41:38 +0000

Researchers wake up microbes trapped in permafrost for thousands of years Daniel William… Thu, 10/02/2025 - 11:41

Daniel Strain

Thawing permafrost in Alaska. (Credit: Brandt Meixell/USGS)

In a new study, a team of geologists and biologists led by ��ƷSM��ӰƬ resurrected ancient microbes that had been trapped in ice—in some cases for around 40,000 years.

The study is a showcase for the planet’s permafrost. That’s the name for a frozen mix of soil, ice and rocks that underlies nearly a quarter of the land in the northern hemisphere. It’s an icy graveyard where animal and plant remains, alongside plentiful bacteria and other microorganisms, have become stuck in time.

That is, until curious scientists try to wake them up.

The group discovered that if you thaw out permafrost, the microbes within will take a while to become active. But after a few months, like waking up after a long nap, they begin to form flourishing colonies.

“These are not dead samples by any means,” said Tristan Caro, lead author of the study and a former graduate student in geological sciences at ��ƷSM��ӰƬ. “They’re still very much capable of hosting robust life that can break down organic matter and release it as carbon dioxide.”

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Permafrost Tunnel near Fairbanks, Alaska. (Credit: Tristan Caro)

Robyn Barbato of the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory drills a sample from the walls of the Permafrost Tunnel. (Credit: Tristan Caro)

Caro and his colleagues published their findings in September in the journal JGR Biogeosciences.

The research has wide implications for the health of the Arctic, and the entire planet, added study co-author Sebastian Kopf.

Today, the world’s permafrost is thawing at an alarming rate because of human-caused climate change. Scientists worry this trend could kick off a vicious cycle. As permafrost thaws, microbes living in the soil will begin to break down organic matter, spewing it into the air as carbon dioxide and methane—both potent greenhouse gases.

“It’s one of the biggest unknowns in climate responses,” said Kopf, professor of geological sciences at ��ƷSM��ӰƬ. “How will the thawing of all this frozen ground, where we know there’s tons of carbon stored, affect the ecology of these regions and the rate of climate change?”

Long slumber

To explore those unknowns, the researchers traveled to a one-of-a-kind location, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Permafrost Tunnel. This unusual research facility extends more than 350 feet into the frozen ground beneath central Alaska.

When Caro entered the tunnel, which is about as wide as a mine shaft, he could see the bones of ancient bison and mammoth sticking out from the walls.

“The first thing you notice when you walk in there is that it smells really bad. It smells like a musty basement that’s been left to sit for way too long,” said Caro, now a postdoctoral researcher at the California Institute of Technology. “To a microbiologist, that’s very exciting because interesting smells are often microbial.”

In the current study, the researchers collected samples of permafrost that was a few thousand to tens of thousands of years old from the walls of the tunnel. They then added water to the samples and incubated them at temperatures of 39 and 54 degrees Fahrenheit—chilly for humans, but downright boiling for the Arctic.

“We wanted to simulate what happens in an Alaskan summer, under future climate conditions where these temperatures reach deeper areas of the permafrost.” Caro said.

With a twist: The researchers relied on water made up of unusually heavy hydrogen atoms, also known as deuterium. That allowed them to track how their microbes drank up the water, then used the hydrogen to build the membranes made of fatty material that surround all living cells.

Arctic summers

What they saw was surprising.

In the first few months, these colonies grew at a creep, in some cases replacing only about one in every 100,000 cells per day. Under lab conditions, most bacterial colonies completely turn over in the span of a few hours.

But by the six-month mark, that all changed. Some bacterial colonies even produced gooey structures called “biofilms” that you can see with the naked eye.

Caro said these microbes likely couldn’t infect people, but the team kept them in sealed chambers regardless.

He added that the colonies didn’t seem to wake up that much faster at hotter temperatures. The results could hold lessons for thawing permafrost in the real world: After a hot spell, it may take several months for microbes to become active enough that they begin to emit greenhouse gases into the air in large volumes.

In other words, the longer Arctic summers grow, the greater the risks for the planet.

“You might have a single hot day in the Alaskan summer, but what matters much more is the lengthening of the summer season to where these warm temperatures extend into the autumn and spring,” Caro said.

He added there are still a lot of open questions about these microbes, such as whether ancient organisms behave the same at sites around the world.

“There’s so much permafrost in the world—in Alaska, Siberia and in other northern cold regions,” Caro said. “We’ve only sampled one tiny slice of that.”

Across the Arctic, bacteria and other microorganisms have become trapped underground in frozen soil and ice. A new study finds that these ancient microbes may still be capable of forming thriving colonies.

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Corals might be adapting to climate change

Yvaine Ye — Wed, 01 Oct 2025 03:09:31 +0000

Corals might be adapting to climate change Yvaine Ye Tue, 09/30/2025 - 21:09

Yvaine Ye

Corals, the foundation of ocean biodiversity, are threatened by climate change. But new research suggests that these organisms might be more resilient than previously thought.

In a study published August 27 in Science Advances, a ��ƷSM��ӰƬ researcher showed that despite a gradual increase in ocean acidity levels over the past 200 years, some corals seem to be able to adjust and continue to generate their hard, stony skeleton structures.

Jessica Hankins taking a coral sample. (Courtesy of Jessica Hankins)

“We found that corals were able to regulate the mechanism they use to build and maintain their skeletons despite the ocean becoming more acidic,” said Jessica Hankins, the paper’s first author and a PhD student in the Department of Geological Sciences. “It’s an unexpected and hopeful signal; however, we need more long-term data to know what it really means.”

As corals grow, they form their skeletons by absorbing ions from seawater into a space between the existing skeleton and the soft tissue above called the coral calcifying fluid. The coral has ways to regulate the chemistry of this fluid to make conditions ideal so that calcium and carbonate ions can combine to form calcium carbonate, the material coral skeletons consist of.

The ocean absorbs about 30% of carbon dioxide emissions from human activities. As more CO₂dissolves in the ocean, the seawater undergoes a chemical reaction that makes the ocean surface more acidic. Previous studies suggest that ocean acidity has increased by 40% since the Industrial Revolution and is likely to rise further.

This shifts the balance of carbon species in seawater, resulting in fewer carbonate ions available in seawater, something that corals need to build their skeleton.

Scientists have predicted that ocean acidification would make it harder for corals to grow and maintain their skeletons, leading to less dense structures that are more prone to breakage. But prior experiments in the laboratory and in the wild have yielded unclear results.

Hankins set off to study long-lived coral skeletons using an advanced imaging technology called Raman spectroscopy.

Raman spectroscopy uses lasers to reveal the chemical makeup and molecule arrangement in objects like rocks, paintings and proteins. This method could show detailed information about coral skeleton chemistry, said Hankins, who is also the manager of ��ƷSM��ӰƬ’s Raman Microspectroscopy lab.

Corals in the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia. (Courtesy of Jessica Hankins)

When corals rapidly form the calcium carbonate mineral that composes their skeletons, which typically occurs when more carbonate ions are available, the resulting structures tend to contain other minerals extracted from seawater. These “impurities” affect the molecular arrangement and structure of calcium carbonate, showing an increase in the chaos of the coral skeleton under Raman spectroscopy.

“When conditions are favorable, corals seem to prioritize growth, even if that means producing skeletons that are a bit more disordered at the molecular level,” Hankins said.

Hankins studied two pieces of coral skeleton, one nearly 200 years old and one 115 years old, from the Great Barrier Reef and the Coral Sea located off the northeastern coast of Australia. Using Raman spectroscopy, she found that both corals were able to regulate their internal fluid chemistry to maintain growth of their skeleton, despite an ongoing increase in ocean acidity due to ocean acidification. The corals appeared to be able to sustain the production of calcium carbonate even as the chemistry of the surrounding seawater grew less hospitable.

While it remains unclear how the corals adapted to the changing environment, Hankins said the secret might lie in their calcifying fluid.

“It could be that the processes corals use to modify and regulate their calcifying fluid are more complex than we’ve been able to constrain previously,” said Hankins. “More studies are needed to determine if different species, or if the same species in a different location, have similar responses,” she said.

In addition to ocean acidification, corals still face increasing stress from warming sea surface temperatures, human-induced pollution, and unsustainable fishing practices, Hankins said. Between 2023 and mid-May 2024, scientists have confirmed mass coral bleaching in at least 62 countries and territories worldwide. Coral bleaching occurs when corals expel the algae living in their tissues under stressful conditions, such as high ocean temperatures, causing them to turn completely white.

Coral reefs are the backbone of one of the largest ecosystems in the world. They protect shorelines threatened by erosion and storm damage, while providing marine organisms with a habitat, nursery, and spawning grounds.

“Corals provide the physical framework that reef ecosystems depend on. If they consistently grow weaker, less dense skeletons, it could trigger a domino effect that leads to a broader ecological collapse,” Hankins said. “The ocean may feel distant from Colorado, but it’s not separate. Every system on earth is connected. What happens to coral reefs reverberates far beyond the shore.”

A new study of corals up to 200 years old suggests that the organisms are showing signs of resilience to the impacts of an increasingly acidic ocean.

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Corals in the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia. (Courtesy of Jessica Hankins)

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Corals in the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia. (Courtesy of Jessica Hankins)

Fixing solar's weak spot: Why a tiny defect could be a big problem for perovskite cells

Megan Maneval — Wed, 24 Sep 2025 12:47:53 +0000

Fixing solar's weak spot: Why a tiny defect could be a big problem for perovskite cells Megan Maneval Wed, 09/24/2025 - 06:47

Solar energy is a crucial part of our clean energy future, but a new highly efficient solar material has a hurdle that needs to be addressed. A recent study reveals how a microscopic weak spot can lead to total device failure and what to do about it.

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Students study metal contamination in Colorado waterways

Megan Maneval — Thu, 18 Sep 2025 20:45:05 +0000

Students study metal contamination in Colorado waterways Megan Maneval Thu, 09/18/2025 - 14:45

A team at ��ƷSM��ӰƬ is studying heavy metal pollution in a watershed near Aspen. Their efforts have a dual goal: contributing to clean-up efforts and studying the potential of recovering some of the metals.

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Climate & Environment

��ƷSM��ӰƬ delivers impactful research and creative work, despite federal funding uncertainty

Innovating at a quantum scale

Improving understanding of space weather

Helping communities adapt to climate change

Pairing humans and AI to help students learn

Creating a Band-Aid for the heart

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Naval grant to improve ionospheric research over the open ocean

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Rapid assessment by CIRES dives deep into Pagosa Springs' 3rd-largest flood on record

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On an iconic Colorado 14er, climate change is shifting the timing between flowers and pollinators

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North Atlantic dolphins are dying younger, new study shows

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Researchers wake up microbes trapped in permafrost for thousands of years

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Corals might be adapting to climate change

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Climate & Environment

��ƷSM����ӰƬ delivers impactful research and creative work, despite federal funding uncertainty

Innovating at a quantum scale

Improving understanding of space weather

Helping communities adapt to climate change

Pairing humans and AI to help students learn

Creating a Band-Aid for the heart

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Naval grant to improve ionospheric research over the open ocean

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North Atlantic dolphins are dying younger, new study shows

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Researchers wake up microbes trapped in permafrost for thousands of years

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Corals might be adapting to climate change

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Students study metal contamination in Colorado waterways

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��ƷSM��ӰƬ delivers impactful research and creative work, despite federal funding uncertainty