Climate & Environment
<p>ñ scientists have found a creative way to radically improve thermoelectric materials, a finding that could one day lead to the development of improved solar panels, more energy-efficient cooling equipment, and even the creation of new devices that could turn the vast amounts of heat wasted at power plants into more electricity.</p>- <p>For ñ Assistant Professor Gordana Dukovic of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, the awards just keep rolling in.</p>
<p>Today the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation announced that Dukovic was one of 126 people in the U.S. and Canada selected for one of the prestigious Sloan Research Fellowships in 2014. </p> 
<p>As climates change, the lush tropical ecosystems of the Amazon Basin may release more of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than they absorb, according to a new study published Feb. 6 in <em>Nature</em>.</p>
<p>If you were a shrew snuffling around a North American forest, you would be 27 times less likely to respond to climate change than if you were a moose grazing nearby.</p>
<p>That is just one of the findings of a new ñ assessment led by Assistant Professor Christy McCain that looked at more than 1,000 different scientific studies on North American mammal responses to human-caused climate change.</p>
<p>ñ Professor Peter Molnar has been awarded the prestigious 2014 Crafoord Prize in Geosciences by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for his groundbreaking research in geophysics and geological sciences.</p>
<p>The ñ’s Senior Vice Chancellor and Chief Financial Officer Kelly Fox today announced that Vice Chancellor for Administration Louise Vale will retire effective March 14.</p>
<p>“Louise has had a distinguished career providing financial management and strategic direction to the University of Colorado for over 20 years and she will be greatly missed,” Fox said.</p>
<p>Fox has named Steve Thweatt, who is currently assistant vice chancellor for Facilities Management, as interim vice chancellor for administration starting March 15.</p>
<p>Two faculty members in the ñ’s College of Engineering and Applied Science have been honored with the National Science Foundation’s prestigious CAREER award.</p>
<p>The NSF Faculty Early Career Development, or CAREER, award supports junior faculty members who demonstrate excellence in research and who effectively integrate their research with education. CU-Boulder’s recent recipients are Prashant Nagpal, an assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering, and Franck Vernerey, an assistant professor of civil, environmental and architectural engineering.</p>
<p>Power plants that use natural gas and a new technology to squeeze more energy from the fuel release far less of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide than coal-fired power plants do, according to a new analysis accepted for publication Jan. 8 in <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014EF000196/abstract"><em>Earth’s Future</em></a>, a journal of the <a href="http://sites.agu.org/">American Geophysical Union</a>. </p>- <p>Trees with smoother bark are better at repelling attacks by mountain pine beetles, which have difficulty gripping the slippery surface, according to a new study by the ñ.</p>
<p>The findings, published online in the journal <em>Functional Ecology</em>, may help land managers make decisions about which trees to cull and which to keep in order to best protect forested properties against pine beetle infestation.</p> 
<p>Scientists recently recorded the lowest temperatures on Earth at a desolate and remote ice plateau in East Antarctica, trumping a record set in 1983 and uncovering a new puzzle about the ice-covered continent.</p>
<p>Glaciologist Ted Scambos and his team found temperatures from −92 to −94 degrees Celsius (−134 to −137 degrees Fahrenheit) in a 1,000-kilometer long swath on the highest section of the East Antarctic ice divide. Scambos is lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, which is a part of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the ñ.</p>