In The NOCO

A solar panel that collects energy from the sun – while also helping farmers grow bigger, tastier tomatoes and other crops.  A team of scientists at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden ( NREL) say that’s exactly what they’ve developed. And this new type of solar panel could lead to better produce and more widespread solar power generation.   Some farmers already place solar panels o...

For a lot of veterans, Independence Day can be a hard day.    Celebrating America’s birthday typically comes with loud, colorful blasts of fireworks. We don’t talk about it a lot, but for veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, that can be a struggle. It can remind veterans of combat or other traumatic experiences from their time in the military.   Helping veterans cope with PTSD is the spec...

Travelers making their way through Denver International Airport this summer may notice a colorful, distinctive new art exhibit .   The project, called “It’s Not What You Take, It’s What You Bring Back,” was created from 183 pieces of used luggage, suspended over a walkway in Concourse B. They’re painted in the vibrant colors of the Colorado sky – turquoise, baby blue, ruby red – and they form a sh...

Like a lot of people nowadays, Colorado artist Rick Dallago is very invested in selfies. But Rick, who’s a painter, thinks about selfies differently than someone who just snaps a quick self-portrait with their phone.   Rick paints key moments in history and then paints a cell phone into the image. In one painting, a man takes a selfie in front of the Twin Towers on Sept. 11, 2001. In another, a ma...

A few weeks back, Colorado saw three moose attacks on people in just three days. The incidents were reported in the Coloradoan.   The attacks left three people injured. One of the incidents led to a cow moose being shot in self-defense, and her calf being euthanized.   So, as more people head out to hike in the state’s moose territory this summer, we wondered: What are you supposed to do if you en...

Back in April, a commercial flight carrying 159 people had a major scare as it took off from Denver International Airport: The United Airlines flight struck an animal, which crippled one of the plane’s engines and forced the crew to make an emergency landing.  As it turns out, the threat to aircraft from birds, rabbits and other animals is something DIA officials work hard to manage. Scott Franz,...

The vast space around earth is getting a little crowded.  There are nearly 10,000 satellites in Earth’s low orbit, the space just outside our planet’s atmosphere. And space companies plan to launch tens of thousands more in coming years.   That could led to problems like interruptions to communications from satellites that monitor the weather. Or we could see satellites crashing into one another. ...

Last year, Colorado lawmakers passed an unusual law .   It directed every county in the state to set up in-person voting for incarcerated people in jails, many of whom are awaiting trial and haven’t been convicted of a crime.    The new law is the first of its kind in the nation. It's an effort to support voting rights for a population that is often considered out of sight, out of mind.   Alex Bur...

In 1895, Leadville city leaders faced a dilemma. The silver mining industry had made the town quite wealthy. But then the silver market crashed , and the city's fortunes cratered right along with it. Residents were leaving in droves to seek better opportunities.  So, city leaders came up with an unusual idea to draw tourists to Leadville, entice people to live there, and give the remaining residen...

Many students in Colorado schools don’t have much of a chance to act onstage, play an instrument or hone their craft at painting.  Arts programs in most public schools have been cut severely due to tight budgets and to make room for classes that help schools get higher scores on standardized tests.  So a team of KUNC reporters recently wondered: What does this look like in Colorado schools? And wh...

More than three decades ago Colorado was known as the Hate State.  In 1992 Colorado voters passed Amendment 2, which banned anti-discrimination laws meant to protect gays, lesbians, and bisexuals. But the Amendment never went into effect because there was immediate backlash. It was challenged again and again for being unconstitutional, bringing it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.   Season 4...

Hattie McDaniel was the first African American to win an Oscar. The actor won for her role as Mammy in the film “Gone with the Wind.”   And McDaniel spent much of her childhood in Colorado: A plaque marks her family’s former home in Fort Collins. Growing up, she attended public schools in Denver.   McDaniel was in her 40s when she won the best supporting actress Oscar. And she used her platform to...

A vaccine against weight gain may be a reality soon, thanks to new research from the University of Colorado Boulder. The study focuses on a strain of bacteria that prevents obesity by reducing inflammation.   Chris Lowry is a professor of integrative physiology and CU and led the research. His study found that he could prevent mice from becoming overweight, even when raised on the equivalent of an...

Summer heat in Colorado has many people dreaming about escaping to the cool air of the mountains. But for Black Americans in the 1920s and 30s, segregation and discrimination severely restricted where they could travel and take a vacation.   Which is why, in 1922, Lincoln Hills emerged as a mountain resort created by and for African Americans. It sits near Rollinsville, northwest of Denver, and wa...

If you've ever walked near a landfill, or driven by one on a warm summer day with your windows down, you know there's a certain smell it puts out.   But Colorado's landfills also produce massive amounts of methane , emitting as much dirty air as driving a million cars for a year. Landfills are the third-largest source of methane emissions in Colorado, after agriculture and fossil fuel extraction. ...

Colorado has 13 sites that are part of the National Park System . And visitors may notice some striking new signs posted in the parks when they visit this summer.   The U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees the National Park Service, is requiring the posting of signs that ask visitors to identify and report “any signs or other information that are negative about either past or living Ame...

Imagine being able to control exactly when the plants in your vegetable garden will ripen.  New research out of Colorado State University could make that concept a reality. Researchers there have been working to create what they call “genetic toggle switches” embedded in the DNA of plants.   The researchers plug synthetic DNA into a plant’s genetic material and use it as a switch that tells the pl...

More than 82 million people passed through Denver International Airport last year – and almost none of them noticed the very complicated cleanup project happening right under their noses.  Airport officials spent $3 million dollars cleaning up toxic chemicals left over from the firefighting foam the airport used on its runways in the past. The foam is full of PFAS – otherwise known as “forever” ch...

Fifty years ago, two men came to the Boulder County courthouse, seeking a license to get married.   Marriage equality was not the law of the land in 1975. But Clela Rorex, the newly elected Boulder County clerk, could find nothing in Colorado state law that would prevent her from issuing a marriage license to a same-sex couple. So, she did. And she issued five more in the next few weeks before she...

Colorado has ambitious goals around renewable energy. Gov. Jared Polis is aiming for 100 percent of the energy in the state to come from renewable sources by the year 2040.    But there’s an obstacle: Colorado doesn’t have enough power lines to deliver all that renewable energy from where it’s produced – often in rural parts of the state – to where it’s needed. A recent study from the state’s Elec...

The Stanley Hotel is a cultural landmark of Estes Park. It was built in the early 1900s, and soon became a popular Colorado getaway for wealthy vacationers.   But it's perhaps most well-known as the inspiration for Stephen King's The Shining .  Today, the hotel caters to horror fans with ghost tours, while visitors who prefer a calmer vacation enjoy watching herds of elk on the lawn and the perfec...

Colorado has been impacted severely by wildfires in recent years. And, as climate change continues to intensify, the threat  is growing.  Colorado Sen. John Hickenlooper , a Democrat, recently co-sponsored a sweeping new bill to expand, and speed up, wildfire prevention efforts across the country. It’s called the Fix Our Forests Act .   It calls for more funding for research to prevent wildfires,...

A small herd of bison roams the Soapstone Prairie north of Fort Collins. The herd offers a glimpse of what Colorado’s high plains looked like 200 years ago.  These bison are unique for a few reasons. First, they’re descendants of the herd at Yellowstone National Park . Second, while most bison today carry some cattle DNA, this herd has nearly pure bison genes. That has spiritual significance for m...

A unique legal argument caught our attention recently here at In The NoCo . It’s about rules banning people experiencing homelessness from sleeping in public places in Boulder.    The recent court filing by the ACLU of Colorado argues that camping is so fundamental to the culture and history of Colorado that cities should not be allowed to punish people who camp in public.    The ACLU of Colorado...

Commercial airline travel is one of the safest ways to get around.  In 2024, around five billion passengers worldwide flew on 40 million flights, according to the International Air Transport Association . In that year there was less than one aircraft-related accident for every million flights in the air.  In other words, the odds are in your favor when you buy a plane ticket.  And yet, fear of fly...