In The NOCO

Millions of kids in the US will suffer a concussion during childhood, according to a recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention . Concussions are brain injuries that cause headaches and dizziness and nausea. And it can take weeks to fully recover.     In recent years doctors have changed the way they treat them. Instead of avoiding activity, doctors now recommend light physical...

If you’ve spent even a little time outdoors in Colorado, you’ve most likely heard the song of the mountain chickadee. These adorable, chubby little birds are commonly found in higher-elevation forests in the Rocky Mountains.  And they have a close relative – the black-capped chickadee, which tends to live at lower elevations. But in areas like Boulder County, the habitats of these two types of chi...

Of all the responses to the results of last week’s presidential election, one of the most unusual involves something called the 4B movement.     It calls for women to cut off or limit their contact with men. That includes dating, marriage, childbirth – and physical affections.    The 4B movement started a few years ago in South Korea, but gained attention on social media in the U.S. after Election...

Researchers have proposed a plan to transform high rise office spaces into living spaces to reduce the housing shortage in the Denver metro area. Denver is one of many American cities with a tight housing market and a glut of unused office space.  A recent study by the Pew Charitable Trusts and the architecture firm Gensler calls for converting high rise offices to shared residential spaces simila...

The Hayman Fire burned through a huge swath of forest southwest of Denver in 2002. It left behind a massive burn scar. Workers quickly replanted thousands of trees to reestablish the forest.   But more than two decades later, large areas of the Hayman burn scar still resemble a moonscape, with some scraggly young trees here and there.   Burn scars that take decades to heal are becoming a fact of l...

A $20 boiler maintenance fee. A $60 fee to drive your garbage to the dump. A $1 monthly pest maintenance fee.  And a $6 fee to add up those other fees.  These are actual charges billed to renters by landlords in Denver, according to a recent article by the Denver Post. The fees are tacked onto a tenant’s monthly bill on top of their rent.     Critics call them junk fees – and say they usually aren...

The Patton Veterans Project is a traveling film workshop designed to give veterans who may be suffering from PTSD or depression a communal space to process their trauma.   Vets who participate learn a “narrative therapy” approach to dealing with emotional trauma. Over three days, the vets create a short film about their personal story.   The Patton Veterans Project was created by Benjamin Patton,...

Tired of hearing about the election? And thinking about the election? We get it.    But before we move on, let’s walk through a few notable decisions that Colorado voters considered this week. Like whether we should ban the hunting of mountain lions and other big cats. And whether sales of guns and ammunition should help pay for mental health services. And a measure that would have transformed how...

All eyes were on the Presidential election Tuesday night: Donald Trump vs. Kamala Harris.  But there were plenty of important Colorado issues on the ballot, too. Like what the state constitution says about same sex marriage, who should review judges in ethics cases and whether the right to an abortion should be protected.  KUNC’s politics and elections reporter Lucas Brady Woods spoke with ITN’s E...

It's Election Day in Colorado. And along with who wins or loses, something that a lot of people are thinking about today is election security.   After all, elections are complicated: Millions of Colorado voters will fill out and turn in their ballots. And county election officials will gather and tally them – quickly.    On top of that, some recent headlines have called Colorado’s election systems...

If you visit the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge northwest of Denver, you see different types of wildlife, miles of hiking and biking trails and acres of rolling prairie.   But you don’t see any trace of the astonishing history of what happened there during the Cold War: The Rocky Flats plant made plutonium triggers for nuclear weapons until it was shuttered in the early 1990s.   The building...

Evacuating thousands of people during a natural disaster is a lot more complicated than simply telling everyone to move to safety.    A wildfire or tornado in Colorado, or the hurricanes that recently struck the southeast U.S., often hit vulnerable populations especially hard. Elderly folks, people with disabilities, or people who can’t afford to quickly pick up and leave have a more difficult tim...

Paying for a hospital visit often ends in a guessing game. For example, if you hurt your ankle and need an X-ray, you could pay a few hundred dollars – or nothing at all – depending on  which hospital you go to and the deal they’ve negotiated with your insurance company.   That fluctuation in pricing from hospital to hospital is true for many procedures in Colorado.  But some new websites might he...

A handful of Colorado schools monitor their students with cameras that use facial recognition software. It’s a security measure: An administrator with access to the technology can upload a student’s photo and then the system can use cameras around the school to pinpoint a student’s location.   More school districts across the state are exploring whether to adopt this technology, according to a rec...

Crews recently began work to extinguish a blaze that has burned underground for more than a century.    It's happening on Marshall Mesa , south of Boulder in an area popular for hiking. A fire in a coal seam there has been smoldering beneath the surface for years. It's a remnant of a time when coal mining thrived in the area.  Because heat from underground blazes can sometimes set fire to grass an...

Endless work emails. Slack messages from coworkers. Virtual meetings on Zoom.   If these things boost your anxiety, you're experiencing something called technostress. Technostress can also include anxiety about keeping up with new technologies – or being replaced by them.     It makes employees miserable. And easing technostress at work is an ongoing struggle for employers, especially since techno...

Heart disease causes one out of every five deaths in the United States. Now, a University of Colorado researcher says she’s found promising clues that could help treat it, but the source of her discoveries might make your skin crawl.      Dr. Leslie Leinwand is a professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology at CU Boulder. Her insights come from research conducted on a rather unwieldy...

Colorado and its pets are suffering from a shortage of veterinarians.   It's leading to long wait times at some clinics. And the Colorado Sun reports that many animal hospitals are so swamped they’re forced to turn away dogs and cats who need care.  On Election Day, Colorado voters will be asked to weigh in on a possible solution. Proposition 129   would create a new class of veterinary workers ca...

 Wildfires in Colorado rip through communities. They torch homes and disrupt lives.  But wildfires also cause some surprising – maybe even uplifting – things to happen. They make people more resilient. They strengthen the bonds between neighbors. And those stronger connections help people prepare for future emergencies.   That’s according to Lori Peek – a researcher who studies how communities com...

Since early 2023 hundreds of Denver residents experiencing homelessness received a monthly income whether they had a job or were unemployed.  Eight hundred participants received the payment as part of a program called the Denver Basic Income Project .   It was a pilot program designed to study whether rates of homelessness decrease when people are given a base-line income. Participants received ei...

Victorian Death Experiences is a Halloween attraction with a historic twist.   The program takes place in the historic home which houses the Center for Colorado Women’s History in Denver. Visitors see rooms decorated for mourning. They hear stories of death in the Old West. And they see fascinating artifacts, like hair jewelry made partly from the hair of a deceased loved one.   “We’re really not...

Weld County’s Clerk and Recorder Carly Koppes has a noticeable online presence. She posts lots of informational videos around election time telling voters how to cast a ballot or get ready for Election Day.  But here’s something that keeps Koppes -- and a lot of other election officials -- up at night. Artificial intelligence is developing so quickly that a bad actor could take one of Koppes’ vide...

  Today we've got something special for In The NoCo listeners. It's the first episode of "Ending the Hate State," the new season of KUNC's podcast The Colorado Dream . If you heard our Friday episode of In The NoCo, you already heard Colorado Dream host Stephanie Daniel talk about the new season. This first episode explores a time in the 1990s when Colorado voters refused to protect people from be...

Nearly 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 supreme court.   Season 4 of KUNC’...

A new tax on sales of guns and ammunition could be used to fund services that help crime victims.   That’s the idea behind a proposal Colorado voters will consider on the November ballot. Proposition KK would add a 6.5 percent excise tax on guns, some parts and accessories, and ammunition. Buyers in Colorado already pay state and local sales taxes on the purchase of firearms and ammunition, and a...