In The NOCO

Colorado has played a leading role in many films. The state’s western landscapes can be seen in movies like The Hateful Eight and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade .    Then there’s the famous scene in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in which Paul Newman and Robert Redford leap off the edge of a cliff into the rushing river below. That scene was filmed near Durango, above the Animas River.   ...

With the summer travel season here, it’s a very busy time at Denver International Airport . But it's also noisy at the airport.  And that can be tougher for travelers than you might realize.  Research suggests that exposure to noise can trigger stress in a traveler’s brain and body, which doesn’t help people already tense from trying to get through those crowded security lines.  Which is why last...

More Colorado ranchers are using satellite technology to manage their livestock across vast, rugged landscapes — without having to put up miles of physical fence.   Virtual fencing uses GPS-enabled collars to allow ranchers to guide their cattle and keep them within invisible boundaries, using a mobile phone or computer.   Ranchers who use virtual fencing say it’s relatively cheap and helps them k...

Some uninvited guests are coming for a visit.   The warm, dry weather in recent months led many insects to emerge early this spring . And for your plants, that’s bad news – because plants are especially vulnerable to damage when moisture is scarce.   So, as Memorial Day weekend marks the unofficial start of summer, today’s guest will introduce you to some of the bugs who are coming for your plants...

A small nuclear reactor proposed by the Pentagon may be a reality soon in Aurora.   The proposed microreactor would power Buckley Space Force Base and give the site a steady source of electricity.    But it would look different – and operate at a smaller scale – than the nuclear reactors built a few decades ago. Rather than a large energy plant with cooling towers that jut into the sky, this small...

For decades, Warren Miller was synonymous with a very Colorado genre of film.  In Miller’s films, skiers glide across pristine winter terrain and hurtle down near-vertical slopes. Over the decades, Miller and his film crews turned those images into dozens of feature-length documentaries that celebrated the thrill of a day on the mountain – and also captured the poetry of skiing.   Miller died in 2...

Listeners of a certain age: Do you remember how great Colorado’s craft beer scene used to be?  The late 1990s and early 2000s saw hundreds of small breweries and taprooms spring up in communities across the state. But in the last five years, around 140 breweries, taprooms and brewpubs have closed -- including 40 that shuttered in 2025 alone.   And while that still leaves more than 400 breweries ac...

After this tough winter and dry spring we've been having, the trees around your home may be taking things especially hard.     In fact, some of the strain that your trees feel when there's a lack of moisture runs so deeply that it may not even be visible to you until a few years from now. So, it’s important to protect your trees from drought conditions now to prevent damage and illness later.    T...

Fireflies lighting up the sky on a summer night can feel magical – especially if you happen to catch them as they light up at the same time.  Which brings up one of the mysteries of the insect world: How do fireflies shine their lights in sync with one another?  A pair of computer science researchers with the University of Colorado Boulder set out to better understand how fireflies do this – and w...

In the second Trump administration, we've seen deportations surge, along with some very visible operations by ICE agents — nationally and in Colorado.   One argument — maybe an assumption — for deportations goes something like this: They will help American workers. Arresting and deporting workers who are in the country without legal status clears up space on the payroll for jobs that can go to Ame...

When someone decides they need help with a drug or alcohol addiction, or to leave an unsafe living situation, one obstacle they often face is this: While I’m getting help, who will take care of my pets?   For many people, the bond with a dog or cat is a lifeline. But most in-patient treatment programs or domestic violence shelters can’t allow animals – which can force people to have to choose betw...

Unless you have nothing but cacti in your yard, your plants and garden are going to need extra help this summer.     In addition to the heat, your plants will have to cope with less moisture than usual. While this week’s snowstorm brought a bit of relief, it won’t be enough to compensate for a very dry winter. So, our guest today offers tips to help – and explains the science behind keeping plants...

The promise of the weather phenomenon known as El Niño.   Don’t let this week’s spring snowstorm fool you: Mountain snowpack across Colorado's high country is dismal, and much of the state is in a persistent drought. Which means less water in reservoirs and dry conditions that are ripe for wildfire this summer.   But there’s one potential bright spot: Forecasters are predicting an especially stron...

These days, artificial intelligence does a lot for us. AI gives us personalized shopping recommendations. It writes emails for us. It helps us run businesses.  And all those tasks require lightning-fast computing and huge amounts of data. Which is why tech companies like Microsoft, Amazon and Meta are building massive data centers around the country.  Some state lawmakers have proposed incentives...

An ancient collection of dice discovered by archaeologists might rewrite the history of how humans have understood mathematical concepts like probability.   A new Colorado State University study examined the earliest known dice in human history.  Native American hunter-gatherers across the western U.S. first used the dice as early as 12,000 years ago.   Robert Madden , the CSU researcher behind th...

Last week, the In The NoCo team gathered some plant experts from CSU Extension and interviewed them about caring for the plants in our lives as we move from a warm, dry winter into what looks to be a hot, dry summer. It was part of In The NoCo’s first live episode, taped in front of an audience in Fort Collins.  Today, we share one of the conversations from that night, about lawn and turf triage....

It's one of the more unusual exhibits on display at the Butterfly Pavilion in Westminster.  Stroll past the colorful butterflies and other insects, and you'll find a 250-gallon saltwater tank. It houses part of a nationwide collaboration to save a badly damaged coral reef found off the coast of Florida.  The rescue project began in 2020 after a coalition of zoos and aquariums teamed up to house an...

TikTok has become a go-to source for news, especially for younger audiences .   But short-form videos on the social network don’t look or sound much like traditional journalism. Users see a stream of bite-size videos that favor strong opinions and controversy over nuance and depth.  So, how does consuming political content on TikTok actually affect young people ?  Michaelangelo Landgrave is a poli...

Democrats tend to position themselves as champions of workers: pro-union, pro-labor. But a bill that passed recently at the Colorado statehouse called some of that into question – and caused a split among Democratic state legislators.    Earlier this month, lawmakers voted to scale back overtime rules for farm workers . The vote followed several days of intense debate before 11 Democrats ultimatel...

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: Rocky Flats was the site of a plant that made plutonium triggers for nuclear weapons until it was shuttered in the early 19...

A bill being discussed at the state capitol has lawmakers sounding like a bunch of Swifties – or at least has them talking about Taylor Swift’s music.  State Sen. Jeff Bridges referenced the pop superstar’s album 1989 when he threw his support behind a proposed law that would make it easier for artists in Colorado to do business and help protect the rights to their creative work .   Bridges told t...

Mountain Plovers are a celebrated bird species in parts of Colorado. But if you’ve never seen one, you’re in the majority.   Mountain Plovers nest on Colorado’s eastern plains and are sometimes referred to as the “prairie ghost” because their sandy-colored plumage makes them hard to spot.   The annual Mountain Plover Festival in Karval – which begins this Friday – celebrates this bird.    The fest...

When a natural disaster strikes, we often think of children as the most vulnerable of victims. Picture families forced to evacuate during a wildfire, or kids forced to take remote classes for months during the pandemic.  A University of Colorado researcher says this thinking may be too simplistic – that it overlooks the ways children help out during and after a disaster, and the importance of lett...

Colorado has been a magnet for businesses over the past two decades. In the past seven years, the state attracted dozens of companies and more than 40,000 jobs, according to the governor’s office.    But that trend appears to be shifting .    Nearly a hundred companies are thinking about leaving Colorado – or have already done so. That’s according to a recent report from the Colorado Chamber Found...

Colorado author Collin Irish writes science fiction and fantasy. And while his new book includes imaginative storylines set in space, its inspiration came from a more personal place: Collin’s writing drew from his work as a volunteer youth mentor.    Collin works with some young men to help them better understand themselves through the use of storytelling and fairy tales. It’s part of a program ba...