In The NOCO

The Colorado Rockies have some of the most loyal fans in all of baseball. And that might be part of their problem.  The Rockies, as you may have heard, are having one of the worst seasons in Major League Baseball’s modern history. And yet the fans still show up – on average, about 30,000 of them attended each home game so far this season .   It's been the story of the Rockies for years: The team s...

Colorado recently hit a milestone: The first licensed psychedelic therapy clinic opened in June after voters here said magic mushrooms should be legal . So lots of reporters have written about the licensing process, interviewed therapists, and written about whether psychedelic mushrooms have real value in helping people recover from trauma, PTSD or other issues.   Our guest today is one of those r...

Trails on several of Colorado’s fourteeners are getting a facelift this summer.   Mount Democrat , Mount Bierstadt , Mount Blue Sky , and Mount Shavano are some of Colorado’s most popular mountains for hikers, but some of the trails on them are in rough shape.   A nonprofit called the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative (CFI) is working this summer to update trail routes on those and other mountains t...

If you decided to plant a vegetable garden earlier this spring, you’re probably already enjoying some of those home-grown tomatoes, zucchini, or peppers.    On the other hand, you may have decided that the potential benefits of growing your own food just aren’t worth the effort.  Colorado’s intense climate, elevation and scarce rainfall make vegetable gardening a challenge. But there’s hope.  Cass...

Dozens of aspiring educators in Colorado are taking an unusual path to earn their teacher certificates.   They’re doing apprenticeships in public schools as part of a state program that offers an alternative path to gaining a teacher’s license and bachelor’s degree. Proponents see the program as a partial solution to Colorado’s teacher shortage, which resulted in thousands of unfilled classroom po...

When we shop for food, the labels on our groceries give us guideposts, such as how much fiber, protein or fat is in that loaf of bread or jar of peanut butter.    But more than a decade after Colorado legalized recreational cannabis, the potency labeling on products at your local marijuana dispensary may be far less helpful – and less reliable.  A new study from the University of Colorado Boulder...

The red admiral. The black swallowtail. And the beautiful, bright orange monarch.   Each year a network of volunteers fans out across Colorado to see how many of these, and other butterfly species, they can find. Those observations help scientists understand the health of the state’s butterfly population.   Our guest today says that work is vital because butterflies are sensitive to changes in cli...

  Since 1960, the National Repertory Orchestra has brought talented college-aged musicians to Colorado to practice the art of playing in an ensemble.   Each season, about 80 young musicians are selected to join the NRO in Breckenridge. They spend eight weeks rehearsing and performing in Summit County. Many of them go on to pursue careers in professional orchestras across the country.     To get a...

A few weeks back, a pair of hikers found themselves stranded on a cliff atop Quandary Peak – 14,000 feet in elevation – in cold temperatures. A rescue crew had to respond by helicopter and lift them off the mountain.     It was one of 10 helicopter hoists that Colorado search and rescue crews performed this year through the end of June. That’s a record number. These dangerous maneuvers require hel...

The U.S. Senate this week will likely vote on whether to rescind about $1.1 billion earmarked to support the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for the next two years. That money ultimately funds local stations like KUNC and The Colorado Sound, along with NPR and PBS.   The GOP-controlled House of Representatives has already voted to kill the funding . President Trump has backed the cuts and thre...

In October 2009, Colorado and the nation held its breath as we waited to learn the fate of a 6-year-old who was thought to be stuck inside a silver balloon floating across Northern Colorado.   The Heene family was living in Fort Collins in 2009 when they made a giant helium filled balloon shaped like a saucer. They called police one afternoon to say they’d lost control of the balloon and that it h...

For a lot of people, July and early August in Steamboat Springs is all about tubing on the Yampa River.   People rent a tube in downtown Steamboat, hop into the river just a few steps away and float past wildlife and hot springs. Some days, tourists in brightly colored tubes stretch from one side of the river to the other.  But it’s very likely commercial tubing season on the Yampa will be alarmin...

A warmer, drier future for Colorado has many people wondering about their lawns. Drought and heat turn lawns brown or kills them altogether.  How can we sustain a lawn with less water and less mowing? And should we keep them at all?  Tony Koski is a professor of horticulture and landscape architecture at Colorado State University. He teaches a class on growing a lawn that's resilient in the face o...

In 2025, chatbots are part of our everyday life. They pop up on your screen while you’re checking your bank account or making an online purchase.   But a few years from now, it may be just as easy to have a conversation with a chatbot who recreates a dead loved one.  That’s the idea behind a kind of technology called a generative ghost.  Jed Brubaker is an associate professor in the Department of...

A tiny, green insect that bores under the bark of ash trees is spreading in Colorado.   The emerald ash borer has been making its way around the Front Range for the last decade. It damages ash trees and often kills them. And this year it’s been spotted in Denver .   Ash trees make up about one in every six trees in the urban forests along the Front Range. So what can we do to protect ash trees and...

How does a community heal from the shock and grief of a mass shooting? And how can people who have lost loved ones find a way to move forward?   That’s the subject of a new podcast called Senseless . In it, journalist Erika Mahoney explores the aftermath of the mass shooting at a Boulder King Soopers grocery store in 2021. And it’s a deeply personal show, because Erika's father, Kevin Mahoney, was...

In the months ahead, leaders across the West will wrestle with a proposal to use federal land as a remedy for housing shortages.    You may remember that a few weeks ago, Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah wanted to sell off thousands of government-owned acres in Western states, including some parts of Colorado. That plan died when some key Republican senators refused to support it.    But a similar...

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...