In The NOCO

Mysterious, unsolicited packages are showing up in people's mailboxes in Colorado and several other states.    They appear to be sent from another country, often China. Labels on the packages suggest there’s a small piece of merchandise inside, like jewelry or some kind of wire connector.    Instead, recipients find packets of seeds inside – with no indication of what the seeds are, who sent them,...

Drive through some communities in Colorado, and your movements may be monitored by a network of cameras that track your license plate.    A company called Flock Safety operates dozens of these cameras in Boulder, Denver and Fort Collins. They’ve quietly photographed millions of cars over the last year.  And right now, these cities are grappling with the question of whether these cameras help fight...

Young women are more active in sports than ever – and more visible. Think Naomi Osaka on the tennis court or Caitlin Clark playing hoops. Colorado’s first-ever women’s professional soccer team, Denver Summit FC , just played its inaugural match on Saturday. And overall, young women’s participation in sports continues to increase.  But female athletes face different health challenges than their mal...

Back in 1948, the U.S and other countries created a unique coalition:  The World Health Organization was established to address global health challenges including disease outbreaks like the COVID-19 pandemic.     At the start of this year, the Trump administration formally withdrew the U.S. from the WHO.  That withdrawal creates uncertainty over how the U.S., and individual states like Colorado, w...

Colorado has a childcare shortage. Many childcare centers see more applications from families who need care than there are spaces available.    And for parents of infants, it’s worse: Ten rural Colorado counties don't have a single licensed childcare provider for babies under the age of 18 months.    That lack of licensed care options for infants in places like Leadville and Salida has forced some...

The Great Gatsby is classic American literature. F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel about wealth and longing has generally been celebrated ever since it was published in 1925.   But a Colorado author’s latest book asks you to consider the story from a different vantage point.  Writer Allyson Reedy recently published Mrs. Wilson’s Affair . It's told from the perspective of Myrtle Wilson – a tragic charact...

Runny noses. Red eyes. Sneezing and itching and grogginess. If it feels like your seasonal allergies have flared up earlier than usual, it's not your imagination.   This year’s warm, dry winter means some plants and trees are flowering – and producing pollen – even earlier than usual.  That’s happening on top of what allergy experts say is a larger trend in which pollen season starts earlier and l...

A diagnosis of chronic depression or bipolar disorder can be daunting. These conditions can come with feelings of sadness or despair, or intense mood swings.     But a researcher at the University of Colorado says we might be thinking too simplistically about these disorders.    June Gruber   is a professor of psychology and neuroscience who runs the Positive Emotion and Psychopathology Lab at CU...

Colorado could soon see a new wave of home solar power — but not in the form of the large solar panels you may see on rooftops around your neighborhood. Instead: Imagine slim, portable panels that you can attach to a porch or balcony and then plug into your wall.    Small-scale solar units like these are already popular in Europe. But they’re almost unheard of in the U.S., partly because of regula...

In most states, if someone repeatedly hasn't paid a medical bill, collectors can eventually go to that person's employer and garnish their paycheck – which means that they withhold a portion of that person's earnings to pay off the debt.    Critics of wage garnishment say the practice disproportionately affects lower income patients .    Now a bill under consideration at the state capitol would ef...

 A bit of regional science news may have slipped past you last week. You could be forgiven if you missed the Trump administration's announcement that it's removing federal protections from a bird species known as the lesser prairie-chicken.  It roams the southern Great Plains, including southeast Colorado. It makes a sound known as “booming” when it dances as part of its distinctive mating ritual....

Greeley has been one of the fastest-growing metro areas in the country in recent years, according to U.S. Census data. Since 2000, the city has grown from around 76,000 residents to nearly 114,000.    An ambitious, nearly billion-dollar plan to develop 800 acres on the west side of the city would have continued that growth streak.   The project, known as Catalyst , would include homes, a luxury ho...

Climate change is a threat to the state's ski industry. Warmer winters mean shorter seasons and less snow at resorts around Colorado – and presumably, less revenue for the companies that run them.  But those companies take different approaches to advocating for measures that could slow climate change, or offset it.   As Colorado’s ski industry limps through one of the driest winters in decades, to...

We often think of destructive wildfires in terms of their size and the damage they cause: the number of acres burned or buildings destroyed.   But emerging research says not all major wildfires belong in the same category.    Some wildfires ignite and spread explosively. They move so swiftly that firefighting crews simply can’t keep up. The 2021 Marshall Fire , which scorched about a thousand home...

If you're a homeowner in Colorado, there are a few types of natural disaster that might threaten your home. One is wildfire. Another is a severe hailstorm.  Hazards like these are the reason people buy homeowners insurance. But a new analysis released this month says that hailstorms and wildfires have very different impacts on what Coloradans pay for insurance. As you might expect, the threat of w...

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...

Even in a milder Colorado winter like this one, short days and cooler temperatures leave many people with the winter blues. In fact, it’s a medical condition. Seasonal affective disorder is a form of depression some people feel during the fall and winter months.     Our guest today offers a form of relief for the winter blues – if we’re willing to step outside, give our phones a rest, and tune int...

In the late 1960s, a new movement of Black music grew out of the end of the civil rights era. Black artists proudly declared their Black power and rocked the airwaves with the sound of funk.     Funk music was more than just a genre with excellent grooves. It had a deeper social and political meaning. Funk began as a reaction to tumultuous times and would ultimately lay the foundation for the hip...

It’s a crisis that's quietly putting pressure on Colorado public school systems: The state's tight housing market has made it increasingly difficult in recent years for districts to hire teachers and other school employees.   US News recently reported that Colorado ranks 48th in housing affordability – which means many teachers find it difficult to find a place to live if they accept a job in a Co...

The 2026 Winter Olympics are beginning their final week in Italy. And it might surprise you to learn that some of those snowy race courses in the Italian Alps aren’t necessarily a product of natural snowfall.   At lower elevations, where cross-country and many other events take place, what we’re seeing is large swaths of artificial snow.    Warmer winters and less-predictable snowfall mean that wi...

Researcher Caitlin Clark has a job a lot of people would envy. Clark is a food scientist who oversees a laboratory devoted entirely to the study of chocolate – how it’s made, what makes it taste so good, and how to make new and better varieties of it.  She and her team, based at the Colorado State University Food Innovation Center in Denver, work to dream up new confections that hopefully will end...

A landscape in decline – and a surprisingly fast rebound. It’s a story that played out in the Kawuneeche Valley recently on the west side of Rocky Mountain National Park.   The willow groves and wetlands in that area had become so badly depleted that a park ecologist used the term “ecosystem collapse” to describe the surrounding environment.  That collapse reversed itself quickly after crews insta...

Colorado has sent more athletes to the 2026 Winter Games in Italy than any other state. And nearly a third of those 32 Coloradans competing in events like snowboarding, slalom, or ski jumping hail from Steamboat Springs.   About 100 Olympic athletes live or have lived in Steamboat Springs – more than any other town in the U.S. Which got us wondering: How did Steamboat foster an environment where y...

The first sanctioned walkout at a major American meatpacking plant in decades appears to be unfolding in Northern Colorado. It’s happening during a particularly tense moment for U.S. immigration policies.    The workers at Greeley’s JBS meatpacking plant voted overwhelmingly last week to move forward with the strike. The workforce there, which is made up of a large number of Haitian refugees, are...

Scenes of ICE agents on the streets of Minneapolis have dominated headlines and news footage in recent weeks.   Those images also raise concerns about immigration enforcement in Colorado . The state saw a surge in arrests since President Trump took office a year ago – and some people are worried that what happened in Minneapolis might play out here.    Today, we talk with an elected official who’s...