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<p>Former University of Colorado President Alexander E. “Sandy” Bracken knows a few things about the role that effective leadership plays in career success and life in general.</p>
<p>As the Newton Leadership Chair at CU-Boulder, Bracken has the task – and desire – to bring more leadership training and development opportunities to students across all academic disciplines. One of the major components of this goal is the creation of the Newton Leadership Studies Minor, which will launch in the spring 2014 semester along with a new class (LEAD 1000) titled “Becoming a Leader.”</p>

<p>Engineering students at the University of Colorado Boulder will host the annual College Egg Drop competition Oct. 18 as part of Engineering Days. “E-Days” is an annual tradition during which students celebrate the engineering profession with fun and challenging competitions and social events. The event is organized by the University of Colorado Engineering Council (UCEC) and various student honor societies.</p>
<p>The egg drop, which starts at 1 p.m. on the west side of the Engineering Center, challenges students to create a contraption that will protect a raw egg when dropped from the eighth floor of the Engineering Center’s office tower.</p>

<p class="p1">Sky gazers will be better immersed in spectacular views at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Fiske Planetarium since the dome’s nearly 40-year-old analog projector was replaced with a new digital “star ball” in a project completed this week.</p>
<p class="p1">The modernized Fiske, which now can show a wider range of media including ultra high-definition movies, will reopen to the public at 10 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 12.</p>

<p>Scott Carpenter, a University of Colorado Boulder alumnus and a famed NASA Mercury astronaut who became only the second American to orbit Earth, died Thursday.  He was 88.</p>
<p>Carpenter, a Boulder native, entered CU-Boulder’s astronautical engineering program in 1945, eventually earning a bachelor of science degree. He orbited Earth three times on May 24, 1962, in NASA’s Aurora 7 capsule before splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean.</p>

<p>A new University of Colorado Boulder study indicates drought high in the northern Colorado mountains is the primary trigger of a massive spruce beetle outbreak that is tied to long-term changes in sea-surface temperatures from the Northern Atlantic Ocean, a trend that is expected to continue for decades.</p>

<p>The <em>105th Distinguished Research Lecture</em> will be presented on Oct. 18 at 3 p.m. in the Cristol Chemistry 140 auditorium. The Distinguished Research Lectureship is the highest honor bestowed upon a faculty member by the Graduate School. Its purpose is to honor and recognize an entire body of creative work and research.</p>
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This year’s recipient of the award, Dr. Owen Brian Toon, will present <em>“Dead Dinosaurs and Nuclear Wars.”</em> Dr. Toon was awarded the American Physical Society’s 1985 Leo Szilard Award for Physics in the Public Interest for his work on nuclear winter. He studies radiative transfer, aerosol and cloud physics, atmospheric chemistry and parallels between the Earth and planets.</div>

<p>Electrical currents born from thunderstorms are able to flow through the atmosphere and around the globe, causing a detectable electrification of the air even in places with no thunderstorm activity.</p>

<p>Taking breaks from the stress of a startup improves experienced entrepreneurs’ mental well-being, but not inexperienced entrepreneurs’ well-being, says a study led by the University of Colorado Boulder.</p>

<p>A small satellite designed and built by a team of University of Colorado Boulder students to better understand how atmospheric drag can affect satellite orbits was successfully launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California Sunday morning.</p>
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The satellite, known as the Drag and Atmospheric Neutral Density Explorer satellite, or DANDE, will investigate how a layer of Earth’s atmosphere known as the thermosphere varies in density at altitudes from about 200 to 300 miles above Earth. The commercial Falcon-9 SpaceX rocket lifted off the launch pad at about 10 a.m. MDT carrying DANDE, a small beach ball-sized satellite developed over a period of about six years by roughly 150 students, primarily undergraduates, as part of the Colorado Space Grant Consortium, or COSGS.</div>

<p>It’s popular to frame issues of variation in human health, intelligence and other traits as a question of “nature vs. nurture.” But, armed with new research methods and a burgeoning body of knowledge, leading scholars in the social sciences increasingly find that such dichotomous discussions fail to convey the nuance they observe in their research.</p>
<p>In a post-conference discussion on Oct. 12, researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder and the University of Wisconsin will give the public a closer and deeper look at their state of understanding.</p>