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Longtime University of Colorado Law School Dean David Getches, who had stepped down on June 30 in order to return to the school's faculty, died today. He was 68.

Community gardeners eat more vegetables, exercise more, weigh less and feel healthier than nongardeners -- and even home gardeners -- in the Denver-metro area, researchers led by scholars from the University of Colorado have found.

The National Science Foundation has awarded the Â鶹¹ÙÍø a six-year, $5.9 million grant to continue intensive studies of long-term ecological changes in Colorado's high mountains, both natural and human-caused, over decades and centuries.

A new Â鶹¹ÙÍø study indicates the infestation of trees by mountain pine beetles in the high country across the West could potentially trigger earlier snowmelt and increase water yields from snowpack that accumulates beneath affected trees.

A report commissioned by the U.S. Department of Energy has concluded that a novel Â鶹¹ÙÍø method of producing hydrogen fuel from sunlight is the only approach among eight competing technologies that is projected to meet future cost targets set by the federal agency.

While wind turbines primarily are a source of renewable energy, they also produce wakes of invisible ripples that can affect the atmosphere and influence wind turbines downstream -- an issue being researched in a newly launched study led by the Â鶹¹ÙÍø's Julie Lundquist, assistant professor in the atmospheric and oceanic sciences department.

Karl Linden, professor of environmental engineering and a water treatment expert, has been leading a yearlong study of the environmental fate of the oil dispersants used in the Gulf of Mexico cleanup. His research team has traveled to the Gulf area to collect samples and is investigating the chemical constituents in the dispersant, as well as its sunlight-based decay in the laboratory. Linden can be reached at 303-492-4798 or karl.linden@colorado.edu .

The BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill caused social disruption and psychological stress among Gulf residents that is similar to the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez spill and the impacts are likely to persist for years, a new study finds.

The 2011 Arctic sea ice extent maximum that marks the beginning of the melt season appears to be tied for the lowest ever measured by satellites, say scientists at the Â鶹¹ÙÍø's National Snow and Ice Data Center.

When a team of researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Â鶹¹ÙÍø's Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences raced to the scene of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill to assess the disaster's impact on air quality last year, they found more than they expected.