Published: Jan. 20, 2017
Ancient animals in a desert landscape

This week's top research stories include a cloud seeding effort aimed at increasing mountain snowfall, a look at the Colorado business landscape and a study that points to human-caused extinctions of some huge and astonishing Australian creatures 45,000 years ago.

Humans, not climate change, wiped out Australian megafauna

New evidence involving the ancient poop of some of the huge and astonishing creatures that once roamed Australia indicates the primary cause of their extinction around 45,000 years ago was likely a result of humans, not climate change.

Cloud seeding aims to increase mountain snowfall, power generation

CU Boulder is participating in a cloud-seeding effort, launched this month, to increase winter snowfall in the mountains of southwest Idaho with hopes of ultimately increasing power generation by hydroelectric dams.

The research project, Seeded and Natural Orographic Wintertime Clouds – the Idaho Experiment (SNOWIE), is a joint project headed up by CU Boulder, the University of Wyoming and the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign. The idea is to increase mountain snowfall, which leads to more runoff in some rivers, and the subsequent power generation capacity throughout the year.

Colorado business landscape saw strong growth in close of 2016

New business filings exhibited “unrelenting growth” in the final quarter of 2016, whilethe energy sector has reached bottom but is in the early stages of recovery, according to a CU Boulder report released today by Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams.

It also shows that employment growth is projected to continue, but at a slower pace in the first half of 2017. The report – prepared by CU Boulder’sat theusing data from the secretary of state’s business registry – additionally notes enormous differences in employment between the urban and rural parts of the state, reaching below-peak and peak levels, respectively.

Mountain top

CU Boulder is participating in a cloud-seeding effort to increase mountain snowfall and power generation.

Construction worker on beam

CU Boulder business report points to continued employment growth in Colorado in 2017.