Universities Targeting Out-of-State Admissions for Tuitio...

Colorado Mesa University was typical of most public institutions in the fall of 2007, with out-of-state students making up a small number, about 5 percent, of the overall student body. But when the economic downturn hit in the fall of 2008, and state support for higher education began dwindling, Colorado Mesa President Tim Foster knew it was time to shake up the status quo. He decided to aggressively recruit out-of-state students, who pay 50 percent to 60 percent more than do Colorado residen...

 Using City Sewage to Survey a City's Microbiome

The team gathered samples over the course of a year from sewage treatment plants in 71 different cities in 31 states, chosen for their geographic spread and range of obesity rates. The leanest city sampled was Steamboat Springs, Colorado, with an obesity rate of 13.5 percent, while the heaviest was St. Joseph, Missouri, with a rate of 37.4 percent. Bacteria from human waste make up just a small proportion of the bacteria found in sewage. But using DNA sequencing, the researchers could identi...

 Cool Science Facts

"There are a million points of light in the universe traveling a million miles an hour away from us, yet they are so far away they appear to be standing still." "Estimate for # of planets in visible universe: 10^25, which = # molecules in a cup of water" Robert Garisto, PRL "I'm is Juliet Retenford and my favorite science fact is that marmoset siblings are all genetic chimeras of each other because they all share a single placenta so a single circulation." "Hi Dr. Jim Macena, University o...