Year-round ice-free conditions across the surface of the Arctic Ocean could explain why the Earth was substantially warmer during the Pliocene Epoch than it is today, despite similar concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, according to new research carried out at the University of Colorado Boulder. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Phys.org
Aerobic exercise can help prevent and even reverse some brain damage linked to high alcohol intake, according to new research carried out at the University of Colorado Boulder…
Most people are happier if they know they are having sex more often than their friends, according to new research published by Tim Wadsworth, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Colorado Boulder. We already know that people are happier if they know they are earning more money than their peers…
For some University of Colorado Boulder undergraduates, designing, building and flying small satellites is becoming a large part of their hands-on education.
The Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal Monday by former university professor Ward Churchill, who was fired after making controversial statements about the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Churchill, a former tenured ethnic studies professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, lost his job in 2007 after an investigation uncovered flaws and deficiencies in his academic work.
The university prompted the investigation after Churchill wrote an online essay about the terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Churchill compared 9/11 victims to Adolf Eichmann, a notorious Nazi convicted of war crimes and eventually executed in 1962.
Churchill claimed he was fired in retaliation for his comments and sued the school, saying his First Amendment rights were violated.
His comments and case caused public outrage.
According to a Reuters report, state courts ruled in favor of University of Colorado, saying in part that the investigation and subsequent determinations made by the school were a “quasi-judicial action” that was the same as a judicial process, meaning that Churchill could not sue.
The FoxNews.com reporter who broke the exclusive story about a notebook that Colorado shooter James Holmes sent to his psychiatrist is in a courtroom this morning, facing contempt and possible jail time in a case experts say has chilling ramifications for the First Amendment.
Jana Winter is set to appear before Arapahoe County District Judge William Sylvester, who required her in response to a Holmes’ defense attorney request that she reveal the sources of her story. Attorneys for Fox News objected to the Winter subpoena. They declined to comment on the case in advance of the hearing.
The case is being monitored by First Amendment watchdogs and journalism advocates, who said Sylvester is sending an ominous message to the media – as well as the public – in asking Winter to reveal her sources.
“This is the classic reason to have shield laws,” said Gene Policinski, senior vice president and executive director of the First Amendment Center, based in Washington, D.C. “There must be protection for journalists to be free to report what they know, because that is how the public takes measure independently of how the courts operate.”
Sylvester issued a gag order to law enforcement authorities in the days following the July 20 attack, in which Holmes allegedly killed 12 and injured 70. Holmes’ attorneys claim Winter’s story, published on July 25 and picked up by media outlets around the world, has jeopardized his right to a fair trial.
However, Holmes’ attorneys have also said they would enter a guilty plea and avoid trial if prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty. Prosecutors have previously said they are not interested in accepting the plea deal, and are expected to address the issue on Monday, when Holmes is also set to appear.
Winter’s story cited unnamed law enforcement sources in describing the contents of the notebook Holmes sent to Dr. Lynne Fenton, a psychiatrist who saw Holmes while he was a neuroscience graduate student at the University of Colorado’s Boulder campus. Sylvester allowed Holmes’ lawyers to launch an investigation after the story ran in an attempt to uncover Winter’s sources, but none of the more than a dozen law enforcement officials who were called to testify admitted talking directly to the media. They were not asked to say if they had discussed the notebook with others.
Requiring the testimony of a reporter to learn who violated a gag order is rare – and almost never warranted – argued Gregg Leslie, legal defense director for the Arlington, Va.,-based Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
“In a case like this, you initially understand the judge’s interest in finding out who violated an order, but you don’t do that by making a journalist violate their promises of confidentiality,” said Leslie, who said concerns that leaks violate a defendant’s right to a fair trial are often “overblown, or fade quickly.”
Reporters have a tradition of protecting sources, even under the threat of jail. Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Judy Miller, currently a Fox News contributor but at the time with The New …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News
A new look at conditions after a Manhattan-sized asteroid slammed into a region of Mexico in the dinosaur days indicates the event could have triggered a global firestorm that would have burned every twig, bush and tree on Earth and led to the extinction of 80 percent of all Earth’s species, says a new University of Colorado Boulder study. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Phys.org
University of Colorado Boulder astronomers targeting one of the brightest quasars glowing in the universe some 11 billion years ago say “sideline quasars” likely teamed up with it to heat abundant helium gas billions of years ago, preventing small galaxy formation. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Phys.org
