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A new survey of the world's top universities cited in the Sept. 8 issue of The Economist ranks the University of Colorado at Boulder as the 11th best public university. A total of 500 international institutions were ranked in the 2005 survey, undertaken by the Institute for Higher Education at Jiao Tong University in Shanghai, China. The survey ranked Harvard University first, followed by Stanford University, the University of Cambridge, the University of California-Berkeley and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology among all universities, both public and private.

An Aboriginal tribe's knowledge of the stars, and its culture, stories and music will be explored at the University of Colorado at Boulder's Fiske Planetarium Sept. 22-23. John Stocke, a CU-Boulder professor of astrophysical and planetary sciences, will be joined by Aboriginal elder Bill Yidumduma Harney and Australian storyteller and educator Paul Taylor to present "Aboriginal Skies" at 7:30 p.m. on both days. Harney, an elder of the Wardaman tribe of the Northern Territory in Australia, will share his traditional knowledge of Aboriginal life, land and sky.

A self-lighting candle and "elephant snot" are among the demonstrations that will illustrate concepts of heat and thermodynamics at the Sept. 17 CU Wizards show "Too Hot to Handle." University of Colorado at Boulder faculty member Janet deGrazia of the department of chemical and biological engineering will lead the presentation starting at 9:30 a.m. in Cristol Chemistry and Biochemistry Building room 140. The show is free and open to the public.

The University of Colorado at Boulder received $257.6 million in sponsored research awards during the 2005 fiscal year, roughly half of it from the National Science Foundation, NASA and the Department of Health and Human Services. The 2005 sponsored research total was down by about 1 percent from last year's record total of $259.7 million received by CU-Boulder. The campus first topped the $200 million mark in 1999.

A team of University of Colorado at Boulder geophysicists is leading a study funded by the National Science Foundation to precisely measure the ground movement and earthquake potential of the Rio Grande Rift in Colorado and New Mexico. Using state-of-the-art Global Positioning System instruments at 24 sites in Colorado and New Mexico, the research team will track the rift's movement in millimeters during most of the next three years. The study will provide unprecedented data about the volcanically active region.

Leading local and national corporate governance experts will speak on the growing challenges of board liability and oversight during a University of Colorado at Boulder Leeds School of Business seminar in September. The 2005 Corporate Governance Seminar is being offered by the Leeds School's executive development program and will be held Sept. 22-23 at the Denver Country Club.

Humans have been tinkering with greenhouse gas levels in Earth's atmosphere for at least 2,000 years and probably longer, according to a surprising new study of methane trapped in Antarctic ice cores conducted by an international research team.

The Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder commissioned a series of six articles in 2004 titled "Disasters Waiting to Happen," one of which focused on a major hurricane striking New Orleans.

Edward E. David, Jr., science adviser to former President Richard Nixon from 1970 to 1973, will speak on the University of Colorado at Boulder campus on Sept.12. Sponsored by CU-Boulder's Center for Science and Technology Policy Research, the talk is part of a year-long series titled "Policy, Politics and Science in the White House: Conversations with Presidential Science Advisers."

Campus officials at the University of Colorado at Boulder are reminding students, faculty and staff about the importance of computer security as part of a yearlong effort to raise awareness. The warnings come on the heels of a number of serious security breaches at the university over the summer.