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Ever wonder what it would feel like to be sucked into a black hole? Selected children will have the chance to fall into an artificial black hole, build a man that stretches to many times his normal size and participate in other activities at the Saturday, June 17, CU Wizards show on "Black Holes." Associate Professor Andrew Hamilton of the astrophysical and planetary sciences department will demonstrate the concepts of black holes in CU-Â鶹ӰԺ's Fiske Planetarium at 9:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m.

Succeeding as a performer in the music industry takes more than technical skills sharpened and finely tuned at traditional music schools like the College of Music at the University of Colorado at Â鶹ӰԺ. It takes entrepreneurship.

The popularity of Ecstasy (MDMA) with our nationÂ’s youth has health officials on the alert. It is becoming the staple of the ever-popular rave scene -- parties where teens and young adults "rave all night" because of the stimulating effects of the drug. "Ecstasy is a stimulant. It gives people a lot of energy so they can dance all night," said Judy Taub, a counselor in CU-Â鶹ӰԺ’s Substance Abuse Program at Wardenburg Health Center.

Future orbiting X-ray telescopes should confirm whether gigantic black holes in the universe, some of which are thought to weigh as much as several billion stars, are spinning like flywheels, according to a University of Colorado at Â鶹ӰԺ astrophysicist.

A group of astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory, in concert with other telescopes, have directly detected for the first time a new type of stellar flare occurring in a narrow temperature range of gas on a star other than the sun. Rachel Osten, a graduate student at the University of Colorado at Â鶹ӰԺ, said the flares were detected on a star, known as binary system HR 1099, in a very narrow temperature range of gas recorded in the ultraviolet portion of the light spectrum, but not in the higher energy X-ray region.

Five members of CU-Â鶹ӰԺ's Natural Resources Law Center will read from their latest works on June 6 from 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. in the Fleming Law Building on campus. The reading, titled "A Celebration of Natural Resources Authors," will kick off the NRLCÂ’s "Water and Growth in the West Conference," to be held June 7-9. Jim Corbridge, former CU-law professor and NRLC adviser, and Teresa Rice, former associate director of the center, will speak about the development of their new book, "Colorado Water Law."

Seventeen undergraduate students in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Colorado at Â鶹ӰԺ have received the prestigious Jacob Van Ek Award for outstanding academic achievement and contributions to the university and Â鶹ӰԺ communities. The award includes a $200 prize. The recipients were honored May 11 along with faculty members they named as mentors. The award was established in 1973 to honor Jacob Van Ek, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at CU-Â鶹ӰԺ from 1929 to 1959. Van Ek died in 1994 at the age of 97.

CU-Â鶹ӰԺ School of Law Professor Dale Oesterle was presented with the Clifford Calhoun Public Service Award in recognition of his contributions to the law school and the legal community. More than 30 faculty and staff members attended the May 13 luncheon at which the law school award was presented, including emeritus law Professor Clifford Calhoun, for whom the award is named.

Physics Professor Martin Goldman of the University of Colorado at Â鶹ӰԺ won second prize in the Pirelli INTERNETional Award of Italy for his creation of the Physics 2000 Web site. The award honored the Web site "for its interactive journey through modern physics, which succeeds in making the subject agreeable and understandable to the man on the street, without sacrificing scientific rigor."

Arctic Ozone Depletion Linked To Longevity Of Polar Stratospheric Clouds, Say Studies A significant decline in ozone over the Arctic last winter was due to an increase in the size and longevity of polar stratospheric clouds, according to a group of researchers who participated in a massive, international atmospheric science campaign.