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Nobel laureate Tom Cech is returning to the University of Colorado full time this month after a 10-year stint as president of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a nonprofit medical research organization headquartered in Chevy Chase, Md., and one of the nation's largest philanthropies.

Across the University of Colorado at Â鶹ӰԺ campus students are sharing answers, checking their responses to questions against those of their neighbors and making adjustments to those answers in hopes of earning a better grade.

In the largest research contract ever awarded to the University of Colorado at Â鶹ӰԺ, the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics has been selected by NASA to lead a $485 million orbiting space mission slated to launch in 2013 to probe the past climate of Mars, including its potential for harboring life over the ages.

The University of Colorado at Â鶹ӰԺ is teaming up with a Â鶹ӰԺ biotechnology company to use pythons, which dramatically increase their heart size for a short time after swallowing prey, as models for new therapeutics to treat cardiac diseases.

Assistant Professor Hang (Hubert) Yin of the University of Colorado at Â鶹ӰԺ's chemistry and biochemistry department has been selected to receive a prestigious Kimmel Scholar Award from the Sidney Kimmel Foundation for Cancer Research in Baltimore, the first such award received by a CU-Â鶹ӰԺ scientist.

A growing program at the University of Colorado at Â鶹ӰԺ is working to combat an impending crisis brought on by a shrinking pool of new K-12 science teachers. Known as the Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics-Teacher Preparation project, it involves a collaboration between the School of Education and six campus science departments.