Microbes living on or in the human body are critical for health. Outnumbering our own cells, we literally couldn’t survive without them. The same can be said for microbial life in our natural environment, where clean water and oxygen are just two essentials that come largely courtesy of microorganisms. Yet, while microbes are such heavy lifters in our natural environment, their role in our built environment is limited. But that’s changing, and various members of the Colorado School of Mines community are contributing to the transformation as they explore new ways to put microbes to work.

An assembly of service-minded individuals from Mines has pledged muscle and mind to countries cooperating with the Peace Corps over the last half-century. As the 50th anniversary of the organization recently passed, we asked some of those volunteers why they went, what they did, and how the experience has influenced their professional and personal journeys.

Division of Engineering students returned to campus this August to some big architectural changes—not only to the bricks and mortar, but also to the division itself. As expected, the 78,000-square-foot addition to Brown Hall had been completed; but along with the new configuration of the building, their division had been reorganized into Colorado School of Mines’ first college.

The promise of low-impact, renewable energy that is always on tap continues to drive geothermal energy research, and Mines faculty and students are hot on the trail.

A little student muscle and the massive efforts of a Nepalese community aim to make commerce exchange cheaper and easier by shortening the distance between two points.

In the days following the fiery April 20 blowout of BP’s Macondo well off the coast of Louisiana, TV viewers across the world watched dismayed at the images of crude oil spewing unabated into the Gulf of Mexico.

To understand how ubiquitous rare earth metals have become, look no further than the iPhone. It is powered by a permanent magnet made with the rare earth metal neodymium; the screen and display module are manufactured with europium, yttrium and terbium; and the lens in the camera has a coating of lanthanum. The device,

As in part I, our survey of the last five decades of Mines magazine is generated with a broad brush: excerpts are only from those

When Terry Fox ’89 tells groups of inner-city children to aim high, that with hard work and persistence they can achieve their most ambitious dreams,

To mark Mines magazine’s 100th anniversary, we offer an abbreviated history in two parts. With about 40,000 pages published to date, this history is gleaned from samplings taken at 10-year intervals: 1910, 1920, 1930 and so on. Part I, included in this issue, covers the years 1910 – 1960, while Part II, slated for the spring issue, will cover the years since 1960. To augment this retrospective, and to enable readers to take their own journey through the last century of Mines magazine, more than 100 issues have been scanned and made available as searchable PDF documents. To access these, simply click on 100-Year Archives menu option above.

Dave Zanetell ’87 has spent the last six years leading the design and construction of a historic bridge in the shadow of Hoover Dam. This account details some of the many challenges he faced to complete such a monumental project.

Tim Marquez ’80 and his wife, Bernie, recently attended the groundbreaking for Marquez Hall. This article details the couple’s motivations for their $10-million matching gift for the building, while tracing some of Tim’s turbulent and intriguing professional journey.

Arden Bement ’54 stepped down as director of the National Science Foundation at the end of May 2010. Appointed by President George W. Bush in 2004, he was the 12th director of the 60-year-old agency and only the second engineer to fill the post.

Learn to Play, Play to Learn The New Landscape of Varsity Athletics and Recreational Sports By Eric Hübler and Nick Sutcliffe “It’s been an outstanding

He heads the Life Science Division of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and he is a highly respected figure in the international cancer research community, yet Joe Gray ’68 doesn’t have a formal biological-anything degree to his name.
Recipient of a Distinguished Achievement Medal from Mines in 2005, Gray is in fact a physicist…

IDAHO SPRINGS – It’s 8 a.m. at the Edgar Experimental Mine, and 500 feet below ground, two miners are praying for a rescue. Moments earlier,…

Of the 3,500 different grades of steel that currently exist, 2,600 have been developed in the last 20 years, and the pace of innovation is quickening. With a changing energy landscape driving demand for new formulations, many manufacturers are turning to Mines’ Steel Center for research and collaboration…

Bring your hard hat if you come to campus anytime soon – there is some major construction going on.

Counting the two projects under way and two that will shortly begin, Mines is adding about a quarter-million square feet (equivalent to five football fields) of new building space to campus over the next two years, at a cost of…

Following his nomination for the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, Ryan O’Hayre ’99 explains how his fuel cell research can change the way we power our lives.

Equipped with guys and common sense (but minimal mountaineering experience), three young Miners and their friends attempted to climb Mt. McKinley in the summer of 2008, taking on a grueling 26-day, 170-mile slog with packs that weighed 150 pounds on day one.

Hugh and Michelle Harvey gave Colorado School of Mines $10 million in the spring of 2009 to endow a scholarship program – their story is one of bold entrepreneurship, collaboration, innovation and open-handed generosity.

For decades geophysicists have illuminated the subsurface by blasting sound waves downward and interpreting what bounces back. Now a geophysics professor is on the vanguard of a new and promising technique that uses subtle electrical measurements.

The Mines curriculum has changed. Just how significant are these changes? This story examines whether a Mines degree is any easier today than it used to be.

A new research center at Mines is helping to develop technological solutions to the growing scarcity of water in the arid West. By developing enhanced water purification technologies, previously untapped water resources could become usable.

Seven Mines alumni work Colorado’s only active underground gold mine, which is situated only a stone’s throw from one of the first Rocky Mountain gold strikes.