Nell London

Shutdown rules are being relaxed and business owners who’ve been closed for weeks can reopen now, or sometime soon, depending on where they operate. They’re struggling with how to keep their employees safe, protect their customers and follow a maze of state and local regulations.

We are living in historic times. When future generations ask what it was like during the coronavirus pandemic, History Colorado wants to be able to answer in Coloradans’ own words.

Today, we’ll hear from a doctor who was fired for help she gave a terminally ill patient. We’ll also hear from the health system that fired her. Here’s how this unfolded: a patient came to Dr. Barbara Morris, asking about Colorado’s End-of-Life Options Act. The doctor knew it wouldn’t be easy to proceed because her employer, Centura Health, considers aid-in-dying morally unacceptable. The Catholic and Adventist system laid that out in her employment agreement. She and her patient sued to challenge that position. And then, last month, she was fired. We’ll hear from the CEO of Centura, which has 15 hospitals in Colorado, but we begin the discussion with Dr. Barbara Morris.

It’s been five years since the Rocky Mountain U.S. Patent and Trademark Office opened. How much of an impact has it had on innovation in the state? The director of the regional branch, Molly Kocialski, has the answer and reveals some of the interesting inventions she’s seen come out of Colorado.

Patented inventions are everywhere, from the post-it notes on your desk to the windshield wipers on your car. This year, Denver businesswoman Sirena Rolfe snagged one of the more than 10 million patents issued in the United States. Her invention is a hood to protect your hairdo when it’s raining. Rolfe is proof that even in this high-tech world, a person with a good idea can still get a patent. But it’s not always easy. We talk to Rolfe about her journey and with University of Denver law school professor Bernard Chao about the challenges of getting a patent. It’s part of our series, Disruptors, which explores entrepreneurship in Colorado.

It was 1859. And the largest solar flare ever seen lit up the Northern Lights so bright that campers in Colorado said they could read the newspaper at midnight. Now, new research shows we could face a much bigger flare in the future, and it’s a cause for concern in the digital age. Doug Duncan is an astronomer at CU-Boulder. He joins us regularly to talk about space science.

A quarter of all Coloradans 65 or older are saying “not yet” to the traditional retirement age and still working. That rate has doubled since 2000.

The Denver-based start-up ships wild-caught fish from Iceland. Consumers can scan a barcode to learn about their meal’s fisherman and boat.

Boulder-based Bond Pet Foods plans to introduce lab-grown meat into the pet food industry in the next few years.

NASA approved two Centennial State moon lander bidders: aerospace industry titan Lockheed Martin and the small female-owned Deep Space Systems.