University of Florida
Scientists have recovered fossils from a 60-million-year-old South American snake whose length and weight might make today's anacondas and reticulated pythons seem a bit cuter and more cuddly.
Football fans faced with a frosty pitcher of beer and a heaping platter of wings on Super Bowl Sunday often respond as if it were fourth-and-goal -- they go for it. But weight-conscious people should heed the humble rat, which stays trim by instinctively cutting calories when indulging in alcoholic drinks, say researchers at the University of Florida's psychology department and the Evelyn F. and William L. McKnight Brain Institute.
The recent collision of two huge asteroids or tiny planets may be the cause of the mysterious lopsided appearance of the most famous of the universe's planet-forming stars, a team of astronomers says. Relying on observations from the Gemini South telescope in Chile, the University of Florida-led team has concluded that differences in brightness in the dust disc surrounding a star known as Beta Pictoris stem from an extra bright clump on one side of the disc. This clump, the astronomers say, is composed of dust particles that are consistently smaller than particles elsewhere in the disc – likely evidence of a collision of two massive asteroids or tiny developing planets known as planetismals that may have occurred as recently as in the past few decades.
The key to why humans age may be found deep within the heart, a University of Florida researcher says. A UF study has found that in the heart muscle, one of the two populations of mitochondria deteriorates more quickly, encouraging the production of age-promoting molecules called free radicals. These are formed when oxygen electrons escape during the mitochondria's energy-producing process. The findings, which were published in an online journal Jan. 10, shed new light on the complex workings of the body's most vital organ and may help scientists find a way to halt the natural deterioration that occurs in the heart with aging.
Lifting weights can improve muscle strength and quality of life for people afflicted with the degenerative disease multiple sclerosis, a new University of Florida study finds. "This is the first published report using a conventional weight-training program for patients with MS," said Lesley White, a professor in UF's department of applied physiology and kinesiology and the study's lead author. "We designed an exercise program to develop muscle strength because MS causes muscle weakness and fatigue, which contribute to a declining cycle of fitness, loss of mobility and decreased quality of life."
Peanuts are often thought of as high-fat foods, but party goers can feel a little better about reaching for the roasted nuts at holiday gatherings this season. Not only do peanuts contain the so-called "good" kind of fat, but University of Florida researchers have found they also are high in a wide variety of helpful antioxidants, rivaling the fruits often sought out by health-conscious consumers.
Desalination is often touted as one solution to the world's water woes, but current desalination plants tend to hog energy. Now Florida researchers have developed a technology that can tap waste heat from electrical power plants as its main source of energy, an advance that could significantly reduce the cost of desalination in some parts of the world.
An international group of researchers has found a new subspecies of tiger -- and they did it by delving into DNA rather than plunging into the jungle. A genetic analysis of tigers from across Asia revealed that tigers roaming the wilds of the Malaysian Peninsula are substantially different from those in the rest of the continent -- different enough to be considered a new subspecies. The finding, published today in the journal Public Library of Science Biology, could affect efforts to save the endangered cats.
A good night's sleep may be the remedy for a bad day at work, suggests a new University of Florida study on the unexplored relationship between job satisfaction and the shifting moods of employees. Employees who have stressful days bring their negative moods home with them at night, but in most cases they disappear by morning, said Timothy Judge, a UF management professor who did the research.
The sexual revolution did not start in the free-loving 1960s as is commonly thought, a University of Florida researcher says. It began with the ''silent generation'' of the 1940s and '50s, which as its moniker implies, didn't talk much about sex. U.S. Census Bureau statistics on premarital pregnancy and vital statistics on single motherhood between 1940 and 1960 point to the unexpected conclusion that there was much more sexual activity during those decades than Americans were willing to admit.
Using a novel vector delivery system researchers at the University of Florida designed a ''nifty, seemingly simple idea'' that turned out to produce significant results in terms of preventing enlargement and hardening of the heart associated with hypertension. The study goes a long way in learning how hypertension develops as well how genes can be targeted and regulated within specific organs. Because the procedure didn't simultaneously reduce blood pressure, the approach could also have therapeutic application in treating heart failure and heart attacks.
Like an episode of ''CSI: Computers,'' a Florida researcher has developed a technique that gives digital detectives twice the forensic evidence they now have to catch all kinds of hackers, from curious teenagers to disgruntled employees to agents of foreign governments. ''If a guy walks into a bank and robs it, leaving footprints behind or his fingerprints on the counter, the forensic analyst would come in and find those traces of what happened.''In the same way, process forensics merges two existing types of digital evidence -- intrusion-detection and checkpointing technology -- to give an investigator the most possible information to crack a case.
Elderly blacks are more likely than their white counterparts to feel overwhelmed by daily life, but at the same time are more inclined to view depression as a condition they can overcome through personal or religious strength rather than a medical one, a new University of Florida study finds. ''This sense of being overwhelmed may be associated with an incessant feeling among many older African-Americans that even in late life they continue to struggle for survival because of the lingering effects of racism and the cumulative effect of a lifetime of limited opportunities.''
It may be the nation's biggest toxic mystery. In the first half of the 20th century, farmers across the Sun Belt states dug thousands of pits in which they regularly dipped their cattle in arsenic-laden pesticide, to kill ticks that carry a dreaded cattle disease. Still contaminated with the cancer-causing metal, those pits now pose a threat to drinking water supplies, environmental officials say -- but most of the pits are abandoned, their locations forgotten. Now Florida researchers have developed a technique using aerial photography and computer technology that might make it possible to locate even the best-hidden vat sites.
Inmates at the Seminole County Correctional Facility, who have been growing their own vegetables for more than 10 years, are now raising thousands of beneficial bugs that attack insect pests and feed on troublesome weeds in Florida. The insect ''farming'' program -- the first of its kind in the nation -- will generate about $2,000 a year for the inmate welfare fund at the facility and help inmates develop marketable skills for future employment.
