UCF in the News

A team of international researchers—including experts from the University of Central Florida and Emory University—has proven, for the first time in a field study, that using folic acid-fortified iodized table salt can prevent multiple severe birth defects. The importance of women having enough folic acid in their bodies before and during pregnancy to prevent permanent and life-threatening birth defects, such as spina bifida and anencephaly, has been known for decades. The World Health Organization recommends that all women should take supplement pills with 400 micrograms of folic acid daily, from the moment they begin attempting to conceive through the first three months of pregnancy. Mandatory staple food fortification with folic acid is a cost-effective, safe, and equitable way to address the issue. In May 2023, the World Health Assembly adopted a resolution promoting food fortification with folic acid to accelerate the slow pace of prevention of spina bifida and other birth defects associated with low maternal folate levels at the time of early pregnancy. Yet approximately 260,000 births worldwide—about 20 per every 10,000 births—are still affected by spina bifida and anencephaly, contributing to a high number of stillbirths, elective pregnancy terminations, and deaths of infants and young children.

Years of hard work led up to the opening of a long-awaited envelope at the University of Central Florida Friday. It was Match Day, the day when medical students learned where they'll be spending the next few years of their life in a residency program.

Living in neighborhoods with more white residents and greater lifetime experiences of racial discrimination are linked to increased systemic inflammation during pregnancy among Black women, according to new research led by a team from Penn State. The study, published in the February issue of the journal Brain, Behavior, & Immunity -- Health, found that these social-environmental factors were associated with higher levels of a protein that has been connected to chronic stress and an elevated risk of preterm birth. The findings shed light on the distinctive stressors that Black women face and how they may influence pregnancy outcomes, the researchers said. Other authors on the paper are Carmen Giurgescu, professor and associate dean for research and principal investigator of the broader study, University of Central Florida College of Nursing; Dawn P. Misra, chair of the department of epidemiology and biostatistics, Michigan State University College of Human Medicine; and Jaime C. Slaughter-Acey, currently an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health. At the time the research was conducted, Slaughter-Acey was affiliated with the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. The National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities funded this work.

It happens to every woman and there’s no way of stopping it! Menopause causes women to gain weight, break out in sweat and most importantly, it contributes to bone loss. Now, a new drug may be a gamechanger for older women who are going through menopause. The three biggies when it comes to menopause: brittle bones, weight gain and hot flashes! Biomedical engineer at University of Central Florida, Melanie Coathup, PhD said, “With the brittle bones, that is a significant concern, and also, the weight gain as well.” Coathup’s research is targeting the first two. “There’s some kind of connection, I think, between bone and fat that’s gradually becoming more and more interesting,” she added. One in 10 women over the age of 60 is affected by osteoporosis and research shows that up to 20 percent of bone loss happens during menopause. Osteoporosis is related to over-activity of bone-absorbing cells in the body. Coathup’s team found that a drug now being called P7C3 stopped these cells from being overactive, reduced inflammation, and drove stem cells to form bone tissue. Not only that, but as an extra benefit. Coathup said, “What was remarkable with our animals was that they were not putting on this fat weight gain, they were remaining quite slim.”

We are economic nerds here at Marketplace, certified federal Reserve fan-followers, so we get pretty excited when the Fed releases its Beige Book. That publication comes out eight times a year, two weeks before each meeting of the central bank’s monetary policymaking committee. The latest one came out Wednesday. The Beige Book has reports on economic conditions from the Fed’s 12 regional banks, with comments from community bankers, real estate brokers, farm-implement suppliers — you name it. Farther south and east, Sean Snaith directs the Institute for Economic Forecasting at the University of Central Florida. “Many were certain that there would be a recession,” he said. “There’s nothing resembling a recession right now happening in Florida, quite the opposite.” Tourism is strong across the region, which is Fed District 6. Consumers, though, are stretched. “We’re expecting some slowing in Florida’s economy because of the erosion of household budgets. But the strength in the labor market is allowing people to at least come up and get their head above water,” Snaith said.

When the robotic lander Odysseus last month became the first U.S.-built spacecraft to touch down on the moon in more than 50 years, it toppled over at an angle. That limited the amount of science it could do on the lunar surface, because its antennas and solar panels were not pointed in the correct directions. Just a month earlier, another spacecraft, the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, or SLIM, sent by the Japanese space agency, had also tipped during landing, ending up on its head. Philip Metzger, a former NASA engineer who is now a planetary scientist at the University of Central Florida, explained the math and the physics of why it is more difficult to remain standing on the moon. “I’ve actually gone through calculations, and it’s really scary,” Metzger said last week on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter. “The side motion that can tip a lander of that size is only a few meters per second in lunar gravity.” (One meter per second is a bit more than 2 mph.) Odysseus was supposed to land vertically with zero horizontal velocity, but because of problems with the navigation system, it was still moving sideways when it hit the ground. Dr. Metzger’s calculations suggested that for a spacecraft like Odysseus, the landing legs need to be splayed about two and a half times as wide on the moon as on the Earth to counteract the same amount of sideways motion. If, for example, six feet wide were enough for landing on Earth at the maximum horizontal speed, then the legs would have to be 15 feet apart in order not to tip on the moon at the same sideways speed. For simplicity of design, the landing legs of Odysseus did not fold up, and the diameter of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that lifted it to space limited how wide the landing legs could spread out.“So, on the moon, you have to design to keep the sideways velocities very low at touchdown, much lower than you would if landing the vehicle in Earth’s gravity,” Dr. Metzger wrote on X.

Chick-fil-A restaurants in the Orlando market occasionally partner with the Opportunity Jobs Academy, which offers disadvantaged and at-risk high school teens and young adults the chance to engage with business leaders for mentoring and education. Skills taught in this program include how to interview for a job, how to present themselves in public, how to network, etc. When an OJA group recently visited Holly Rivera’s Chick-fil-A restaurant in Orlando’s Lake Nona community, they were a bit surprised. They couldn’t believe how young she was, or that she was a woman, or Hispanic. “Wait, you’re the owner?” one participant asked. For Rivera, having the opportunity to show this diverse group the possibilities in front of them was very meaningful. “I think of it as a joyous responsibility, not a heavy responsibility,” she said during a recent interview. Rivera’s path to becoming a Chick-fil-A owner/operator in Lake Nona three and a half years ago is paved with serendipity. She studied hotel and restaurant management at the University of Central Florida’s Rosen College of Hospitality Management with an objective of “doing something service oriented.” “I loved people, and I knew if I got that degree, I could be successful by taking care of people. Awesome,” she said. That initial opportunity came from longtime Chick-fil-A operator (and UCF alumnus) Charlie Fish, who is known as an "operator tree with a knack to coach up" by some in the company.

A professor in the UCF College of Medicine is developing a new treatment that helps prevent metastasis by keeping cancer cells in place. Cancer is the second-leading cause of death in the U.S according to the , and Dr. Otto Phanstiel is helping this cause. says that metastasis is the term used to describe the spread of cancer cells from the primary tumor to surrounding tissues and distant organs, causing 90% of cancer deaths.