UCF in the News

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.

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.

The University of Central Florida offers a comprehensive DNP program, providing an advanced pathway for aspiring family nurse practitioners. The clinical placement coordinator for the graduate program manages student assignments to clinical sites and preceptors, eliminating the need for students to find their own placement.

Central Florida’s two major health systems, Orlando Health and AdventHealth Central Florida, are widely using artificial intelligence for administrative work and, increasingly, to sound early alarms about potential illnesses, including deadly pancreatic cancer and sepsis. Eventually, some experts think AI could even be used to diagnose patients and make treatment decisions. Even more ambitious efforts are taking place at the University of Central Florida. Roger Azevedo, a professor in the School of Modeling Simulation and Training at UCF with a Ph.D. in educational psychology, is working to create a human digital twin — a digital replica of a person — that potentially could be used in patient care or clinician training. UCF has received millions of dollars in federal funding for this effort. He’s also collaborating with other researchers to use AI to monitor and improve clinician performance using eye-tracking and other sensors. He sees a future where such technology is employed to monitor team dynamics in an operating room. “AI …could indicate ‘Hey, you’re not looking at the right anatomical region, or you’re not looking at the right team member who can actually support you, given what you’re doing right now,’” Azevedo said.

A U.S. business and the next generation of moonbound spacefarers are learning that landing upright on the lunar surface is much harder than it looks. Intuitive Machines' spacecraft took this selfie, pictured above, about 35 seconds after tipping over during its descent on Feb. 22. Because the lander is on its side, the mission will be forced to end prematurely. Based on the positions of Earth and the moon, they'll probably lose contact with their lander, dubbed Odysseus, on Tuesday. While some observers have criticized how "successful" this landing attempt should be considered — NASA administrator Bill Nelson was quick to say the Houston-based space contractor had "aced" the landing last week — scientists are reminding the public why this keeps happening. Japan's own lander also made it to the lunar surface last month, but with its thruster end pointing up. "When a lander is tipping, inertial forces push it over, while gravity pulls its feet back down flat. On the Moon, gravity is reduced by a factor of 6, but inertial forces are not. *Everything is 6 times tippier on the Moon*," wrote Phil Metzger, a planetary physicist at the University of Central Florida, in an X post. "You *must* plan to reduce inertial forces by a factor of SIX lower than how your hardware operates on Earth if you want things to be as stable on the Moon as they are on the Earth."

Nolan School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University ranked No. 1 on the list of the best hospitality and hotel management schools in the world for 2024; according to a new study by the CEOWORLD magazine, William F. Harrah College of Hospitality at the University of Nevada placed second on the list, followed by the School of Hospitality Business of the Eli Broad College of Business at Michigan State University at No. 3. The 2024 rankings placed UCF Rosen College of Hospitality Management in fourth ahead of the Pennsylvania State University School of Hospitality Management, into fifth; while Collins College of Hospitality Management of the California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, ranked sixth; and College of Hospitality Management at Johnson & Wales University seventh. Overall, among the top 10 best hospitality and hotel management schools in the world for 2024, the eighth, ninth, and tenth positions are held by the International School of Hospitality and Tourism Management at Fairleigh Dickinson University, School of Hospitality Leadership (SHL) at University of Wisconsin, and School of Hospitality Business Management at Washington State University.

The small icy worlds on the edge of our solar system may be better contenders for life than we first thought, scientists have found. The dwarf planets of Eris and Makemake, situated in the Kuiper Belt beyond the orbit of Neptune, may have geothermal activity beneath their surfaces, according to two new papers in the journal Icarus. "Eris and Makemake unveil a surprising narrative of internal dynamism," co-author of both papers, Noemí Pinilla-Alonso, a research professor at the University of Central Florida's Florida Space Institute, said in a statement.