UCF in the News

The Labor Department’s consumer-price index is sharply lower than the peak in June 2022 and the slowest in more than two years. Now, a pathway to achieve a “soft landing,” or getting inflation down without a recession, is “back on the table,” said Sean Snaith, the director of the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Economic Forecasting. “At the beginning of this year it seemed more of a pipe dream,” said Snaith. Now, “it seems a recession keeps slipping, slipping, slipping into the future.” Snaith has lowered the probability of recession to 45% from 90% in April.

The rise of workplace artificial intelligence is shaking some workers’ confidence in who they are. But this worry isn’t insurmountable. When Jessica’s boss recently asked whether the company she works for should be using artificial intelligence tools, she quietly panicked. Yet for Jessica, and others like her, the real threat of AI is a personal – even existential – one. Along with feeling personally out to sea, she worries about her workplace value – that her professional identity will no longer be important. She’s also fearful about what she’ll do – and, ultimately, whom she’ll be – if her job as a writer is eliminated. This, says Mindy Shoss, a professor of organizational psychology at the University of Central Florida, is understandable – and that plenty of people can relate to the feeing. “The crux of a lot of AI anxiety is about identity. Work fulfils many different identity functions,” she says. “Yes, it gives us income, but it also gives us a sense of self-worth and belonging and opportunities to develop new skills, and meaningfulness in life. When our work is threatened, all these other things get threatened with it.” Job threats aside, Shoss says the uncertainty alone is enough to cause concern. “Anxiety comes from the unknown,” she says. “The development of AI is happening so quickly that it’s really hard to keep up with. There’s so much unknown right now, and so much speculation about what AI can do, will do, might do. It’s very understandable and appropriate that people are experiencing some anxiety.”

In Orange County, there are people on the ground doing the work to help prevent issues like human trafficking, drunk driving and violence. And these groups want to help even more. In our latest Saving Our Streets report, WESH 2’s Marlei Martinez tells us how the county is investing money to teach nonprofits how to make a bigger impact in the community. On Friday, leaders of nearly 20 nonprofits in Orange County held diplomas in hand after graduating from a two-month-long UCF seminar where they learned how to thrive.

Hiring slowed in June but wages rose and unemployment fell, likely keeping the Federal Reserve on track to raise interest rates later this month to combat inflation. U.S. employers added 209,000 workers in June, a solid monthly gain but down from May’s revised 306,000. In the first half of this year, payrolls grew by an average of 278,000 a month, down from nearly 400,000 last year. Rapid wage growth contributes to stubbornly high inflation, said Sean Snaith, director of the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Economic Forecasting. “The Fed still has a significant way to go in the fight against inflation,” Snaith said. “We’re in this long grind phase, and it’s going to take persistence in terms of keeping interest rates high.”

There is a growing business in selling fake Moon dirt. It is labeled as “simulant:” Customized concoctions of lunar topside that are celestial stand-ins for different areas on the Moon. And simulant sales are up. But why? Government and private groups are keen on figuring out what wheels spin best, how drills drill, and what excavation methods work on the Moon, without having to guess in advance. Multiple nations are scripting plans to further explore Earth’s nearby escort, even to set up permanent encampments there to sustain lengthy stays by humans. Exolith Lab produces Moon, Mars, and asteroid regolith simulants. It is based at the University of Central Florida’s Center for Lunar and Asteroid Surface Science. The easiest way to run Moon-bound equipment ahead of time using simulants is “stick to the mineralogy as closely as you can,” University of Central Florida astronomer and planetary scientist Dan Britt, who founded Exolith Lab, told SpaceRef — no sawdust or other poor imitations to be found.

Storms that ride in on seas rising due to global warming will displace millions of Floridians in low-lying areas by century's end, according to a new analysis by a flood-risk research group. Well before then, a higher ocean will force many to elevate their homes, similar to stilted homes on North Carolina's Outer Banks, or else endure deadly surging floodwaters and sky-high insurance costs. The lure of living beachside has long been Florida's biggest draw. But with sea levels expected to rise one foot by 2030 and another three feet by the end of the century, many dream homes could become nightmares. Researchers at the University of Central Florida found sea level rise is accelerating in other parts of Florida such as Key West and Fernandina Beach. A study in Nature this past April on sea level rise along the Southeastern U.S. and Gulf of Mexico coasts echoed those findings. Sea levels along the southeastern and Gulf Coasts already are rising faster than climate models predicted, the UCF researchers note, causing coastal erosion, high-tide flooding, saltwater contamination of freshwater aquifers and higher storm surges in Florida.

Though conference realignment is usually a complicated process involving everything from population and politics to doctoral degrees and bowl wins, there’s a simple explanation why UCF was promoted and USF wasn’t. It’s not academics. Both are top-tier research universities. It’s not all-around athletics. Both have comparable success in non-revenue sports. It’s not enrollment, market size or location. Both are massive schools in top-20 TV markets in one of the nation’s four biggest recruiting states. It’s football. Then-Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby admitted as much in September 2021 when he said his league wanted schools “we felt would move the needle for us in football first.” Bill Sutton noticed other, everyday changes as the associate director of UCF’s sports management program. He rarely, if ever, saw Knights gear around campus before the stadium, then saw the number of UCF shirts and hats balloon. “It was like an unbelievable transformation,” said Sutton, who later directed USF’s Vinik Sport and Entertainment Management Program and led two Bulls athletic director searches. “I had never seen anything like it.” The fan base swelled. UCF football’s combined following on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok exceeds 504,000. That’s almost double USF’s following (256,000) and larger than at least three Big 12 incumbents (Baylor, Kansas and Iowa State). Twenty-six UCF games have drawn at least 1 million TV viewers since 2018, according to the website Sports Media Watch. Half topped 2 million. USF has had only seven games hit the 1 million mark with none over 2 million. That matters. One of the reasons UCF appealed to the Big 12 was its “region that is rich in fans,” Texas Tech president Lawrence Schovanec (a former Big 12 board chairperson) said in 2021. Those fans have been energized, in part, by 16 years of on-campus football — 16 more years than the Bulls have.

n two previous articles, Lunar Orbital Congestion Is Gonna Be A Thing and Lunar Orbital Congestion II: Economic and Strategic Drivers, I suggested that orbital congestion and debris will be a challenge around the Moon sooner than expected. To summarize: interest in lunar development is hot, getting to the Moon is getting cheaper, and special factors involving the Earth-Moon system and lunar gravitational anomalies render a very few orbits as high-value real estate which will be quickly snapped up by smart competitors exercising first mover advantage. Just as importantly, tracking assets around the Moon is much more difficult than it is with Earth’s vast collection of satellites and space debris. Nobody really has a good idea of how many objects are orbiting the Moon today. For instance, India’s Chandrayaan-1 was lost back in 2009 and finally found in lunar orbit eight years later by Earth-based radar. A recent paper by Dr. Phil Metzger of the University of Central Florida and James G. Mantovani of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center suggests that particles ejected at very shallow angles under rocket plumes may wind up in space above the Moon. So, why should we care about dust out in cislunar space?