Under Lab Conditions, Salmonella Can Reach Tomato Fruits Through Leaves, UF Study Shows

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Food-safety experts have long believed that Salmonella bacteria could only enter tomatoes through wounds in the stem or fruit — but a new University of Florida laboratory study shows it can also happen another way.

Plant pathologist Ariena van Bruggen, a professor in UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, published a paper today in the online journal PLoS One, with research findings that show — for the first time — that Salmonella can enter tomato plants through intact leaves, travel through the plant and end up in the fruit itself.

But she says she can’t stress enough that it isn’t at all easy for it to happen, even in the lab, and would be unlikely under field conditions.

“The message is that yes, (Salmonella) can be internalized in tomato, but it’s rare — the chance is so low,” she said. “I would tell consumers not to worry too much.”

… Continue Reading

News Tip: Citrus Tristeza Virus Carries Extra Genes That Help It Infect More Plants

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — New research helps explain how one of the most troublesome citrus viruses can infect multiple plant species and varieties: It carries extra genes that help provide entry to a wider range of hosts.

The findings were announced today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. University of Florida plant pathology expert Bill Dawson is part of the research team that conducted the study.

… Continue Reading

UF Law to Host the Seventh Annual International Tax Law Symposium

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The University of Florida Levin College of Law’s Graduate Tax Program will hold its seventh annual International Tax Law Symposium on Oct. 7 in the Chesterfield Smith Ceremonial Classroom, HOL 180, at UF Law from 8:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. It is free and open to the public.

The symposium will give those interested the opportunity to hear distinguished members of the global tax community discuss a range of important topics revolving around current and future tax policy.

… Continue Reading

Bacteria Can Aid Toxic Environmental Cleanups, May Boost Ag Production, UF Researchers Report

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Remarkable bacteria that resist arsenic could greatly enhance cleanups of toxic environments and potentially boost agricultural production, according to a new University of Florida study.

The bacteria were isolated from arsenic-contaminated soil surrounding the Chinese brake fern, a plant known for its ability to remove arsenic from the environment.

The carcinogen contaminates soils around the world and is deadly to most organisms.

Arsenic levels above state-set minimum standards were reported in residential areas in Miami and Gainesville, according to a 2003 study co-authored by Lena Ma, a UF soil and water science professor.

… Continue Reading

Sea Smarts: Scientists Studying Mollusks Discover There is More Than One Way to Make a Brain

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Seemingly simple animals such as the snail and squid have ransacked the genetic toolkit over the last half billion years to find different ways to build complex brains, nervous systems and shells, according to an international team of researchers, including a neuroscientist with the University of Florida Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience.

Using genomics and computational approaches, the scientists have reconstructed the evolutionary history of the entire phylum Molluscsa, which includes more than 100,000 living species, ranging from giant squid to microscopic marine worm-like creatures.

One of the surprising outcomes of the study, recently published online in the journal Nature, suggests that the formation of a complex brain in mollusks has independently occurred at least four times during the course of evolution — a finding that may prove useful to regenerative medicine scientists trying to develop new ways to help people with degenerative brain diseases.

… Continue Reading

UF Astronomers Start Testing Infrared Camera at World’s Largest Telescope

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — University of Florida astronomers are testing a new infrared camera this summer at the world’s largest telescope that will allow researchers to look for planets outside our own solar system and better explore hidden black holes at the centers of galaxies.

The commissioning of CanariCam, a high-tech, heat-sensitive camera, started in late June at the site of the biggest optical-infrared telescope in the world. Gran Telescopio Canarias, or Grantecan, is located at 7,438 foot-altitude on the island of La Palma, in Spain’s Canary Islands off the northwest coast of Africa.

CanariCam, created by a team of astronomers and engineers led by UF astronomy professor Charles Telesco, had a cost of $3.2 million, financed by the Spanish government, and will allow researchers to peer through obscuring interstellar dust with unprecedented accuracy.

… Continue Reading

UF, FSU Receive $10 million for Project to Digitize U.S. Biology Collections

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The National Science Foundation announced today its award of a $10 million grant to the University of Florida and Florida State University to coordinate 92 institutions in 45 states working to digitize the nation’s biological collections.

Available to anyone online, the natural history data and its increased accessibility will help researchers identify gaps in scientific knowledge and could assist government agencies and others making decisions related to climate change, conservation, invasive species, biodiversity and other biological issues.

“There are probably a billion specimens in the U.S., but information isn’t easily accessible,” said Larry Page, principal investigator of the five-year project and a research scientist at the Florida Museum of Natural History on the UF campus. “This program is about making that information available to researchers, educators, policymakers and the general public — anyone who wants it.”

… Continue Reading

UF-Led Team Awarded More Than $6.5 Million for Oil Spill Projects

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The National Institutes of Health has awarded a University of Florida-led team more than $6.5 million to study the environmental and psychological effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on communities along the Gulf coasts of Florida and Alabama.

The grant was announced today by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and is part of a five-year, $25.2 million program that funds population-based and laboratory studies by researchers at UF and three other universities: Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center New Orleans, Tulane University and the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. UF faculty will also partner with scientists at the University of West Florida, University of South Alabama and the University of Maryland.

“We’re providing a comprehensive approach to examining the public health effects of the 2010 oil spill in the Florida/Alabama region, but doing it in close collaboration with communities and community organizations,” said Dr. J. Glenn Morris Jr., director of the UF Emerging Pathogens Institute and the grant’s principal investigator.

… Continue Reading

FTC Commissioner to Discuss Global Competition Policy Standards at UF Law

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – A current commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission will be speaking at the University of Florida Levin College of Law on March 14, at noon in the new courtroom at the Martin H. Levin Advocacy Center.

William E. Kovacic will present this spring’s Bayard Wickliffe Heath Memorial Lecture titled “From Dominance to Oligopoly: The United States and the Future Development of Global Competition Policy Standards.”

“Professor Kovacic is one of America’s most thoughtful and innovative scholars and policymakers in the fields of antitrust and consumer protection,” said UF Law Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Marshall M. Criser Eminent Scholar William Page. “He is also a provocative and entertaining speaker. UF is fortunate to have him as our second Heath lecturer.”

… Continue Reading

UF Researcher Creates Plan to Protect U.S. Banana Supply

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The banana consumers know today could disappear from U.S. store shelves because of a tropical disease, just as its predecessor did more than 50 years ago, and a University of Florida researcher warns that awareness is needed to stop history from repeating itself.

Tropical race four of Panama disease, or TR4, wreaks havoc on banana plants by traveling up their trunk and killing their canopy. It appeared in the 1990s and destroyed banana plantations in Southeast Asia and Australia but has yet to arrive in the Western Hemisphere. There is no treatment for the disease.

… Continue Reading

New Heart Drugs Don’t Mean Old Ones Should be Discarded, UF Researchers Say

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — In performing procedures to open narrowed coronary arteries, cardiologists use powerful drugs to prevent clotting and make the blood thinner — but not so thin that it causes major bleeding. But one of the old anti-clotting standards has fallen out of favor in recent years amid concerns over increased risk of bleeding, coupled with the advent of newer drugs and techniques.

Now University of Florida cardiologists have found that the old therapy, a class of compounds called GPIs, still helps patients by lowering the risk of nonfatal heart attack without elevating the risk of major bleeding. They recommend continued use of the drugs despite an elevated risk of minor bleeding. The findings and recommendations are published today (March 8) in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

“The big benefit is reduction in heart attacks after the procedure,” said first author Dr. David Winchester, a cardiologist in the UF College of Medicine. “And because there is no increased risk of major bleeding, we think that the increase in minor bleeding is an acceptable trade-off.”

… Continue Reading

UF-led consortium garners $20 million grant to improve pine forest management

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Pine trees are one of the most important crops in the southeastern U.S., and a consortium led by University of Florida personnel has been awarded a five-year, $20 million federal grant to help landowners and foresters throughout the region adapt to and mitigate global climate change in coming decades.

The award was announced Friday (Feb. 18) in Washington, D.C., by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture. It was one of three awards funded by the institute as part of a program to encourage agriculture and forestry to increase their capacity to provide what’s called carbon sequestration—the practice of producing and storing durable materials that contain carbon, to slow the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

… Continue Reading

Revisited human-worm relationships shed light on brain evolution

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — “Man is but a worm” was the title of a famous caricature of Darwin’s ideas in Victorian England. Now, 120 years later, a molecular analysis of mysterious marine creatures unexpectedly reveals our cousins as worms, indeed.

An international team of researchers, including a neuroscientist from the University of Florida, has produced more evidence that people have a close evolutionary connection with tiny, flatworm-like organisms scientifically known as “Acoelomorphs.”

The research in the Thursday (Feb. 10) issue of Nature offers insights into brain development and human diseases, possibly shedding light on animal models used to study development of nerve cells and complex neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

“It was like looking under a rock and finding something unexpected,” said Leonid L. Moroz, a professor in the department of neuroscience with the UF College of Medicine. “We’ve known there were very unusual twists in the evolution of the complex brains, but this suggests the independent evolution of complex brains in our lineage versus invertebrates, for example, in lineages leading to the octopus or the honeybee.”
… Continue Reading

UF-led team sequences first-ever citrus genomes; discovery may help thwart greening

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — A University of Florida-led group of international scientists has assembled the genome sequences for two citrus varieties—sweet orange and Clementine mandarin — marking a first for citrus.

The Clementine mandarin sequence is the higher quality of the two, but both are expected to help scientists unravel the secrets behind citrus diseases such as greening, a deadly threat to the state’s $9 billion citrus industry, as well as aiding those working to improve fruit flavor and quality.

Florida citrus industry officials said they were thrilled, and relieved, by the news.

“The publication of the sweet orange and tangerine genomes will accelerate the discovery of innovative solutions to a myriad of pest and disease problems that threaten citrus production,” said Dan Gunter, chief operating officer of the Citrus Research and Development Foundation Inc.
… Continue Reading

UF receives $4.7 Million to Study Marijuana’s Role in Immunity Among HIV-Positive Adolescents

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — HIV experts at the University of Florida, along with colleagues at the University of South Florida and the University of California, San Diego, have been awarded $4.7 million by the National Institutes of Health to study how the complex interplay between marijuana use and HIV infection can influence the development of neurological disorders in adolescents.

The five-year study will use a multidisciplinary approach that could lead to the identification of novel blood-based biomarkers for tracking how substance abuse alters immune function and the progression of HIV infection in the central nervous system. It may also provide evidence to support behavioral guidelines for HIV-infected youth.

“Findings from this study could translate into better diagnosis tools and new therapies to improve long-term outcomes for young adults infected with HIV,” said principal investigator Maureen Goodenow, the Stephany W. Holloway university chair in AIDS research and professor of pathology, immunology and laboratory medicine in the UF College of Medicine.

… Continue Reading

Legal Expert on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Available for Comment

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — A Senate vote could come today on whether to repeal the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. The outcome of the vote will depend on negotiations on the National Defense Authorization Act, which includes the language to repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

“Congress is not the only branch of government with a say about the policy,” said University of Florida Levin College of Law Professor and expert on “don’t ask, don’t tell,” Diane H. Mazur. “If Congress fails to accept its responsibility to repeal a law that raises constitutional problems and keeps qualified people out of the military, then courts and the president should take control. The president can issue an executive order suspending the policy, and he can also direct his lawyers to stop defending a policy that a federal court has already found unconstitutional.”
… Continue Reading

Oral History Program Documents Stories of Florida Opportunity Scholars

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The impact of a program for first-generation students to attend the University of Florida is being chronicled in their own words.

The Samuel Proctor Oral History Program is conducting oral history interviews with students, past and present, who are Florida Opportunity Scholars. The goal is to document some of the program’s early participants.

Florida Opportunity Scholars provides an opportunity for a college education to students who otherwise would be unable to afford it, and it strives to have all recipients graduate at the same rate as other undergraduates. The scholarship, which is given to about 1,400 students, guarantees 100 percent of tuition, plus additional expenses such as meals, housing, transportation, books and fees.

“If you think about it, Florida’s history is about people seeking new beginnings and overcoming long odds to find success. Those two things describe our Florida Opportunity Scholars to a tee, so it makes complete sense to include their stories in the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program,” said UF President Bernie Machen. “Years from now, researchers will look at those students’ oral histories while tracing the early years of future presidents and governors, scientists and artists, and entrepreneurs. Their stories are Florida’s story.”
… Continue Reading

This week at the University of Florida Levin College of Law (UF Law): Oil Spill Symposium and Social Media Presentation

UF Law oil spill symposium

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Legal responses to the disaster caused by the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill this summer are wide-ranging and varied, according to law professors from UF Law who have been studying laws and policies that can determine liability for such environmental disasters.

The symposium will outline the legal basis for responding to the oil spill and will examine Florida, federal and admiralty laws; types of recovery including resources, economic, communities and damages; the claims process; responses from commissions established by the State of Florida and by President Obama; and legislative actions that could assist oil spill victims. The event is free and open to the public. … Continue Reading

Legal scholar to visit UF Law, discuss new book on racial injustice in the U.S.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Legal scholar and Ohio State University Moritz College of Law Professor Michelle Alexander will visit the University of Florida Levin College of Law to discuss her new book, “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness,” Wednesday, Sept. 22 at noon in UF Law’s Chesterfield Smith Ceremonial Classroom (Holland Hall, room 180).

The book examines the current state of race and racial justice in the United States, stating that the racial caste system that existed during the pre-civil rights era is still in place, it has just been redesigned.

Alexander points out that even though the U.S. has elected its first black president, the fact remains that many young black men remain disadvantaged in major U.S. cities because they are labeled as felons or are already behind bars. The criminal justice system – while maintaining an outward stance of colorblindness – serves as a modern means of racial control, according to the book.

The New Jim Crow calls for a reevaluation of the current system and seeks to bring the issue of mass incarceration to the forefront of a new movement for racial justice in the U.S.

The discussion is sponsored by the Center on Children and Families and the Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations. The event is free and open to the public

About Michelle Alexander:

Alexander joined the OSU faculty in 2005 where she holds a joint appointment with the Moritz College of Law and the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity. Prior to joining the OSU faculty, she was a member of the Stanford Law School faculty, where she served as Director of the Civil Rights Clinic. Alexander has significant experience in the field of civil rights advocacy and litigation. She has litigated civil rights cases in private practice as well as engaged in innovative litigation and advocacy efforts in the non-profit sector. For several years, Alexander served as the director of the Racial Justice Project for the ACLU of Northern California, which spearheaded a national campaign against racial profiling by law enforcement. While an associate at Saperstein, Goldstein, Demchak & Baller, she specialized in plaintiff-side class action suits alleging race and gender discrimination. Alexander is a graduate of Stanford Law School and Vanderbilt University. Following law school, she clerked for Justice Harry A. Blackmun on the United States Supreme Court and for Chief Judge Abner Mikva on the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

Contact:

Melissa Bamba,

The Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations

352-273-0614

bamba@law.ufl.edu

Debbie Willis

Center on Children & Families

352-273-0613

willisd@law.ufl.edu

UF News: Few white voters upset about Obama victory despite lingering racism

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Racism may be less of a factor in politics than other realms of life, according to a new University of Florida study, which found few white voters in Florida to be upset by the presidential candidacy of a black man, and many to be proud of it. … Continue Reading