Focus: Hidden - Florida

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A study using EEG shows how the brain re-prioritizes information following changes in the environment. Past memory cues can have different effects on neural representations based on when they’re presented, suggesting that the brain has several different mechanisms to help boost memory performance following a sudden change in the priority or relevance of a given piece of information. Findings suggest that the brain can use several different methods to re-prioritize mental representations depending on how long they’ve been stored.

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Researchers investigate the important role turtle shells played as musical instruments for indigenous cultures in the southeastern U.S.

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Low crop production can grow into a national and global security issue, said Jim Anderson, director of the UF/IFAS Institute for Sustainable Food Systems.

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To help meet consumer demand for more flavorful mangos without grit or fibrous flesh, University of Florida scientists will try to identify superior varieties so mango producers can choose the best types of the fruit to grow in the Sunshine State.

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Findings Suggest Rootstock Choice May Be One Key to Optimizing Yields and Tree Health

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Sam Hutton, an associate professor of horticultural sciences at the UF Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, will use a new $490,000 federal grant from the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture to find ways to develop improved varieties that contain genes to help tomatoes thwart Fusarium wilt.

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UF/IFAS researchers will get help from scientists at Iowa State University, the University of Wisconsin, Washington State University and the USDA to conduct the study. The grant comes from the Specialty Crop Research Initiative, which is part of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, an arm of the USDA.

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A research study in the works for more than two years documents bias and discrimination against women seeking CEO jobs ion the workforce.

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Patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer have been shown to benefit from chemotherapy prior to surgical removal of the bladder. But which type of chemotherapy leads to the best outcomes in terms of complete response rates or cancer control? Moffitt Cancer Center researchers examined data from more than 800 surgical patients with advanced bladder cancer.

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With threats of sea level rise, storm surge and other natural disasters, researchers are turning to nature to protect humans from nature. Using bioinspired materials that mimic mangrove trees, they are creating mangrove-like structures that can be used for erosion control, coastal protection, and habitat reconstruction. Structures like seawalls are expensive to build, raise environmental concerns, and obstruct the natural landscape. The prototype they have developed is scalable, smaller, simpler to use and cost effective.

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New research suggests that the same factors driving the Arctic’s changing climate are fueling a geological response that could play a small part in counteracting those changes’ malign effects.

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Some tailgating foods come in the form of new fruit and vegetable varieties that grew out of years of research by UF Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences faculty in labs and fields across the state. Those delectable delights include Tasti-Lee® tomatoes, Valquarius® sweet oranges, Sugar Belle ® mandarins and Sweet Sensation® strawberries, among other cultivars.

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Bilingual children from immigrant families are not two monolinguals in one. They develop each language at a slower pace because their learning is spread across two languages. A researcher shows strong evidence that the rate of language growth is influenced by the quantity of language input. She challenges the belief, held in and out of scientific circles that children are linguistic sponges who quickly absorb the language or languages they hear and become proficient speakers of both languages.

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The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has updated its 2012 recommendations for cervical cancer screening with one important addition. This is the first time they are recommending a method of cervical cancer screening that does not include the Pap test – the gold-standard screening test for more than 75 years. A leading OB/GYN physician provides an important review of these new guidelines, which preserve the greatest range of choices for practitioners and patients.

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Fred Gmitter and Jude Grosser, both UF/IFAS horticultural sciences professors, base their recommendations for the latest citrus varieties to plant on their cumulative knowledge from multiple trials.

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A study examined anxiety, depression, social withdrawal, and submissiveness to predict the end of teen friendships. Do friendships end because of one child’s mental health problems or do they end because of differences between friends on the degree to which each friend suffers from these problems? A key finding shows that children’s personal struggles need not adversely impact their social relationships, and mental health issues do not necessarily ruin their chances of making and maintaining worthwhile friendships.

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A new study focusing on the environment inside cancer cells may lead to new targeted treatment strategies. Moffitt Cancer Center researchers, in collaboration with colleagues from the University of Maryland and the Institute for Research in Biomedicine Barcelona, suggest that lowering the pH inside cancer cells to make it more acidic can slow down the growth and spread of the disease, and possibly provide new options for treatment.

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Cows with shorter hair are cooler, and thus, more productive, said Raluca Mateescu, an associate professor of animal sciences at the UF Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. A calm cow is also more productive than an agitated one, Mateescu said.