Video: Alisson Clark and Lyon Duong. Story: Cindy Spence
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering
When you think of senior citizens and email scams, you might think of Grandma and a Nigerian prince. However, there's far more at stake when adults over 65 fall for phishing emails — just ask John Podesta. At the University of Florida, a professor who specializes in cybersecurity reached out to a psychology professor who studies aging, launching a partnership to find out what makes seniors more susceptible to email scams, and how to help.
Alan Alda living with Parkinson’s – a neurologist explains treatment advances
August 3, 2018
Michael Okun
While medical advances and better treatments have made Parkinson’s a ‘livable disease,’ a critical shortage of doctors trained specifically in how to treat the disease remains according to a UF neurologist.
For many, hearing the word “Parkinson’s” conjures an image of tremors. But Parkinson’s disease, brought about by loss of nerve and other brain cells, is actually an incredibly complex movement disorder that can cause symptoms as wide-ranging as smell loss, thinking issues, depression and swallowing problems. More than 1.5 million people in the U.S. have the illness, and millions more loved ones and caregivers are affected by it, too.
Actor Alan Alda announced July 31 that he is one of those. Alda has been living with Parkinson’s for more than a year. He stressed in his announcement that he has been living a full and happy life.
He is not alone. Thanks to medical advances and better treatments, both patients and physicians understand that Parkinson’s is a livable disease, and that people with this condition can be happy, healthy and successful.
And yet, there is a critical shortage of doctors trained specifically in how to treat Parkinson’s disease. Only 40 to 50 new Parkinson’s specialists – neurologists with fellowship training in the disease – go into practice each year across this country. And according to national doctor fellowship match data, this number has been relatively flat for the last five years. This shortage could worsen as the 70 million baby boomers age, as Parkinson’s typically afflicts older people; the average age of diagnosis is in the early 60’s.
I wrote an article which provides an update on current treatments of Parkinson’s disease for the Journal of the American Medical Association last year. A key takeaway of my article is that there are many treatments for Parkinson’s, and some patients are going to live for 10, 20, 30, even 40 years with the disease.
Also, as national medical director of the Parkinson’s Foundation, I have come to realize that there is a gap between how physicians manage Parkinson’s in clinics nationwide and what we actually know from evidence and from experience in treating this disease for many years. In particular, many generalists remain unaware of treatments beyond the standard use of medications that have been used since the 1970s, and there is a lack of appreciation for the importance of the timing of medication dosages.
Updating approaches to Parkinson’s
We know from the scientific literature that patients who see even a general neurologist have lower rates of morbidity, mortality and nursing home placement. But given that the majority of Parkinson’s patients are under the care of general practitioners, internists and family medicine doctors, how do we help all of those who are affected by Parkinson’s?
Based on studies that show that people are living longer with Parkinson’s, one of the first messages we need to impart is that life is most certainly not over. A second important message is that new medications can and do make a difference.
These findings underscore the necessity of having doctors trained in Parkinson’s.
Surgeons are vitally important, but doctors who specialize in Parkinson’s are becoming crucial as well.lenetstan/Shutterstock.com
For example, there is a myth that when you diagnose Parkinson’s, you prescribe a medicine called carbidopa-levodopa (also called Sinemet) three times a day, and that’s all.
But Parkinson’s is an incredibly complex disease with more than 20 motor and nonmotor features. The idea that dopamine, the main active ingredient in carbidopa-levodopa, is the only drug and the only treatment and there’s nothing more you can do – that’s a myth. This is something we must make sure to emphasize and educate doctors in training and those seeing these patients in practice.
Many patients in my practice improve with exercise therapy and several have used acting techniques to improve the masking of the face and the movement features. It is likely that Alan Alda’s acting and improv program for autistic children will also benefit Parkinson’s.
Timing may not be everything, but it is important
In my JAMA article, I tried to lay a framework for the different phases a Parkinson’s patient may go through and the many types of treatments that are available today. We now know, for example, that in the early phase of Parkinson’s, specific exercises can be just as important, if not more important in some patients, than medications. Understanding the options and windows of opportunity can be the difference between success and failure.
We also now know that the timing of medications is critical and in many cases needs to be exactly aligned to particular hours of the day. In addition, some patients see benefits by changing drug dose, adjusting medication intervals and possibly the addition of one of many other drugs.
There are windows of opportunity for some patients where great benefit may result from surgical therapy. These include deep brain stimulation or the use of an externally worn pump that infuses a gel formation of a dopamine medication directly into the small intestine, which is a newer therapy approved by the FDA two years ago. But the physician must be aware of what those windows are, and who are the patients likely to experience benefit.
In other words, we must tailor the treatment to the patient.
What’s more, in Parkinson’s disease there is the possibility of an array of nonmovement-related symptoms, such as speech problems, hallucinations and depression. These nonmotor symptoms are commonly more disabling than the motor symptoms such as tremor or stiffness. Today, experts are involving social workers and counselors and also commonly using antidepressant and cognitive enhancers in their care.
As a field, we need to better understand that Parkinson’s patients have many choices of therapies and this is a compelling reason why special Parkinsons’ doctors are needed. When treated appropriately, we really can make this a livable condition. We need to educate more general practitioners and general neurologists on the basics of tailoring care for Parkinson’s disease, and we need to dedicate more money to training more Parkinson-specific neurologists.
There is more reason for hope for patients of Parkinson’s and their loved ones, and every Parkinson’s patient should have a tailored plan which will ensure success and a happy life. We need to make sure we have enough doctors specifically trained to meet the needs of a growing patient population.
This story is updated from its original version, which ran. Sept. 7, 2017.
University of Florida fundraising tops $400 million for the third year in a row
August 6, 2018
Tom Mitchell
Donor support enhances the university’s efforts to address 21st century challenges
University of Florida alumni and friends invested $414 million in their university during the fiscal year that ended on June 30, marking the third consecutive time private giving has surpassed $400 million. Those gifts will enable the university to solve some of the world’s greatest challenges, prepare a new generation of leaders and professional workforce to thrive in their chosen career paths, and to continue its ambitious drive to be ranked amongst the nation’s top 5 public universities.
This year’s contributions sustain an ambitious pace to reach a $3 billion fundraising goal for the university’s Go Greater campaign. Now at the midpoint of the eight-year campaign, Gators have given $1.66 billion during the first four years. Go Greater is the fourth campaign in UF’s history and is one of the largest ever in higher education. Fiscal years are July 1-June 30.
Private giving to UF supports a wide range of programs and projects. Among the initiatives enhanced this year through the generosity of donors are a campus center to address rapid changes to the natural environment, a sea turtle hospital in St. Augustine, scholarships for first-generation scholars and professorships to recruit and retain the most talented women and men in academia.
"Once again, Gators have answered the call to move our university forward and upward so we can improve the lives of people through discovery, outreach and knowledge sharing,” UF President Kent Fuchs said. “This is an extraordinary moment in UF’s history, and because Gators who so strongly believe in this university are embracing that moment, we are on the threshold of once-unimaginable worldwide influence and impact.”
“Increased private support during the past decade corresponds with UF’s climb in national rankings. Now ninth on the U.S. News and World Report’s list of best public research universities, UF’s aspiration is to be among the top 5,” Fuchs said.
That aspiration and the university’s potential to be an even more powerful global resource inspired 73,929 alumni and friends to make gifts in 2017-18. Some notable investments are:
The cornerstone gift from alumni Jon and Beverly Thompson of Fort Myers to promote research-based information and responses to environmental issues such as rising oceans, eroding coastlines, saltwater intrusion into freshwater supplies, “sunny day” flooding in Miami and other seaside cities, disappearing wetlands and lingering droughts.
The creation of a sea turtle hospital at UF’s Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience in St. Augustine — made possible with a gift from Ponte Vedra Beach alumni Nancy and Gary Condron — to care for and protect the endangered animals.
Fort Lauderdale alumnus Alex Moreno’s professorship in the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering to develop new and more-efficient energies; along with Dallas businessman Walden Rhines’ newly established fund to elevate work in the materials science and engineering department.
Best-selling novelist James Patterson’s Literacy Challenge in the College of Education to improve reading proficiency for middle school students in Patterson’s hometown of Palm Beach and in other Florida schools.
A fellowship in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences from alumna Trish Ring of Memphis to make it easier for doctoral students in psychology to focus on their research and dissertations.
A notable fundraising milestone this year is that for the first time UF exceeded $300 million in the Council for Aid to Education’s annual Voluntary Support of Education survey, which measures annual cash or cash-equivalent contributions to a university. UF’s fundraising total of $339.7 million in this benchmark survey puts UF in the company of the nation’s most proficient universities in terms of fundraising.
“When you think about it, there’s really nothing Gators can’t do when we set our minds to it and work together. That’s the reason the University of Florida will be a top 5 university, the reason we will achieve our $3 billion Go Greater campaign goal and the reason this university will be looked to more than ever as a problem-solver and idea-generator,” Go Greater Campaign Co-Chair Anita Zucker said. “Together, we’re truly unstoppable, and this year’s giving proves it once again. Any investment in education is a contribution to the betterment of the world.”
Summer commencement set, changes planned for December, May
August 6, 2018
UF News
Commencement
Engineering professor, student body president to address graduates
Task Force to review commencements, including significant changes planned for December and May
The University of Florida will confer 2,678 undergraduate and graduate degrees at its summer commencement ceremonies Friday and Saturday.
Greg Sawyer, a UF professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, will deliver the commencement address at both ceremonies: Friday’s ceremony for doctoral graduates and Saturday’s ceremony for master’s, bachelor’s and specialists graduates. In addition, graduates on Saturday will hear from UF Student Body President Ian Green.
UF President Kent Fuchs will preside over both ceremonies, and in keeping with recent tradition, all graduates will be individually recognized. However, the university has made several changes to commencement, including new marshal leadership, and significant additional changes are underway for the December and May ceremonies.
Marshals, who are primarily faculty members, lead processions, direct graduates and help coordinate the ceremonies. UF has produced revised, mandatory training materials for marshals.
Over the past three months, the university completed its review surrounding the aggressive handling of students by a marshal at one of the nine ceremonies at spring commencement. That marshal has lost the privilege of serving at future commencements and cannot serve in any voluntary faculty service role outside the classroom without prior approval.
Significant additional changes are being planned for the December and May commencements, including creation of a single universitywide ceremony at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium with an invited speaker. Campus commencement will be followed by individual recognition ceremonies in the graduates’ colleges. The university will continue to hold a separate commencement ceremony in the Stephen C. O’Connell Center for doctoral students in the spring, fall and summer.
President Fuchs has appointed a commencement task force that is charged with conducting a review of UF commencements and graduation recognition ceremonies. The goal is to have ceremonies that celebrate and are meaningful for all graduates. In addition to reviewing changes implemented for this week’s commencement and the changes planned for December 2018 and May 2019, the task force also will recommend principles, values and goals to serve as a guide for all of UF’s numerous commencements and graduation recognition ceremonies.
The task force, co-chaired by Ian Green and Vice President for Student Affairs David Parrott, is providing input to changes on the main commencement ceremony as well as the college celebrations. Its members are:
Melissa Andrade Will Atkins Florida Bridgewater Alford Sebastiano Cocco Nicky Ennis Antonio Farias Scott Francis Matt Gardener Leslie Pendleton Fennzia Guerrier Brian Jose Stan Kaye Gillian Lord Anthony Offerle Hans van Oostrom Akil Reynolds Katheryn Russell-Brown Keith Saint Dakota Stanford James Tyger Katherine Vogel Anderson
“Commencement culminates our students’ journeys through UF and celebrates their exceptional academic achievements,” Fuchs said. “This task force has the mission of guiding our efforts to make this important occasion even more joyous and meaningful for graduates and for their loved ones.”
Students, faculty and staff who wish to provide input on commencements and college-based recognition ceremonies may do so at commencement-taskforce@ufl.edu. Suggestions will be shared with the members of the task force and with President Fuchs.
This summer’s doctoral commencement is set for 4 p.m. Friday and the master’s, specialist’s and bachelor’s ceremony for 10 a.m. Saturday, both in the Stephen C. O’Connell Center.
In his commencement remarks, Sawyer will discuss the extraordinary effort required to make discoveries and pass them on to new generations, drawing on his appreciation for Leonardo da Vinci, his engineering research and his own personal battle with cancer.
For his address, Green will encourage graduates to become courageous leaders who expand people’s perceptions of what is possible in life.
The addresses and ceremonies will be streamed and archived at commencement.ufl.edu.
UF study: Snail kites must do more than move to thrive
August 8, 2018
Brad Buck
For a new study, UF/IFAS researchers used nine years of data to find out whether snail kites are reproducing after they move, and how these findings might change conservation strategies.
Rhythm nations: Experiencing a culture through its drums
August 10, 2018
Alisson Clark
College of the Arts
You can learn about a culture by studying its language, its food, its traditional dress. Why not its drumming?
“Percussion is interwoven through every culture on the globe,” says Kenneth Broadway, a University of Florida music professor whose work has taken him to the Caribbean, Africa and India. “As we become more globally connected, learning the djembe, the steel pan, or the cajón is like learning a different language.”
UF students on professor Kenneth Broadway's study abroad trip to Cuba
World music has earned a place alongside orchestral instruments in music programs across the United States and Canada, giving majors and non-majors alike a chance to dabble in steel drums or congas. But Broadway wants students to explore not just the instruments, but the cultures that gave rise to them.
“Music can build a bridge for communication,” he said. “We draw borders between nations, arbitrary lines in the sand or the forest that separate people. But tribes cross those arbitrary lines, and the great thing about music is that it can, too.”
Broadway helps his students understand how music can pass down stories or deliver encoded messages of danger or celebration. He shares the cultural context of different styles, so they can distinguish nightclub rhythms from hymns. He also exposes them to other approaches to learning music.
“In music programs in the U.S., we’re focused on reading, but many students learn better by listening. They’ll have more success as teachers if they can also teach and learn by ear.”
Broadway learning from an ensemble in Vadadora, India
Students might also find that studying other musical traditions shapes their approach to their primary instrument. When Broadway started playing Indian ragas on the tabla — “ten minutes to learn, a lifetime to master” — it transformed his approach to jazz improvisation on the drum set. But even if it doesn’t shape their careers, Broadway sees cross-cultural studies, especially abroad, as critical to the music curriculum. In spring, he’ll lead a second group of students on an overseas study trip to Cuba.
“It’s so easy to connect through Google or YouTube, but it’s not the same as being in a living room with people sharing a meal and learning from them. It breaks down barriers and solves issues of miscommunication,” he said. “When I’m in Cuba, I can communicate a little through language, but I can communicate a great deal through music.”
Your voting habits may depend on when you registered to vote
August 9, 2018
Daniel Smith and Enrijeta Shino
A UF political science professor and a UF graduate assistant of political science examine research that indicates factors such as timing and major tragic events can influence who votes in contrast with who merely registers to vote.
Tour by activists from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School to get young people registered. AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee
When eligible citizens register to vote, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they will turn out.
Voting in the U.S. is a two-step process. Citizens in every state except North Dakota must first register before casting a ballot.
As we discuss in our recently published article in Electoral Studies, the timing of when a voter registers to vote affects whether they vote in the upcoming election. It also relates to whether they become a repeat voter, or what political scientists refer to as a “habitual voter.”
Our findings could have an impact on turnout this November and future elections.
Making registration easier
In Canada, Germany and many other countries, voter registration is automatic. Not so in the U.S.
But there have been efforts over the last 25 years to make voter registration easier in the U.S.
Since 1993, with the passage of the National Voter Registration Act, all U.S. citizens can register to vote when they apply for a driver’s license or services at other governmental agencies. Citizens in 37 states are also able to register to vote online, making the process even more convenient.
More recently, a dozen states have enacted legislation changing voter registration at DMV offices from “opt-in” to “opt-out.” When applying for or renewing their driver’s license, you are automatically registered to vote unless you choose not to. Initial research on this approach from Oregon suggests that people who are automatically registered, compared to those already registered, were much younger and geographically reside in areas with a racially diverse population, lower income and lower education levels.
Of course, eligible citizens fall through the gaps. That’s where voter registration groups come in, fanning across the country, pen and paper (or smartphones) in hand, to register new voters.
As a final measure to encourage voting, citizens in 15 states and the District of Columbia may register at the polls on Election Day. Most eligible citizens, however, reside in a state in which they must register at least 29 days before Election Day.
But registration doesn’t equal voting. Not everyone who successfully registers prior to Election Day actually goes to the polls, especially in midterm elections.
From registration to the ballot box
In our study, drawing on nearly a decade of voting data in Florida, we find that when voters register affects their voting behavior.
Individuals who register in the waning months prior to Florida’s 29-day registration cutoff are more likely to vote in the upcoming election than others who register throughout the previous election cycle.
However, these last-minute registrants are less likely to vote in future elections. The act of registering to vote, and even voting in the next election, does not translate into becoming a repeat, regular voter. We think this is because those who register close to the deadline may be mobilized to do so by campaign events tied to the upcoming election, but they may not become regular voters for the long haul.
Relatedly, we are looking at what effect tragic events that occur well before an election may have on getting people to register and then turn out to vote.
For example, current evidence is mixed as to whether more young people are registering after a school shooting in Parkland, Florida. Has the social movement really increased the number of registrations among young voters? Similarly, are the thousands of Puerto Ricans who were displaced by Hurricane Maria registering to vote in Florida and other states?
It remains to be seen whether these individuals who have registered will vote in the 2018 midterms, and whether they will become habitual voters. Our research suggests that it’s not a sure bet.
Engineering professor speaks at doctoral commencement about surviving cancer and passing discoveries to new generations
August 10, 2018
Dr. Greg Sawyer
commencement
Greg Sawyer is a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and a member of the Academy of Distinguished Teaching Scholars at UF. A Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, Sawyer specializes in the field of tribology. His work includes new materials for ultra-low friction and wear for a number of applications ranging from space to biomedicine. His speech is below.
Doctors!
It really is an honor and a privilege to be here with all of you today at your commencement; it is such a special day for you. You’re surrounded by classmates, advisors, friends, and family. It takes a prodigious amount of effort to amass this level of education. This is a day you will always remember.
You are all clearly, very talented, passionate, and motivated, but you didn’t get here alone. Make sure that you take some time to thank the people that are here with you. Thank-yous are important. They let people know that you notice their efforts. And honestly, your degree is as much about effort as anything.
As an undergraduate student at Rensselaer, I took classes in engineering, science, history, art, and literature. I fell in love with all of it! I think that’s why I am so fond of the Renaissance. There are a lot of heroes from that time, and Leonardo da Vinci is certainly one of them, particularly for an engineer. I have seen a dozen of the known surviving da Vinci paintings, about half of them. I have stood for hours really looking at these paintings. Oddly, I don’t find them inherently beautiful. They are full of details that he clearly draws from his own observations of the world. The backgrounds feature landscapes of unbelievable tortuosity and detail, all created from his imagination – details that drift into a foggy obscurity at the margins. The babies and children are frankly a wreck, but the eyes... Leonardo studied eyes. I walk away from these encounters with his art, thinking about Leonardo, the scientist and engineer, staring into the eyes of his models, trying desperately to capture the finest details, to capture the details that reveal that there is thought behind these eyes.
What is it that draws so many of us to his paintings, if not the beauty? I think that it is the effort – his paintings are full of effort. There is no easy brush stroke.
Effort is Beautiful.
About 4 years ago, I tried to recreate one of the experiments from da Vinci’s notebook. Just 1 of his experiments - a block of wood being dragged across a board. It took me a year to recreate this seemingly simple measurement. The key bit turned out to be handling the wood with dirty dusty hands. It made sense considering that experiments were done in a busy workshop full of scientist, engineers, and artists. Of course these experiments were performed with his pupils, his advisees all pitching in as they tried to find a universal model to friction. I like this notion of the Renaissance: the advisor and the advisee.
In the Prado in Madrid there is a second Mona Lisa, far less visited than Leonardo’s, but arguably more true to the model – she had eyebrows. It was likely painted by one of his students, Francesco Melzi, working alongside Leonardo. What a great thing! Leonardo didn’t simply give Francesco a finished painting to copy; it is clear that they created the painting together. As mistakes were made and corrected and details changed, they were changed together.
I think about that vibrant lab often. How much of Leonardo da Vinci’s work was really for his advisees? Who were all the notebooks for? Leonardo reportedly maintained a group of 6 students. It was Francesco who kept Leonardo’s notebooks: the advisee carrying the lessons forward, sharing the notebooks and teachings of Leonardo with his own students. We might never know the breadth of Leonardo’s work, his methods and experiments, his work in mechanics and medicine, and all of the imaginative engineering designs if not for Francesco.
Many of you are seated next to your thesis advisor who will hood you later this afternoon. The doctorate degree has certainly evolved over the past thousand years, but the concept of an advisor has been there from the beginning. The origin of the word doctor is Latin: to teach.
We are counting on all of you to carry knowledge forward – to be your advisors’ Francescos.
About 5 years ago, I was diagnosed with late stage metastatic cancer. I remember the morning that I realized something really wasn’t quite right. I biked in to my general physician, scheduled an ultrasound, and 24 hours later – I knew.
That week I did all the scans and my first of 5 surgeries. While I was asleep in recovery, the doctor told my wife the diagnosis – it was an aggressive cancer. She promptly called my parents. I am so glad that I didn’t have to make that call. The cancer was in my spine, the T12 vertebrae, and a bunch of lymph nodes under my left arm. I had to face the new reality that I was a cancer patient, and the cancer was spreading.
That evening, I told my sons William and Charles about the diagnosis. They were 12 and 7 at the time. It was the worst thing I have ever had to tell anyone; I felt sick, really sick. The next day, I got in early to my laboratory, turned on the lights and cried. I was looking at my busy laboratory. A beautiful space full of the best instrumentation in the world, most of it built by my students -- a young team of brilliant engineers and scientists. All of it was designed to study engineering surfaces. I saw no instruments to help with cancer.
All alone in the lab, leaning against a gigantic stainless-steel instrument, I am not exactly sure why I cried. I remember thinking about all of my students, and how on earth was I going to tell them that I probably wouldn’t be here for their graduations. I remember thinking: “How am I going to do this? What do I want to do?” Later that morning I told them all the diagnosis. It was the second hardest conversation of my life.
Advisors, mentees, and colleagues: Your academic family really is a family. Cherish it.
After I told my families the diagnosis, I delegated the task to others to spread the word. I stopped talking about it and travelled to the best cancer center in the country, where I met my new oncologist, who on my very first meeting said “well, the 5-year survival is in the toilet -- what do you want to do?” I couldn’t believe this was the beginning of my cancer story. Less than 10% of people with my diagnosis make it 5 years.
“What do I want to do?”
Work! I wanted to work on cancer. I drove back to a friend’s house that evening and got to work. So much to do, I had a project to finish, a report to write, and a lifetime of lessons to teach two young boys. A diagnosis like this changes your perspective, quickly. What I realized was that we are not really living for ourselves; we are really living for others. We are living for what we leave behind, the notebooks, the families. I remember my first prayer as a cancer patient: “God, let me stay here as long as the boys need me.” Everything takes on a new urgency: “Sons there are only 4 knots that you need to master, lesson 1 – the bowline.” I can’t imagine what it has been like for them living with this urgency.
That night, when everyone was asleep I downloaded my first scientific paper on cancer. I couldn’t read it. The terminology was like Dr. Seuss! “cMYC SMAD JNK WNT Frizzled.” I never felt dumber in my life, but I kept digging through these papers, making notes, trying to understand where the problems were. Where does cancer need an engineer? I personally chose a treatment path that kept as many options open as possible, sparing no effort: 5 surgeries and 2 rounds of intense radiation. I slowly realized that immunotherapy was my only real chance.
Later that year, I was patient 1 on a combination check point inhibitor trial. I have no doubt that I am here today with you because of that trial.
In reading cancer papers, it became clear to me that my own training and experiences brought a different perspective to the cancer problem. Engineers work with extremely complex systems, but we like to break them down, test individual components, and subassemblies, and manage the complexity systematically, piecewise. We look for connections at the interfaces between these components. I suspected that biology must do something similar. I just couldn’t see any obvious way to help with cancer, but I kept looking and trying to find the gaps. Your degree, the doctorate, is about researching problems and getting things down to the fundamentals. Whatever challenges you are faced with, don’t forget your training and your experiences.
Never, ever, ever quit. Effort is beautiful. There are no easy brushstrokes.
After 2 years of searching, it was a discovery by a friend, colleague, and UF engineering professor Tommy Angelini, that opened the door. I learned that what researchers and clinicians needed most to make progress against rare and aggressive cancers was access to precise tumors, and 3D assays that included immune cells, controlled microenvironments, and high-resolution imaging and control of drug delivery. We needed a new infrastructure, a new type of lab, a Cancer Engineering Lab. Tumor bioprinting: we can now manufacture tumors by the thousands! All human biology, all in the lab, a tool for everyone to build and tear apart cancer, figure out how it works, find its weaknesses, and stop it.
Today, 5 years after my diagnosis, I am still here; I am still working. I once again have a laboratory full of wonderful instrumentation hand built by a young team of brilliant engineers and scientists, but now it is all dedicated to cancer research. I have funding from the Pharmaceutical Industry and the National Institutes of Health to fabricate tumors and study the mechanism of action of the very drugs that saved my life. I am a part of a wonderful group of dedicated medical researchers, engineers, scientists, and doctors all working together, all working on cancer.
Cancer survivors make promises – and we keep them. I like that. I wish I did more of that before cancer. I live 6 months at a time and I can tell you it is truly exhausting. I have come to peace with this existence – I plan optimistically, but I live urgently. Working on a cure is a long-horizon problem, maybe like Leonardo’s landscapes – tortuous, foggy, and uncertain. I try to bring persistent and continuous effort, urgency, and optimism to the challenge, and I look for colleagues that can do the same – unrelenting focus and effort. Breakthroughs almost always have elements of chance, opportunity, and ability, but there is also, almost always, a team, a family, and a mountain of hard work.
Be kind and patient with your families; it’s your job to be the bridge. These relationships are complex, and it will take a lot of effort to maintain them over a lifetime. Try to be generous with your time, but remember, things happen quickly, and it’s worth taking time to tell people what they mean to you when you have a chance. We all fight for time and a chance.
Please whatever you do, never, ever, ever quit. Regardless of the challenge, you will absolutely find your way through it. You’re Doctors!
Student body president, engineering professor address graduates
August 11, 2018
Ian Green & Dr. Greg Sawyer
commencement
Student Body President Ian Green, who is pursuing a master’s degree in international business, is a second-generation Gator from Atlanta. He has been an active member of Florida Blue Key, the Black Student Union, the Florida Cicerones, the UF Board of Trustees and is a brother of Phi Delta Theta Fraternity.
Greg Sawyer is a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and a member of the Academy of Distinguished Teaching Scholars at UF. A Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, Sawyer specializes in the field of tribology. His work includes new materials for ultra-low friction and wear for a number of applications ranging from space to biomedicine. Their speeches are below:
Speech from Ian Green:
Good Morning! Today truly is a special moment. I want to first congratulate the Class of 2018 for y’alls incredible achievement. Very few have the honor to say they graduated from a Top 10 public university. Whether you graduated Summa Cum Laude, Magna Cum Laude or Thank You Laude, you all should be very proud to graduate from the University of Florida. I also want to say thank you to all the friends, parents, cousins, aunts and uncles and all other loved ones who are in attendance. Without your sacrifices, love, and support, today would not be possible.
Let’s think about that word: possible. Possible means what is able to be done; within the power or capacity of someone or something. To each one of you, the word might mean something different. It may remind you of what possible has meant for your own life. For some, possible was the chance to be the first member of your family to go to college. For others, possible was the opportunity to pursue a degree in something you’re passionate about.
Whatever the word means to you, whatever has been possible for you, possible signifies hope. Hope for a brighter future. In today’s world, it can be easy to get caught up in the negative, to lose hope and to start to think some things in life are just not possible. But if there’s one thing 2018 has taught me, impossible is just a figment of our imagination. In this year alone, we saw scientists grow vegetables in Antarctica without a day of sunlight, the Eagles finally win the Super Bowl, and Drake somehow managed to stay in his feelings. And there are still four months left in the year.
If we don’t push the boundary on what is possible, life around us becomes complacent and repetitive. Possible is what is going to move our state, our country, and our world forward. As the future leaders of our society, people are looking at you all for inspiration, gusto, and direction.
Today, we’re in the O’Dome. I don’t know if you all are basketball fans, but I can’t help but think back to last year. It’s the Sweet Sixteen in the 2017 NCAA Tournament. Florida vs. Wisconsin. The Gators are losing 83-81 in overtime with only four seconds left on the shot clock. Chris Chiozza gets the ball out of bounds at the other end of the court. Defenders jump at him left and right, but Chris keeps dribbling forward. He plants his feet and shoots a floater from the three-point line. Swish. Game Over. Gators advance to the Elite 8!
You see, Class of 2018, when you leave this campus today, I want you to change what people think is possible. In other words, I want y’all to Shoot your Shot. When you’re nervous about taking that amazing job offer across the country, Shoot your shot. When you’re writing your Ph.D. dissertation on an unexplored but exciting new topic, Shoot your shot. And most certainly when you are in the position to stand up for what’s right, Shoot your shot.
There’s no guarantee you will make the shot. Sometimes in life, you’ll see your shot get blocked. Don’t let that discourage you. Don’t ever think that the risk isn’t worth it, because you miss every shot you don’t take. More importantly, as Gators, your actions inspire others to believe in themselves, to chase their dreams, to go greater.
I call on you all to embrace this challenge... together. Lean on one another, hand in hand, and rise to the occasion during times darkest hour to be the lighthouse for hope so needed around the world.
Congrats once again to the Class of 2018 and Go Gators!
Speech from Dr. Greg Sawyer:
Graduates!
It really is an honor and a privilege to be here with all of you today at your commencement.
You are all clearly talented, passionate, and motivated, and I am sure that there are many special people that were with you along the way. Be kind and patient with your friends, colleagues, and families. These relationships are complex, and it will take a lot of effort to maintain them over a lifetime. Remember, things happen quickly, and it’s worth taking time to tell people what they mean to you. Today is good day for that.
As an undergraduate, I took classes in engineering, science, history, art, and literature. I fell in love with all of it! I think that’s why I am so fond of the Renaissance. There are a lot of heroes from that time. I love the stories of Michelangelo. At about your age, the young 23-year-old relatively unknown sculptor takes a project in Rome and is given a large block of pristine solid white Carrara marble, two hammers, and three chisels. In just two years, Michelangelo sculpted the Pieta, a stunningly beautiful statue of a young Mary holding her son just after being removed from the cross. It is elegant, moving, and proportioned so well that Michelangelo’s older contemporaries begin to attribute it other artists. To eliminate any question, the young Michelangelo proceeds to prominently chisel his name across the entire length of the delicate diagonal sash that runs between Mary’s breast. The Pieta launched Michelangelo’s career, but he regretted the vanity of the action, and never signed another work.
Three years later in Florence, a massive block of marble, that many sculptors deemed too flawed to sculpt, and known simply as "The Giant" was again taken by Michelangelo. Over the next two years he worked tirelessly in secrecy, alone in an outdoor courtyard, frequently soaked in rain, with models and stone buried in water; he rarely ate and slept in his clothes -- boots on. When finished, the colossal statue "David" was again described by his contemporaries as a miracle and the finest sculpture ever made.
Roughly a decade later he accepts the challenge of painting the Sistine Chapel. Painting above his head on elaborate scaffolds 60 feet in the air, with paint dripping on his face and eyes, standing and contorting to reach for details and perspective. Michelangelo described the effort as simply torture - he worked on it for 4 straight years, eventually covering the ceiling in frescoes. It is one of Michelangelo's most iconic works.
The unrelenting effort and focus of Michelangelo is legend. The strength and speed with which he hammered and chiseled left his hands damaged, arthritic, and wracked in pain - yet, he was known to be sculpting, chiseling away into his last days.
Effort is Beautiful. Effort is powerful.
Effort is important, it is how, like Michelangelo, you will turn marble into miracles.
I really like what Ian just said, “push on the boundaries of what is possible.” Effort, that pushing on the boundaries, is the one thing that you can actually control. When I was your age, I was drawn to engineering. I worked for 9-months at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, spending long nights with a small team of brilliant engineers that were hammering away, designing and building what would eventually become the first Mars Rover. We were on our fourth iteration: We called it Rocky IV.
The main problem I saw were its surfaces: We had almost no idea how to make this thing work in the Martian atmosphere – this complex moving mechanical assembly needed to work, it needed to move! I left JPL, returned to Rensselaer and entered graduate school working on engineering surfaces. At the time I thought it was the hardest problem in engineering. I spent the next 20 years of my life in laboratories, sparing no effort to build instrumentation, train students, and collaborate with colleagues across the word. All to control surfaces; to make things work: To allow interfaces to move, slide, support loads, or conduct heat or electricity. I had an almost singular focus on this problem. It was my giant block of marble that I hammered on, constantly.
I remember the morning that all of this changed for me in an instant. I remember the entire day clearly. I woke up with the realization that something wasn’t quite right. I biked into my general physician’s office, setup an ultrasound, and later that day I knew. It took a week for the definitive diagnosis of Stage IV metastatic cancer to come. I had bunch of scans, exams, tests, and the first of 5 surgeries. While I was asleep in recovery, the doctor told my wife. This aggressive cancer was on the move, it was spreading. I had to face the new reality that I was a cancer patient.
That evening, I told my sons William and Charles. They were 12 and 7 at the time. It was the worst thing I have ever had to tell anyone; I felt sick, really sick. The next day, I got in early to my laboratory, turned on the lights and cried. I just stood there alone staring at a career’s worth of work and cried. How on earth I was going to tell my students that I probably wouldn’t be here for their graduation? That was the second hardest conversation of my life.
Within two weeks I was at the best cancer center in the country, where I met my new oncologist who promptly said “well, the 5-year survival is in the toilet -- what do you want to do?” I couldn’t believe this was the beginning of my cancer story.
“What do I want to do?”
Work. I wanted to work. I drove back to a friend’s house that evening and went to work. I had a project to finish, a report to write, and a lifetime of lessons to teach two young boys. A diagnosis like this changes your perspective, quickly. What I realized was that we are not really living for ourselves; we are living for others. I remember my first prayer as a cancer patient: “God, let me stay here as long as the boys need me.” Everything takes on a new urgency.
My research focus also changed. Where does cancer need an engineer? Where are the interfaces, the surfaces, the gaps in knowledge? There had to be a way that I could help. That night, when everyone was asleep I downloaded my first scientific paper on cancer. I couldn’t read it. The terminology was like Dr. Seuss! “cMYC SMAD JNK WNT Frizzled.” I never felt dumber in my life, but I kept digging through these papers, making notes, slowly figuring things out. I chose a treatment path that kept as many options open as possible, sparing no effort: 5 surgeries and 2 rounds of intense radiation. I realized that immunotherapy was my only real chance.
Six months later I was patient 1 on a combination check point inhibitor trial. I have no doubt that I am here today with you because of that trial.
In reading the cancer papers, it became clear to me that my own training and experiences brought a different perspective to the cancer problem. Engineers work with extremely complex systems, but we like to break them down, test individual components, and subassemblies, and manage the complexity systematically, piecewise. Whatever challenges you are faced with, don’t forget your training and your experiences – it may be just the perspective we need.
Never, ever, ever quit. Effort is beautiful, and powerful. There is no easy swing of the hammer.
For me, it was a discovery by a friend, colleague, and UF engineering professor, Tommy Angelini that opened the door. After 2 years of searching, I could finally see a way to help. Bioprinting: we can now manufacture tumors by the thousands! All human biology, all in the lab, a tool for everyone to build and tear apart cancer, figure out how it works, and eventually find its weakness and stop it.
Today, 5 years after my diagnosis, I am still here, still working. I once again have a laboratory full of great instrumentation, all hand built by a young team of brilliant engineers and scientists -- all dedicated to cancer research. I have the greatest group of collaborators in Medicine, Engineering, and the Sciences, all working together, focused on the same problem, Cancer.
Cancer survivors make promises – and we keep them. I like that. I wish I did more of that before cancer. I live 6 months at a time, and I have come to peace with this existence – I plan optimistically, but I live urgently. Working on a cure is a tall and sometimes agonizing problem, like Michelangelo’s ceiling. I try to bring persistent and continuous effort, urgency, and optimism to the challenge, and I look to collaborate with colleagues that can do the same – unrelenting effort and focus. Breakthroughs almost always have elements of chance, opportunity, and ability, but there is almost always an element of prodigious effort.
Please whatever you do, whatever you are faced with, never, ever, ever quit. Regardless of the challenge, you will absolutely find your way through it. You’re young, but so was Michelangelo, when he started the Pieta. And remember, you’re Gators!
What is causing Florida’s algae crisis? 5 questions answered
August 10, 2018
Karl Havens
The director of the Florida Sea Grant Program explains what’s driving the two-pronged disaster centered around two large-scale algae outbreaks in Florida that are killing fish and threatening public health.
Algae cover the surface of the Caloosahatchee River at the W.P. Franklin Lock and Dam, July 12, 2018, in Alva, Florida. AP Photo/Lynne Sladky
Editor’s note: Two large-scale algae outbreaks in Florida are killing fish and threatening public health. Along the southwest coast, one of the longest-lasting red tide outbreaks in the state’s history is affecting more than 100 miles of beaches. Meanwhile, discharges of polluted fresh water from Lake Okeechobee and polluted local runoff water from the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee watersheds have caused blooms of blue-green algae in downstream estuaries on both coasts. Karl Havens, a professor at the University of Florida and director of the Florida Sea Grant Program, explains what’s driving this two-pronged disaster.
What’s the difference between red tide and blue-green algae?
Both are photosynthetic microscopic organisms that live in water. Blue-green algae are properly called cyanobacteria. Some species of cyanobacteria occur in the ocean, but blooms – extremely high levels that create green surface scums of algae – happen mainly in lakes and rivers, where salinity is low.
Red tides are caused by a type of algae called a dinoflagellate, which also is ubiquitous in lakes, rivers, estuaries and the oceans. But the particular species that causes red tide blooms, which can literally make water look blood red, occur only in saltwater.
Florida’s red tide outbreak as of Aug. 8, 2018.Florida FWC
What causes these blooms?
Blooms occur where lakes, rivers or near-shore waters have high concentrations of nutrients – in particular, nitrogen and phosphorus. Some lakes and rivers have naturally high nutrient concentrations. However, in Lake Okeechobee and the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee estuaries, man-made nutrient pollution from their watersheds is causing the blooms. Very high levels of nitrogen and phosphorus are washing into the water from agricultural lands, leaky septic systems and fertilizer runoff.
Red tides form offshore, and it is not clear whether or to what extent they have become more frequent. When ocean currents carry a red tide to the shore it can intensify, especially where there are abundant nutrients to fuel algae growth. This year, after heavy spring rains and because of discharges of water from Lake Okeechobee, river runoff in southwest Florida brought a large amount of nutrients into near-shore waters of the Gulf of Mexico, which fueled the large red tide.
Algae is clearly visible in this satellite image of southwestern Lake Okeechobee, taken July 15, 2018.NASA Earth Observatory
The red tide has killed thousands of fish and other aquatic life, and state agencies have issued public health advisories in connection with both blooms. How dangerous are they for humans and the environment?
The public health advisories about red tide are related to respiratory irritation, which is a particular concern for people with asthma or other respiratory issues. But almost anyone, including me, who has walked a beach where there is a red tide will quickly experience watering eyes, a runny nose and a scratchy throat. The algae that cause the red tide release a toxic chemical into the water that is easily transported into the air where waves break on the shore.
Some people are allergic to cyanobacteria blooms and can have contact dermatitis (skin rash) on exposure. Several of my colleagues have developed rashes after submerging their hands to collect water samples. It is not advisable to purposely contact water with a cyanobacteria bloom. And if farm animals or pets drink water with an intense bloom, they can become seriously ill or die.
The blooms are causing widespread fish kills and threatening Florida’s tourism industry.
How can states prepare for these events?
The onset of algae blooms is unpredictable. We know high levels of nutrients allow a lake or shoreline to have blooms. We even can predict with some certainty that a bloom is likely in a particular summer – for example, if in the preceding spring heavy rainfall and runoff from the land delivered large amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus into the water.
But we can’t predict exactly when a bloom will begin and end, because that depends on things we can’t project. Why did the cyanobacteria bloom start in Lake Okeechobee this summer? Perhaps because there were several successive hot sunny days with little cloud cover and little wind. For some lakes in Florida and many others across the nation, we have loaded the surrounding land with so much phosphorus and nitrogen from agricultural and urban runoff that all it takes is the right weather to trigger a bloom: A rainy spring and then a few perfect sunny days in summer.
We cannot control the weather, but we can control nutrient pollution, both by reducing it at its sources and by capturing and treating water running off of large land areas. Florida has many such projects under way as part of the greater Everglades restoration efforts, but they will take decades to complete.
Nutrient pollution sources include decaying organic material; fertilizers applied to crops, lawns and golf courses; manure from fields or feedlots; atmospheric deposition; groundwater discharge; and municipal wastewater discharge.USGS
One key aspect of rehabilitating polluted lakes, rivers and estuaries is knowing whether actions are having a positive effect. This requires long-term environmental monitoring programs, which unfortunately have been scaled back in Florida and manyotherstates due to budget cuts.
Carefully designed monitoring could help us understand factors affecting the kind of blooms that occur and what triggers them to start and stop at particular times, and provide guidance on nutrient control strategies. We are not monitoring at that level now in Florida.
Is climate change influencing the size or frequency of these outbreaks?
Scientists have clearly shown that there is a positive and synergistic relationship between water temperature, nutrients and algal blooms. In a warmer future, with the same level of nutrient pollution, blooms will become harder if not impossible to control. This means that it is urgent to control nutrient inputs to lakes, rivers and estuaries now.
Unfortunately, today the federal government is relaxing environmental regulations in the name of fostering increased development and job creation. But conservation and economic growth are not incompatible. In Florida, a healthy economy depends strongly on a healthy environment, including clean surface waters without these harmful blooms.
Researchers with the University of Florida’s Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering have developed a way to instantly detect counterfeit pills, a growing problem in developing countries and a danger to others worldwide face as online pharmacy use increases and sales of nutritional supplements are skyrocketing.
The device uses nuclear quadrupole resonance, which is used in explosives detection and oil production. It can also can be used to sniff out toxins on or in food. Swarup Bhunia, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and a lead researcher on the project, says the technology could be available to consumers and retailers within two years and could include a version that works with your smartphone, allowing consumers to test medicines and supplements themselves.
Science & Wellness
/articles/2018/08/together-for-turtles.html
Together for turtles
August 14, 2018
Stephenie Livingston
Archie Carr Center for Sea Turtle Research, Disney Conservation Fund
Science & Wellness
/articles/2018/08/to-be-a-gator-in-68.html
To be a Gator in ’68
August 15, 2018
Micayla Kinder
It’s the year 1968 and your parents are driving you to Gainesville in their beat-up but sturdy station wagon to drop you off for your first semester at the University of Florida. You hear your parents discussing the Vietnam War and the upcoming Democratic Convention, but your thoughts are elsewhere. You’re thinking about whether or not you’ll get along with your new roommate, how many times you’re going to get lost during the first week of classes and what your new life will be like in Gainesville. You hum along to The Beatles’ new song “Hey Jude” on the radio and look out the window to see a brick tower peeking over the trees, welcoming you to your new home.
Changing Tides
Political and cultural tensions were high in the United States in the year 1968. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy were assassinated, North Korea seized the USS Pueblo and the Vietnam War was in full swing. This time was a transition period for the University and the school was still very much being shaped by white southern students, according to UF historian Carl Van Ness.
“The diverse university that we have today did not exist back then,” Van Ness said.
Fifty years ago, UF was much smaller and less diverse than it is today. According to university records, there were only 19,848 students enrolled that year, and the majority of students were white males. Though UF was officially integrated in 1958, there were only about 300 African American students enrolled during this time, records show. Additionally, UF had comparatively few out-of-state and foreign students. One milestone signifying progress at the university was the formation of The Black Student Union (BSU) that year. The BSU would soon grow into a powerful social organization and support system, publicly voicing the issues affecting black students on campus. BSU worked to address the lack of black faculty, lack of diversity in the curriculum and the small number of black students at the university.
Fightin' Gators
The year 1968 also saw the first black student-athletes recruited to play football, Leonard George of Tampa, and Willie Jackson of Sarasota. Representation slowly appeared in athletics, but it was not until 1971 that that the voices of minority students began to be heard on campus. That April, about 50 African American students, frustrated with the lack of faculty and student recruitment, held a sit-in at President Stephen O'Connell's office in Tigert Hall. That day became known as “Black Thursday.” Other protests followed. The university took notice of these issues, and began to actively recruit minority students and make the university more welcoming to students of all backgrounds, Van Ness said. That included UF establishing the Institute of Black Culture (IBC),which broke ground in the fall of 1971.
Couresy of UAA
Taking note of how much UF and society has changed since they were on campus in 1968, Bill and Janice Carr who now live in Gainesville, reminisce on both the joys and challenges of being a Gator in those days. Bill was number 51 on the football team and played alongside Steve Spurrier, while Janice was an active member of the Tri Delta sorority. They married two weeks after graduation and went on to have five children who all attended UF.
Courtesy of the Carrs
In the ‘60s, Gator football was not what it is today. The stadium was smaller, the team had less players and the physical expectations were much lower.
“The year-round training that is so much a part of football today was not so intense back then,” Bill said. “I had a more normal student experience. It is much more demanding, rigorous and structured today.”
Another monumental change for the sports world and the university was the invention of Gatorade. Bill’s football team was one of the first to sample the drink.
“I don’t know if it was the placebo effect or whether it actually helped, but in my mind, [Gatorade] made a difference,” Bill said. “I never felt waterlogged, and it helped me mentally.”
Courtesy of the Carrs
Football attire was quite different as well. Bill’s uniform was made of cotton, which soaks up moisture. By the end of the game, players wearing the uniforms were saturated with sweat, according to Bill. The cotton uniforms were not as advanced as those made of synthetic materials, worn by athletes today. Football fans would wear nice attire to games: Men wore ties and sports coats while women wore dresses with stockings to every game.
Looking back, Bill said that playing for the Gators is one of the things he takes the most pride in.
“It was a good experience and I very much enjoyed being a member of the team. It was one of the greatest honors of my life that as a senior, I was elected to be a co-captain by my teammates. That has always meant a great deal to me.”
A reality that most men had to face in the ‘60s was being drafted into the armed forces after graduation. Many who were drafted were sent to Vietnam, but after North Korea took control of the USS Pueblo in January of 1968, the U.S. began to send forces to Korea. ROTC was required for all male students at UF at that time, and Bill went beyond the basic requirements because he desired to go in as an officer rather than as an enlisted man.
“When I went to Korea, I got to work in sports,” Bill said. “It turned me on to this whole idea of working in sports and it made me consider it as a career.”
Not only is Bill a veteran and former football player, but he also served as the UF Athletic Director from 1979-86. Carr now runs a small business in Gainesville called CarrSports Consulting, which he has done for 20 years.
Dresses, Curfews and Limits, Oh My!
Courtesy of the Carrs
As Janice looked back on her time as a Gator, she expressed immense gratitude for all of the benefits she received through her involvement in Tri Delta.
“I really enjoyed the friendships I made through my sorority,” Janice said. “I think what being in a sorority does is number one - it makes you study, two - it teaches you a lot about people, and three- it helps you make connections and learn to get along with people.”
The Carr’s daughter was a part of Tri Delta at UF as well and Janice stated that she is grateful her daughter got to share in that experience.
According to Janice, clothing restrictions, less career options and some curfews in place were some of the differences that UF women faced, compared to now.
In 1968, you would not see women walking to class in Nike shorts and sneakers like you do today. Women dressed rather conservatively and almost always wore dresses or skirts.
“As a woman, you couldn’t wear pants or shorts unless you were going to exams,” Janice said. “We had to wear dresses. In the sorority house, we also had to dress nicely for dinner.”
Courtesy of University Archives
According to an article written in The Alligator in September of 1968, there were curfews in place for women in dormitories. Freshmen women enrolled for their first quarter at UF had an 11 p.m. weeknight curfew and a 2 a.m. curfew on weekends. Freshmen females were also required to sign out of the dorms.
Janice received her degree in education, and stated that women’s career options felt limited at that time.
“Back in the day, for women, your choices were elementary education or nursing,” Janice said. “It just wasn’t on our radar that you could go into something else. I only knew of one or two women that went into business.”
Student Life
The Carrs noted how much technology and student life had changed at the university since ‘68. When they were in school, there were no cell phones, no laptops, and there was limited air conditioning available, they said. Students went out on dates frequently and used payphones to communicate as opposed to communicating through text or Tinder as many millennials do today.
“Where I lived in Sledd Hall, there was one room with athletes in it on every floor,” Bill said. “In my room, there were three of us, and in the hallway right outside, there was a pay phone. We ended up answering the phone frequently because no one else would, so it was quite a nuisance. It was ten cents a call, unless you had the skill of putting a nickel in and hitting it just right to jimmy the phone and get a call at half price.”
It is likely that current UF students have much healthier lifestyles than students did in ‘68. Students drank a lot of soda and smoked cigarettes regularly. While neither of the Carrs smoked, they stated that smoking was very common and that people could smoke almost anywhere on campus.
“Smoking was so much more prevalent then,” Bill said. “Many people who were educated indulged in smoking, while today the number of smokers who are college graduates is very small.”
Another aspect of student life that has shifted dramatically over the years is the political involvement and awareness of UF students. Though there were some political demonstrations on campus in 1968, most students were not in tune politically, it seems. Students watched much less television and did not have easy access to information via the Internet. The Carrs stated that they wished they had been more aware during this turbulent time.
“To our chagrin, we missed opportunities to participate in civil rights,” Bill said. “It's a lot harder for students to be ignorant today because of social media platforms. You had to make the effort to be informed back then.”
As the Carrs look back on their time at UF with fondness and gratitude, they are also looking ahead, as they are serving on the planning committee for the Grand Guard reunion for the class of 1968. The event will take place November 15-17. The event will allow alumni to connect with old classmates, get special tours and participate in a ceremony honoring their achievements and involvement.
One aspect of student life that hasn’t changed much is the social time students spend in their dorm common areas. One alumna who attended UF in ‘68 and often spent time socializing in her dorm is Virginia “Ginny” Dumas Williams. It was through her time spent there that Williams met her college sweetheart.
Courtesy of Virginia Dumas Williams
“We met playing Pinochle [card game] in the Beaty Towers common areas,” Williams said. “People would get together there often to spend time with friends and meet new people.”
That one card game was the start of what little did she know, would be a long line of Gators. Both of Williams’ children attended UF and two of her grandchildren are now studying here.
Sadly, Williams passed away on July 13, at the age of 67, surrounded by her loved ones. She was an accountant, a piano player and an active member of her church. Her family said that she touched the lives of all who knew her and is leaving behind a Gator legacy.
Gainesville and the University of Florida have advanced tremendously over the past 50 years. With breakthroughs in research, championships in athletics and recently being ranked a top 10 public university nationally, UF continues to evolve and progress for the better. UF’s impact extends much farther than Gainesville, touching every industry and city where UF alumni are living and working to make the world a greater place.
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Center for African Studies
On a sunny day on the Plaza of the Americas, Professor Kole Odutola walks between groups of students handing out slips of paper inviting them to take YOR 1130, his beginning Yorùbá class. The class is five days a week, five credits, and it's not easy. But Odutola, who has been teaching at the University of Florida since 2006, promises prospective students that they'll learn more than words and phrases while studying Yorùbá.
"It's a class where you learn how to learn,” he says. “That's one thing that school doesn't teach you — how do you learn? How do you remember things? How do you organize what you learn? That's one of the things Yorùbá is good for."
Yorùbá — spoken by 40 million people in Nigeria, its neighboring countries and the diaspora — is one of several African languages offered at UF. The university's Program in African Languages began with Swahili more than 50 years ago and has been adding languages since. UF also hosts the African Flagship Languages Initiative Domestic Intensive Summer Program, which brings graduate and undergraduate students from around the country to Gainesville to learn Akan, French, Hausa, Portuguese, Swahili, Wolof, Yoruba and Zulu from native speakers.
New name, new location for the new school year at the UF Career Connections Center
August 16, 2018
Micayla Kinder
When classes resume on August 22, University of Florida students will find that the university’s nationally recognized career center has some news. Following a 14-month renovation and expansion, the former Career Resource Center has a new name, the Career Connections Center, along with a renovated and expanded facility in the J. Wayne Reitz Union.
The center, which serves the over 55,000 UF students and alumni, went through an extensive rebranding and renovation process. The new location, double the size of the previous one at 28,940 square feet, has many features including four engagement centers with virtual capabilities so that students can access events online and virtual workshops can take place. The space includes several interview rooms for students, four of which have the technology that allows for virtual interviews. Study nooks are also available for students who need a place to study individually or in groups. Additionally, the The Molm Family Gator Career Closet, UF’s lending closet where students can borrow professional clothing free of charge, has moved from the Dean of Students office to the career center. “Our space, from the engagement centers to the new Molm Family Gator Career Closet, truly represents what we want to communicate to students, it’s a facility with an intentional function – to bridge inspiration to action. It’s a place where we will inspire connections to meaningful possibilities, relationships and experiences,” said Ja’Net Glover, the senior director for career services.
Though the name change is small, shifting from the word resource to connections, communicates impact the staff have on students’ lives. “The cornerstone of what we do is to provide connections for our students, whether it’s helping the student connect to their interests and values or connecting them to employers for internships and careers, those connection points are at the heart at what we do,” said Glover. The career center which provides students with career education and guidance to enrich their college experience and prepare them for life beyond college, selected a name that better aligns with its mission to “educate and create connections for the University of Florida community in order to facilitate the holistic career development of students.” While there is a new location and name, the center has the same friendly staff, quality assistance and legacy.
The center marked its 65th year of career services on campus on July 1. To celebrate this anniversary and all that is new, the Career Connections Center will hold several events later this fall including a block party on August 23 from 11:30 a.m. – 2 p.m. for students, faculty and staff, and an official ribbon cutting ceremony on September 18 to celebrate the opening of the newly renovated space. The Ribbon Cutting, which is open to the public, will consist of a program with tours of the building to follow. “This is an exciting time for career services on our campus. Sixty-five years ago, we started out with one person at a spare desk in Tigert Hall, now we have close to 30,000 square feet of space to serve the campus community. It’s an honor to provide this service on campus for students, and we’re already moving forward with the vision for this next era. This fall the team and I will host listening tours to find out what students want for their career center, and how they can be an integral part of the vision,” said Glover.
Glover, who previously served as interim director of the center, was appointed as the senior director in March. She led the department through the $9.6 million expansion of the center while working to enhance the center’s career services.
From slag to swag: the story of Earl Tupper’s fantastic plastics
August 20, 2018
Marsha Bryant
A UF English professor and a Distinguished Teaching Scholar who has studied the history of Tupperware discusses how the product’s ability to bridge the humanities and STEM fields speaks to its cultural and utilitarian value.
A postcard from the 1950s advertises a variety Tupperware products. Thomas Hawk, CC BY-NC
When “American Horror Story,” the Museum of Modern Art and “Napoleon Dynamite” pay homage to an invention, you know it’s made a cultural impact in a big way.
Tupperware has a staying power that most plastic products don’t. So far, it has evaded the anti-plastics movement, and it seems to survive most kitchen clean-outs. Its annual sales exceed US$2 billion.
I’ve taught the story of Tupperware products in a course on the American 1950s. I’m also teaching it in the polymers unit of an interdisciplinary course in materials science engineering.
Tupperware products’ ability to bridge the humanities and STEM fields speaks to their cultural and utilitarian value – evidence of how a compelling, innovative design can have mass appeal.
Polyethylene – ‘Material of the Future’
Our relationships with plastics can be as richly diverse as the shapes and colors these malleable materials can assume.
Technically speaking, plastics are pliable, ductile and flexible synthetic materials that are easily shaped through heat and other applications of force. The word “plastic” also has an aesthetic meaning: A plastic actor is more versatile before the camera, and a medium such as stone can become plastic in an artist’s hands.
Literary and cultural critic Roland Barthes saw modern plastics as a form of alchemy – a way to transmute matter in seemingly infinite ways.
“More than a substance,” he wrote in “Mythologies,” “plastic is the very idea of its infinite transformation.”
Barthes imagined polystyrene, polyvinyl and polyethylene as Greek shepherds in a world of gods and monsters – magical materials alive with possibility.
Earl Tupper, inventor of Tupperware products, saw such promise in polyethylene – the plastic he used to craft his inventions – that he called it “Poly-T: Material of the Future,” as Alison J. Clarke notes in her book “Tupperware: The Promise of Plastic in 1950s America.”
After failing at his first business as a tree surgeon, Tupper decided to try his hand at plastics production. In 1937, he got a gig as a sample maker at a Dupont-affiliated plastics factory.
At the time, DuPont employed amateur sample makers to further research and development. They could even take scrap materials home with them to work on new prototypes – a mutually beneficial arrangement, Clarke points out.
So when working with injection molding machines at the factory failed to yield the plastic Tupper envisioned, he turned to his home kitchen and tried the stovetop.
It’s all about the lid
The polyethylene that Tupper brought home from the factory was an industrial waste product – opaque, greasy, clumpy black slag. It was hardly the stuff that marketing dreams are made of. Tupper sought to overcome such material limitations by producing a plastic more durable than molded transparent styrene; he wanted to create something that could flex without cracking or snapping.
He and his son boiled the scrap samples at home, eventually finding the right balance of pressure and temperature so the polyethylene flowed into the desired shapes and thickness. Tupper also fashioned a system for dyeing his containers in pastel colors.
Eventually, Tupper was able to create what author Bob Kealing referred to as “a polished, waxy, upscale plastic.”
But he still needed the right lid – something that could both preserve food and prevent spills.
Inspired by paint cans, Tupper fashioned a flexible polyethylene lid that, when snapped onto the container, created an airtight seal. As Kealing points out, this worked much better than tin foil or a shower cap – materials many American women had relied on to cover their leftovers.
In 1947, Tupper patented the nonsnap lid for his first plastic container.
Legendary saleswoman Brownie Wise – the first woman to appear on the cover of Business Week – would demonstrate how to “burp” the container by lifting part of the patented lid before sealing it. Her direct sales acumen made Tupper’s product come alive. At her iconic “Tupperware parties,” she would toss liquid-filled Wonder Bowls across American living rooms, astonishing housewives with the airtight seal that prevented spills.
A 1958 ad markets Tupperware parties and showcases the air-tight seal.
From pantry shelf to gallery shelf
In the 1972 film “Design Q&A,” designer Ray Eames insists that design is fundamentally “a plan for arranging elements to accomplish a particular purpose,” although superior designs “may later be judged as art.”
Today, Tupper’s polyethylene pitcher and creamer reside in the Museum of Modern Art, along with his tumblers, bowls and ingenious popsicle molds, called “Ice Tups.” Curators have included Tupperware products in exhibitions on mid-century design and most recently in the 2011 exhibit “What was Good Design? MoMA’s Message, 1944-1956.”
As Clarke explains, Tupper’s products embodied modernism’s “ideal of a tasteful, restrained and mass-produced artifact, free of inauthentic decoration and gratuitous ornament.”
With their clean lines and elegant curves, they fused form and function. The plastic used in Tupperware products is top-shelf – aesthetically pleasing, meaningful and durable.
In today’s Tupperware products, we also see a refined design. Take the Eco Water Bottle. Its sleek curves – together with its softly translucent pink, blue and turquoise variations – conjure glass. The concave center looks pretty and fits the hand.
Tales from Tupper’s wares
Tupperware products continue to play a role in our cultural conscious. A friend who lent me her Ice Tups told me that she’ll always associate it with early memories of her mother.
In one “Seinfeld” episode, Kramer frantically tries to recover his Tupperware container that he’d loaned to someone, while Jimmy of “American Horror Story” causes mayhem at a Tupperware Party. Meanwhile, the synthwave band Tupper Ware Remix Party spins 80s-inspired dance tracks.
Can you relate to Kramer?
Non-biodegradable plastic like Tupperware containers will be part of Earth’s future for centuries. The Plastics Free July initiative has advocated against single-use plastics, like bags and straws. Luckily, Tupperware products are reusable, and the stories we tell about them will continue to reinvent our relationships with a material we won’t – and can’t – let go of.
Overcoming vaccination myths: Could addressing the facts during prenatal visits help?
August 21, 2018
Amanda Sams Bradshaw
A UF Ph.D. candidate in advertising suggests that doctors could help better educate pregnant women who often get medical information from social media and websites, many of which contain misleading and false information about vaccination.
During pregnancy, expectant parents spend countless hours sifting through online resources to make the “right” medical choices for their baby. In addition to decorating a nursery and playing baby shower games, pregnant women often are glued to their smartphones, seeking advice from friends and strangers.
A pregnant woman’s Facebook news feed provides one window into motherhood, and the connections, articles and advice delivered by a Facebook news feed offer suggestions – both wanted and unwanted.
However, the internet has been dubbed a “postmodern Pandora’s box.” Misinformation and rumors abound on many health topics, but particularly in regards to childhood vaccinations. False claims and widely perpetuated myths, such as the discredited assertion that vaccinations cause autism, have been declared a threat to modern society. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, community immunity requires that a certain percentage of the population be vaccinated to maintain coverage against dangerous diseases for all.
I study health communication, and I have analyzed some of these trends. I see problems when expectant parents accept medical myths. I also see opportunities to change the narrative to an accurate one.
Persistent falsehoods
Although overall vaccination rates in the United States remain high, social networks sometimes support grassroots mobilization of mothers against childhood vaccines. This allows personal narratives to take root and be shared more.
My recent study, not yet published, found that more than 30,000 members in the largest closed anti-vaccination Facebook group influence first-time, pregnant and new mothers in their decision-making process for their own children. In some instances, I found that a mother’s expressed concern would transition from fear of protecting her child from measles to a more intense fear of more than 200 alleged side effects.
Another recent study analyzed 2.6 million Facebook users’ interactions over more than seven years, identifying distinct, opposing pro- and anti-vaccination narratives. Users self-select the content they wish to view based on their own belief systems, ignoring all other content. Researchers found that posts from anti-vaccination advocates received more user comments. And anti-vaccination groups are growing more rapidly in comparison to pro-vaccination groups.
Put simply, anti-vax videos are increasingly playing up the risks of vaccination, which mainly include redness and swelling where the shot is given and, in very rare cases, other side effects. These anti-vax videos consistently downplay the benefit of protection from life-threatening diseases.
A large study in New York state identified one in four students following an alternate, nonscientifically based vaccination schedule. An alternate schedule may include selectively vaccinating or delaying certain vaccines. Essentially, parents of these children are following their own schedule, or a schedule found in a book or magazine, but not the CDC recommended schedule. Students in private schools, or those who come from more affluent families with parents who have received higher levels of education, are more likely to opt out.
Physicians such as Robert Sears provide advice contrary to consensus by the medical community and use digital channels, including propaganda videos, to raise concerns about the safety of vaccinations. The Medical Board of California recently placed Sears on probation for allegedly writing inappropriate medical exemptions for vaccinations.
Causing a cluster
Parental refusal to vaccinate typically increases in geographic clusters, and when that happens, outbreaks of once-eliminated diseases, such as measles, occur. In 11 states, the number of kids not being vaccinated for nonmedical reasons has exceeded any point in the past five years. Infants, the elderly and immuno-compromised individuals are particularly vulnerable.
While women get a lot of information on birth plans and breastfeeding during standard prenatal care, my qualitative research suggests that they do not get much information about childhood vaccinations. In interviews and focus groups with more than 20 expectant mothers, some in their third trimester, all reported that providers had not initiated dialogue about childhood vaccinations. For first-time mothers, they reported our conversation was the first they had formally discussed this particular issue. Yet the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that the first dose of the hepatitis B vaccination be administered within the first 24 hours of life.
But what might happen if this changed? Could this be a solution? I strongly believe it could.
A full-term medical press
Even though 90 percent of expectant mothers report making childhood vaccination decisions before the birth of the baby, a full one-third of expectant mothers expressed feeling uninformed, with first-time mothers identifying as more vaccine hesitant.
As one expectant mother in her third trimester in Gainesville, Florida recently said in an interview with me:
“I think that there’s extreme lack of communication. I think that childhood vaccination information should be relayed. That way you have the information you need before something happens, and then it’s too late to make an informed decision.”
In a survey, 98 percent of OB-GYNs revealed they believe childhood vaccinations to be important, but less than half believed they could influence expectant mothers.
In an interview, a midwife in Gainesville stated childhood vaccination discussions are not in her “standard scope of practice,” explaining that beyond a basic handout, she typically refers questioning mothers-to-be to a pediatrician.
In the absence of comprehensive information about childhood vaccinations, Dr. Google may take over.
I believe the following things would help to get the truth out:
A more active physician voice on social networking sites, connecting patients with evidence-based sources as opposed to anti-vaccination propaganda.
Standard policy by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommending childhood vaccination discussions to occur during the third trimester of pregnancy, particularly surrounding the first vaccine. Research has suggested that this could help educate parents.
Standard policy by National Association of Certified Professional Midwives to include more information about childhood vaccinations during prenatal care.
Increased efforts to orchestrate prenatal pediatrician’s visits to connect mothers-to-be with their child’s future doctor to discuss vaccination, with a special emphasis on connecting first-time mothers with a pediatrician during the third trimester.
The oldest book in the University of Florida Libraries was one of the first in the fledgling university’s collection 100 years ago, but it was already ancient then.
The leather-bound New Testament was handwritten in Latin around 1250. That’s deep in the Middle Ages, before Marco Polo traveled to China, before we knew the Earth traveled around the sun. When the book was written, the Inca and Mali Empires thrived. The Crusades raged. Istanbul was Constantinople.
Written in black and brown ink on sheepskin parchment, the book is presumed to have passed through three Italian libraries in the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, then traveled to Scotland, finding a home in Edinburgh’s Signet Library.
Somewhere during its journey through medieval Europe, several people wrote notes in the margins of the book. The notes in brown ink are mostly Roman numerals, but the writing in red — which, from the style of the letters, seems to be from the fourteenth century — is mysterious.
Some of the scribbles seem to be words, but they’re illegible. Others form a cryptic code of repeating letters. On the second-to-last page is a list of letters next to corresponding numbers.
Is it the key to a secret code? No one knows. You can try to decipher it — or just admire this ancient and irreplaceable book — by exploring the digitized version, which was created due to demand from libraries, students and researchers from around the world.
A UF Ph.D. candidate in Religion in the Americas and Global Islam explains the spiritual significance of the annual pilgrimage of Muslims from all over the world to the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia.
Muslim pilgrims pray at the Grand Mosque, ahead of the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, in August 2017. AP Photo/Khalil Hamra
What is the religious and political significance of this annual pilgrimage?
The fifth pillar
Millions of Muslims come from countries as diverse as Indonesia, Russia, India, Cuba, Fiji, the United States and Nigeria – all dressed in plain white garments.
Men wear seamless, unstitched clothing, and women, white dresses with headscarves. The idea is to dress plainly so as to mask any differences in wealth and status.
The pilgrimage is considered to be the fifth pillar of Islamic practice. The other four are the profession of faith, five daily prayers, charity and the fast of Ramadan.
The first day of the Hajj
The rites of the Hajj are believed to retrace events from the lives of prominent prophets such as Ibrahim and Ismail.
Pilgrims start by circling the “Holy Kaaba,” the black, cube-shaped house of God, at the center of the most sacred mosque in Mecca, seven times. The Kaaba occupies a central place in the lives of Muslims. Muslims, all over the world, are expected to turn toward the Kaaba when performing their daily prayers.
The Quran tells the story of Ibrahim, who when commanded by God, agreed to sacrifice his son, Ismail. Muslims believe the Kaaba holds the black stone upon which Ibrahim was to carry out his oath.
Pilgrims are bound by specific rules regarding going around the Kaaba. They may kiss, touch or approach the Kaaba during the pilgrimage as a sign of their devotion.
In performing these rituals, they join a long line of pilgrims to Mecca – including Prophet Muhammad, who circled the Kaaba.
Pilgrims then proceed to a ritual walk – about 100 meters from the Kaaba – to hills known as “Safa” and “Marwah.” Here they re-create another significant event recorded in the Quran.
The story goes that Ibrahim was granted a son by God through his Egyptian slave girl Hajar. After the birth of Ismail, God instructed Ibrahim to take Hajar and her newborn son out into the desert and leave them there. Ibrahim left them near the present-day location of the Kaaba. Ismail cried out with thirst and Hajar ran between two hills, looking for water until she turned to God for help.
God rewarded Hajar for her patience and sent his angel Jibreel to reveal a spring, which today is known as “Zamzam Well.” Pilgrims drink water from the sacred well and may take some home for blessings.
The hajj “climaxes” with a sojourn in the plains of Arafat near Mecca. There, pilgrims gather in tents, spend time with one another and perform prayers. Some pilgrims will ascend a hill known as the “Mount of Mercy,” where Prophet Muhammad delivered the farewell sermon toward the end of his life.
They then proceed to an open plain near Mecca, often a highlight of the journey for many pilgrims. Muslims believe that the spirit of God comes closer to Earth in this place at the time of the pilgrimage.
As a scholar of global Islam, during my fieldwork I have interviewed those who have gone on the Hajj. They have described to me their personal experiences of standing in the plains of Arafat or circling the Kaaba with fellow Muslims and feeling a close communion with God.
Here they recall how Satan tried to tempt Ibrahim to disobey God’s call to sacrifice Ismail. Ibrahim, however, remained unmoved and informed Ismail, who was willing to be offered to God. To reenact Ibrahim’s rebuff of Satan’s temptation, pilgrims throw small stones at a stone pillar.
They then proceed to follow Ibrahim in the act of sacrifice. The Quran says just as Ibrahim attempted to kill his son, God intervened and a ram was killed in place of Ismail. In remembrance, Muslims all over the world ritually slaughter an animal on this day. The “festival of the sacrifice” is known as Eid al-Adha.
Many pilgrims spend the next few days in Mina, where they repeat some of the rituals. It is where they start to transition to their worldly life by putting on their everyday clothes.
Muslims believe that a proper performance of the Hajj can absolve them of any previous sins. However, they also believe that just undertaking the pilgrimage is not enough: It is up to God to judge, based on the intention of those undertaking the pilgrimage.
Creating one Muslim community
Of course, the pilgrimage does not take place in a political void. The Hajj is a massive organizational project for the Saudi authorities. Issues concerning crowd management, security, traffic and tensions constantly plague the successful organization of the event. A tragic stampede in 2015 left over 700 dead. Since then Saudi authorities review preparations even more carefully.
There are other tensions too that come up at this time: Some Shia governments such as Iran, for example, have leveled charges alleging discrimination by Sunni Saudi authorities.
To address such issues, Muslims in the past have called to put together an international, multi-partisan committee to organize the pilgrimage. Perhaps that could help avoid regional or sectarian conflicts. The Hajj, after all, is any individual Muslim’s single most symbolic ritual act that reflects the ideal of unity.
By requiring Muslims to don the same clothes, pray in the same space and perform the same rituals, the Hajj has the potential to unite a global Muslim community across national and class boundaries.
Smartphone security risk compared to “having a ghost user on your phone”
August 22, 2018
Jonathan Griffin
Millions of smartphones likely have vulnerabilities that could allow hackers to easily take control of phones and extract private information without users ever knowing, new research shows.
What’s more, the hack can happen when a user does something as simple as plug a phone into an airport charging station.
“It's not just an unknown computer that's a problem, but anything that you plug your USB cable into: a charging station, a kiosk ... For all we know there could be something malicious on the other side injecting these commands to your phone,” said Kevin Butler, an associate professor in the University of Florida Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering and a leader of the research team that uncovered the weaknesses.
Researchers hacked eight devices, including the Google Nexus 5, LG G4 and Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus. The device responses ranged from hidden menus popping up to phones being factory reset.
In a video demonstrating commands being sent to an LG phone, Grant Hernandez, a UF computer engineering doctoral student, explains how the touch screen can be manipulated without actually touching it. Also shown in the video, and possibly more worrisome, is the ability of AT commands to bypass the lock screen.
“It’s essentially like having a ghost user on your phone,” Butler said.
Butler and his team alerted the vendors and supplied the code used to exploit the vulnerabilities. LG and Samsung responded promptly to the findings by developing a security patch, released in July, to address the lock and touch screen issue, with acknowledgements going out to Butler.
But millions of other smartphones likely remain at risk, Butler said. He and his team plan to investigate more devices and manufacturers like Apple, whose devices are known to also respond to AT commands.
In their study, presented Aug. 15 at the 2018 USENIX Security Symposium in Baltimore, the team sent the phones instructions called AT commands through a USB cable. Those commands, composed of the letters “A” and “T” followed by a short string of characters, were originally developed in the 1980s to control dial-up modems. Today, these commands are still used by smartphones whenever they make calls or send text messages.
Over time, phone manufacturers have created thousands of custom AT commands to tell phones to perform other tasks like taking pictures. That could come in handy during development to test devices, Butler said, but due to the nature of corporate practice, the full capability and potential security risk posed by those commands has not been well documented.
Dave Tian, a doctoral student in Butler’s lab, began studying the effects of AT commands on Samsung devices while interning at the company. When he returned to UF after his internship, he did a deeper dive.
To study AT commands comprehensively, Butler and his team collected commands from 11 different vendors. After downloading over 2,000 files from manufacturer and third-party websites, the team wrote code to automatically extract commands from those files and created a database that included 3,500 unique commands.
“This is by far the largest collection of AT commands as far as we know,” Butler said.
At first it was unclear to the researchers what commands would do or if commands made by one manufacturer could work on devices from other manufacturers.
“In many cases, these commands are completely undocumented. The next step was to actually take our big list of commands and find out what would happen if we ran them on real devices,” Butler said.
Said Hernandez: “By sending one command, despite there being a password enabled, you could just skip straight to the home screen. It was quite shocking because this was all done with little text commands we were sending through a USB cable.”
Butler urged users to update their phones with security patches as soon as they are available and be aware of where devices are being plugged in, as connecting to an unknown computer could expose the device to an attack.
Global Impact
/articles/2018/08/did-bats-invent-fireflies.html
Did bats invent fireflies?
August 22, 2018
Alisson Clark
UF/IFAS
When bats swoop through the night skies devouring insects, there’s one they know not to eat: fireflies.
Fireflies — also known as lightning bugs — contain toxic compounds, so bats avoid them. But how do bats know not to eat them, and how do they detect them on the fly? University of Florida firefly researcher Marc Branham teamed up with bat researchers at Boise State University to find out.
If you’re thinking that fireflies’ flashing lights have something to do with it, you’re right. But the whole story is even more interesting.
In the study, led by Boise State’s Jesse Barber, bats that had never encountered fireflies before quickly learned to not eat them. To figure out how fireflies advertised their distastefulness, the researchers tested potential cues one at a time. In one experiment, the researchers covered the light-emitting organs in the fireflies’ abdomens with paint (Testor’s Enamel in GI Black and Red Cherry, in case you’re wondering), and presented them to bats in a flight room. After multiple encounters, the bats did learn to avoid the darkened fireflies, but not as well as they did when the fireflies were flashing.
The bats learned much faster when they received both visual signals and acoustic sound than when they received only one of these signals. The flashing combined with the ultrasonic profile of the firefly in flight enabled bats to learn much more rapidly not to attempt to eat that insect.
So how do bats identify fireflies by their flight pattern? Fireflies beat their wings at a specific rate also used by other night-flying insects to advertise their distastefulness. The bats appear to be learning this rate and associating it with a very bad feeding experience, Branham says.
As a result, “Fireflies fly with the nonchalance of a chemically protected insect,” the authors write. They’re not in danger from bats, so they don’t need to dart around to avoid them.
That’s right: Fireflies have swagger. An even more remarkable lesson from the study: Pressure from hungry bats, not courtship communication, might have been the reason fireflies developed their signature flashes. Once developed to signal their distastefulness, the flashes could be then co-opted as courtship signals while still functioning as a bat deterrent.
“We predict that future evolutionary work will reveal that bioluminescence in beetles emerged with bats,” Branham told Boise State in a press release.
Program builds character and community wellness through tennis
August 22, 2018
Celeste Mahfood
Live healthier lives and develop life skills. That is the goal of Gators in Motion, an afterschool program that partners with the University of Florida’s Department of Tourism, Recreation and Sport Management, the Gainesville Area Community Tennis Association, and UF’s College Reach Out Program. This unique partnership is for local low-income, middle and high school aged students and incorporates tutoring, sports, college prep and life skills.
Developed in Spring 2016 by Addison Staples, a College of Health and Human Performance alumnus and former lecturer, along with Trevor Bopp, an alumnus and assistant professor at HHP, Gators in Motion has partnered with Aces in Motion, a program with a similar theme of improving academic and sport levels.
Kelvin Mattier, Addison Staples
Using tennis to promote character development, academic achievement and healthy lifestyles, Gators in Motion specifically targets middle and high school students from local low- income neighborhoods in the Gainesville area. Thanks to grants and private donations, the program is free, but participants must commit to attending three days a week, and parents must attend quarterly group and individual meetings with the Gators in Motion staff.
One of the goals is to create equity in the community, despite economic disparity, says Staples, who serves as the Aces in Motion Executive Director. One hundred percent of the student participants are at or below the federal mark of poverty, he says.
The majority of the 38 regular students are African-American. The volunteers are trained to teach children and to be culturally competent and culturally sensitive.
“When people typically hear of a tennis program, they’re not typically thinking of low-income, black youth,” says Staples. Universities can appear unreachable to children in low-income neighborhoods, he adds. Gators in Motion provides opportunities for students to develop personal relationships with University of Florida professors and introduce them to new sports, interests and career options.
Gators in Motion is held on campus at the Florida Gymnasium.
UF athletics and club sports teams volunteer throughout the semester, says Bopp, who, as an assistant professor at HHP, collects data to measure and ensure the program will positively impact the students by analyzing participants’ grades, physical literacy and resiliency.
Held on campus at the Florida Gymnasium, UF benefits by creating more involvement with current students and generates interest in attending college among the participants. Every week over the past year and a half, 13 UF interns and 140 UF volunteers assist with the program.
Jasmine Hamilton
“We are delighted to host Addison and the team at Gators in Motion in the Florida Gym,” said Michael Reid, the dean of the College of Health and Human Performance. “The college is proud to be associated with this inspiring program and the many community members who participate. Our students and faculty are truly blessed by this wonderful partnership.”
Bopp says one reason the program has been so well received by the UF community is because it offers practical and local impact, alongside its research component.
Each day, the first hour is spent doing homework with one-on-one tutors. The second hour consists of tennis on Mondays, and character development and life skills on Tuesdays through Thursdays. In addition, the students tour facilities, colleges and attend UF sporting events throughout the year in an effort to showcase the rich academic offerings on campus.
“Gators in Motion brings the kids onto campus and gives them experiences they might not otherwise have,” Bopp said. “It’s really instilling in them the value of education and the opportunities that they have in front of them.”
Eric Lanham, S’rai Davis-Reed, Marcus Mack, Makaila Dunlap and a volunteer from UF Chemistry conduct a demonstration in a campus laboratory.
Asa Garcia, a former UF track athlete and recent alumna from HHP, volunteered at Gators in Motion for over a year, starting in 2017.
She first heard about the program through an email sent out through the college. She took on the mentorship role to make a difference in the children’s lives. The students were able to look up to her as an African-American college athlete, Garcia says.
Volunteers are from a variety of backgrounds, ethnicities and majors. The students don’t only get one type of person to interact with, Garcia says. “I felt like I was being so much of a benefit with who I am. I’m a college athlete. I’m from out of state. They Google my name, and they’re like ‘Miss Asa, you’re on Google!’”
Respect, responsibility, discipline and character development are all things Gators in Motion stands for, Garcia says. Seeing the volunteers with positive attitudes while struggling to play tennis motivated the students to try. The volunteers led by example by encouraging each other and using positive team work.
One participant, Camryn Ford, a tenth grader at Eastside High School, was accepted into the program in eighth grade.
Garcia’s presence in the program fueled his inspiration to try out for the track team in high school, but he said she was his favorite volunteer because she also helped him academically.
His plan after high school is to become an entrepreneur or maybe a chef. He was accepted into Eastside High School’s culinary program, and the Gators in Motion coaches continue to encourage him in his life goals.
“Gators in Motion is hopefully changing futures and motivating some kids that college is an option,” Staples said. “And I think that is the power that UF holds in this community. I think UF should be commended for opening their doors.”
On October 12, UF will host the Tom and Susie Wasdin Speaker’s Bureau, which is partnering with Aces in Motion. The speakers will include three former professional tennis players, Todd Martin, MaliVai Washington and Bryan Shelton. The event is open to the public and details will be shared soon at hhp.ufl.edu.
Small interfering RNA sounds like something from a science fiction novel rather than a revolutionary type of medicine. But this odd-sounding new drug offers a novel strategy for treating disease by targeting the root cause rather than just the symptoms. This is an exciting approach because it enhances the effectiveness of the treatment and reduces side effects.
The Food and Drug Administration recently approved the very first therapeutic small interfering RNA (siRNA), Onpattro (patisiran), to treat nerve damage caused by a rare disease called hereditary transthyretin-mediated amyloidosis (hATTR). Hereditary transthyretin-mediated amyloidosis affects about 50,000 people worldwide. The major cause is the buildup of a protein called amyloid in the peripheral nerves, heart and other organs. Small interfering RNA was first described in 1998 and its discoverers were awarded the Nobel prize in physiology or medicine in 2006. Twenty years later the discovery has been translated into a new form of medicine.
Proteins make up the largest structural and functional portion of our cells and tissues. The instructions to make a particular protein is encoded in our DNA. In order for the protein to be made, DNA must first be transcribed into an intermediate molecule called messenger RNA, which is then translated into a protein. Simply put, DNA makes RNA makes protein.
DNA encodes the instructions to make proteins. Inside the cell DNA is converted into RNA, which is then translated into a protein.By Fancy Tapis / shutterstock.com
A disease such as hATTR is caused by excessive amyloid protein. One solution to overcoming these defects is to limit the protein from being made in the first place.
That’s where siRNA comes in.
The beauty of RNA drugs like Onpattro lies in its specificity. Onpattro is a small stretch of RNA that “interferes” with its counterpart mRNA. If the Earth represents a cell and all of the train tracks on Earth represents the RNA within that cell, Onpattro works by inhibiting a specific sequence of RNA; disrupting a stretch of train track that connects Pittsburgh and Cleveland. After Onpattro binds to its target, molecular scissors within the cell precisely cut the RNA preventing production of the amyloid protein.
The black strand is the mRNA that encodes the instructions for building the amyloid protein. When the small interfering RNA (red) binds its counterpart mRNA, ‘molecular scissors’ in the cell destroy the mRNA, and prevent the protein from being made.Thomas Schmittgen, CC BY-ND
Although this siRNA strategy seems elegant and precise, it is not without challenges. Delivering the drug to the proper location within the body and the high costs associated with producing these complex therapeutics are hurdles that must be overcome before these drugs are widely adopted.
To improve the delivery of the drug to its target in patients, it must be protected from destruction in the blood stream. To accomplish this, Onpattro has been encapsulated in a protective fatty nanoparticle. The cost of treating hATTR with Onpattro is estimated at US$450,000 per patient per year.
There is also continued research and development of RNA-based therapies to treat disorders caused by changes in the cell triggered by a close cousin of siRNA, called microRNA. RNA drugs offer a new weapon in the arsenal to treat disease by blocking the production of specific cellular proteins. With the approval of Onpattro, one can anticipate applying RNA therapeutics to treat other genetic diseases such as cancer, which is partly caused by excessive or hyperactive proteins.
Not only does UF have a world-renowned football program, but UF is also home to world-renowned football research. Below are two stories of what University of Florida researchers are doing with the objective of making football safer for athletes.
Small changes to football practices can yield large reduction in head impacts, UF Health researchers find UF Health
Shortening the time spent on the highest-risk football drills could reduce the equivalent of nearly a year’s worth of head impacts over the course of a typical player’s career, University of Florida Health researchers have found.
Using helmet-mounted sensors, the researchers recorded more than 32,000 impacts during Gator football practices and scrimmages in 2016 and 2017. Researchers estimated that shortening time spent on the higher-risk drills by a total of 15 minutes could help players — especially linemen — avoid about 1,000 head impacts during their four-year college careers. The majority of these avoided impacts, about 80 percent, were concentrated within three drills identified as having among the highest impact rates, said James R. Clugston, M.D., a UF associate professor of medicine and a UF Athletic Association team physician. The findings were published recently in the Annals of Biomedical Engineering journal. >> Read more
Mouth Monitor: Mining data from the human mouth UF Office of Research: Explore / Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering
The scene is familiar to fans who keep an eye on the sidelines. An athlete is pulled out of a game, and a team physician is face-to-face with him, asking questions and running tests. Minutes tick by, and the athlete gets back in the game, only to come out after another hit for more tests.
Is it a concussion or just a really hard tackle? In the internet of things, the answer will be instantaneous and leave no room for guessing.
University of Florida researcher Y.K. Yoon has developed the first internet of things device that works inside the human mouth. It’s a mouth guard that measures three components of athlete health: head impacts, heat stress and heart stress. He calls it H3, and it comes complete with sensors and Bluetooth. >> Read more
Glioblastoma topples an American hero, but researchers will continue the fight
August 27, 2018
Duane Mitchell
A UF professor of neurosurgery stresses that while cancer claimed fighter and patriot John McCain, who refused to yield to torture while imprisoned as a POW, researchers will continue to push for progress in combatting glioblastoma.
Sen. John McCain pictured on July 27, 2017. McCain returned to Washington after surgery for glioblastoma to cast a ‘no’ vote to a Republican-backed bill to repeal Obamacare. Cliff Owen/AP Photo
Sen. John McCain withstood beatings and torture as a prisoner of war, but he was confronted with an enemy in July 2017 that he was ultimately unable to overcome. An aggressive and deadly brain cancer known as glioblastoma, or GBM, took McCain’s life on Aug. 25, 2018.
The man noted for his unstoppable resilience, pervasive optimism and uncompromising personal ethos was not able to conjoin forces with the marvels of modern medicine and defeat the insidious enemy of brain cancer.
Why is GBM so deadly? Why have so many individuals, with presumably all the physical and financial resources that can be amassed readily available to them, been unable to conquer this dreadful enemy? Sen. Edward M. Kennedy died from the disease exactly nine years earlier. In 2015, GBM also claimed the life of Joseph “Beau” Biden III, son of Joe Biden, the former vice president. It kills about 15,000 people in the U.S. each year. Most people diagnosed with the disease survive less than two years.
Has GBM been cured in any individuals, and if so, why not in most who are affected by this disease?
I am a physician and scientist who studies ways to stop GBM. Despite the sadness and great loss we feel at Senator McCain’s passing, we are making progress in the treatment of this disease.
An ongoing battle
By 1970, cancer had become the second-leading cause of death in the United States. It still is today, claiming about 600,000 lives a year.
In 1971, President Richard Nixon signed the National Cancer Act. While the legislation did not contain the phrase “War on Cancer,” those words quickly caught on. A concerted quest to find a cure for malignant diseases had begun.
The landmark legislation broadened the authority of the director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to implement research programs and cooperate with other agencies to direct educational efforts focused on reducing cancer mortality in the U. S. The act created a “bypass budget” for the NCI that is submitted directly from the NCI director to the president of the United States and to Congress, highlighting the priority put on reducing cancer mortality by the U.S. government.
The NCI investment in cancer research, along with billions of dollars from the pharmaceutical industry, have undoubtedly had a profound positive impact on the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer. However, unlike the decade of success embodied by our nation’s quest to put a man on the moon, winning the war on cancer has proven to be a much more elusive goal – and much longer than 10 years.
While decades of research have led to many new, effective treatments, research also has revealed a marked complexity in many cancers, particularly those that have spread beyond the site where the tumor originated.
A first in the fight
GBM was the first cancer to undergo comprehensive genetic analysis as part of the multibillion-dollar NCI-led project called “The Cancer Genome Atlas.” This ambitious quest sought to completely analyze the gene expression patterns and DNA sequence of several human cancers and make the data publicly available for scientists to study. It has been a game changer in the assault against cancer.
Glioblastoma cells under a microscope. These cells can be deceiving, however, as genetic differences may be present that do not show up under a microscope.Anna Durinikova/Shutterstock.com
Scientists have learned, for instance, that GBM, like many cancers, is not a single disease. Even though two patients may receive the same diagnosis of GBM and may have tumors that look almost identical under a microscope, at the cellular level these tumors can be quite different, with different mutations in the DNA code and different pathways driving tumor growth. This understanding means that a single therapeutic approach is very unlikely to work the same in all individuals with the same diagnosis of GBM.
Essentially, these patients really don’t have the same disease. This new understanding, while tremendously important in shaping our strategies for treating GBM going forward, also raises the realization that the enemy we face in GBM is even more insidious than thought.
To add to this complexity, we understand now that even within a given patient’s tumor, the individual cancer cells can even differ significantly from one another, having diverged over time through rapid growth and through the accumulation of different mutations within different tumor cells. This means that the same treatment hitting the tumor cells within a single patient will likely not kill all cancer cells with the same effectiveness. This allows resistant tumor cells within the population to grow back in the face of treatment that may have been initially effective.
Tackling this complexity at the cellular level to develop treatments that are effective against all tumor cells within a patient is a major challenge for tumors such as GBM. It likely accounts for much of the resistant nature of the disease.
Invasive tactics
An additional characteristic of GBM is the invasive nature of the disease. GBM tumor cells essentially crawl away from the main tumor mass and embed themselves deep within the normal brain, often hidden behind a protective barrier known at the blood-brain barrier. This invasive feature means that while neurosurgeons can often remove the main central tumor mass of a GBM, the invasive finger-like projections protrude into other areas of the brain. The distant islands of tumor cells that have migrated away cannot be effectively removed by surgery.
Radiation treatment is effective in controlling tumor growth, but there are limits to the doses of radiation that can be delivered to normal brain. Chemotherapy treatment with temozolomide currently can extend survival on average by several months. But the blood-brain barrier, or specialized cells that keep threats away from the brain, restricts many drug treatments from getting into the brain, and the mixed populations of tumor cells are already poised to grow out of the cancer cells that are resistant to the agents that do get through.
Cautious optimism
When one takes an inventory of what we’ve learned about GBM, it is easy to become discouraged and perhaps to conclude that we are facing an insurmountable foe. Such a conclusion might be warranted, were it not for the fact that despite the incredible complexity and challenges faced in successfully treating GBM, long-term survivors of this disease do exist.
Long-term survival, or five years or longer from time of diagnosis, with standard treatment regimens is reported at 9.8 percent from a systematic study of 573 patients with GBM. While 9.8 percent is an unacceptably low rate, it is demonstrable evidence that long-term survival is feasible.
We have learned that survivors tend to be younger than 50, have tumors that were able to undergo more extensive surgical removal at diagnosis, and have molecular features that predict a better response to the chemotherapy.
Recent advances in the treatment of GBM have also brought the advent of a new device technology that delivers alternating low-intensity electric fields called tumor-treating fields. Long-term survival data has not yet been reported for the addition of tumor-treating fields to standard treatment, but a median survival improvement of 4.9 months from 16.0 months to 20.9 months was reported in a recently completed phase III clinical trial involving 695 patients. It is possible that an improvement in long-term survival rates will also be observed in patients receiving this combined treatment.
Perhaps our greatest hope comes from emerging therapeutic strategies such as immunotherapy and personalized medicine approaches. Our immune systems are hard-wired to deal with complexity and variety, needing to respond rapidly and effectively to a myriad of unknown and changing infectious threats from the environment. The field is just beginning to understand how to harness this potent and adaptable killing power to hone in on cancer cells in a comprehensive way. We have observed encouraging long-term survival outcomes in patients with GBM during our early phase clinical trials of immunotherapy and are currently evaluating the effectiveness of these treatments in large-scale clinical trials at our medical center.
The war on cancer has certainly proven to be harder, longer and more complex than many envisioned in 1971. While tremendous gains have been made in cure rates for some malignant diseases like childhood leukemia, GBM has perhaps stood stalwart in resistance over the decades to transformative progress. However, through diligence and persistence, we have begun to better understand the enemy we face at the root of this invasive brain cancer. This understanding has transformed our plans of attack and has begun to bear evidence that breakthroughs are possible and forthcoming.
Sen. McCain will be remembered for his many contributions, accomplishments and sacrifices in service of his country. He is also but one of the 600,000 Americans and 8.2 million people worldwide whose life will be claimed by cancer this year. Among the many things to be remembered, honored and cherished about his life, let the fighting legacy of this warrior remind us that war on cancer goes forward in his memory, and in honor of all that have been and will be impacted by this disease.
UF Honors program associate director elected to National Collegiate Honors Council
August 30, 2018
Celeste Mahfood
Dr. Melissa Johnson, associate director of the UF Honors Program, has been elected as a Fellow of the National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC). The NCHC Fellows are hard-working members of honors education and strive to make an impact in the honors community nationally.
“I’m proud of Dr. Johnson for her recognition as an NCHC Fellow. She has been active and contributing to Honors in significant ways for many years,” said Dr. Mark Law, Director of the UF Honors Program.
In order to be considered for the honor, a candidate must be nominated by three current NCHC professionals, students or institutional member, which only one may be from the same institution as the candidate. NCHC Fellows are chosen through a rigorous peer review process after consideration of a large list of qualifications and the significant impact and influence the individual demonstrated of NCHC and honors education worldwide.
This recognition of being a fellow in the organization is one of the NCHC’s highest distinctions and is reserved for people who have an outstanding commitment to honors education and that standard of learning.
Johnson is not only committed to honors at the University of Florida, but she is a member of the Board of Directors, an Editorial Board member, one of the program reviewers and co-chair of professional development committee for NCHC. She is the only member from the UF, and the second youngest Fellow to be elected. She will be formally recognized at the NCHC annual conference in Boston in November.
“I am thankful for the many opportunities I have had to be a producer of new activities and knowledge regarding undergraduate honors education, “Johnson said. “I especially appreciate the support of my colleagues across the country and in the UF Honors Program which has led to this recognition as a Fellow of the National Collegiate Honors Council.”
Anuj Kumar and his family used to shop at Macy’s, both at the store and online. But when the store at their local mall closed, Kumar, a professor at the University of Florida's Warrington College of Business, started shopping at the local JC Penney and canceled his Macy’s card.
Macy’s lost not only his in-store purchases, but his online sales, too.
He’s not alone. Kumar’s research shows that as stores shutter their brick-and-mortar outposts in the hopes of shifting sales to their websites, online purchases could suffer as well.
In a forthcoming study in Information Systems Research Journal, Kumar shows that for products such as apparel, a brick-and-mortar store in a customer’s area drives sales both in person and online. After a store opens, customers naturally visit a retail location more and purchase more in person from that retailer than they did before. But they also spend 29 percent more on the store’s website. They might choose to buy online after evaluating an item in person, either because they want a different size or color or need more time to make a decision.
Kumar (pictured above) also found that the ability to return items in a local store reduces customers’ risk when purchasing apparel online, which drives online sales. Take the store out of the equation, however, and online sales categories such as apparel and fashion products could plunge.
So how can retailers hold on to the good parts of brick-and-mortar stores — and their customers — without hemorrhaging money?
“You’re going to see innovative new things popping up,” Kumar says.
He outlines five possibilities:
1. Store as showroom
A product might be shown in a single color, for example, so customers can see and touch it before they order it online. Online-first retailers such as Warby Parker have seen a sales bump from experimenting with brick and mortar showrooms, Kumar says.
2. Concierge-style shopping
“Retail stores offer person-to-person engagement. Should we lose that completely? I don’t think so,” Kumar says. Instead, how about an experience that blends in-store help with online selection? “It might be a salesperson with a tablet that shows you online items too,” he said. “The experience would be very personalized.” Menswear retailer Bonobos uses this concept in its Guideshops, where customers make a 30- or 60-minute appointment to get fitted and choose items, which are then shipped to them in their preferred color and size.
3. Return centers
“Even though most online return policies are pretty liberal, it’s a bother to pack and mail an online return, even if you’re not paying return postage,” Kumar says. Then you wait for your refund, and try to remember to check your account to make sure it shows up. No wonder people prefer to return items in person. For some retailers, just offering a return window could be enough to hold on to customers if a brick-and-mortar store doesn’t make sense. A return center wouldn’t have to be in a mall, where rents are high, and wouldn’t require as much staff or display space as a traditional store.
4. Tiered pricing
If you want or need to buy an item in the store, you’d pay a little more for the convenience of taking it home immediately. If you can wait to have it shipped to you, you could buy it at a discount.
5. Smaller stores, and more of them
You probably want to try clothes or fragrances before you buy them, but do you really need to see a blender in person? Department stores are wasting money paying for massive stores to house electronics and other items customers don’t need to touch or try on, Kumar says. “A Macy’s at a high-end mall is a costly space. By being selective in what products you stock, you don’t have to close and throw baby out with bathwater. And with smaller stores, they might even be able to cut prices.”
Retailers may opt for a combination of these approaches.
“Brick and mortar stores are not going away,” Kumar says, “but they’re certainly going to change.”
UF expert for Suicide Awareness and Prevention Month Dr. Andres Pumariega
September 12, 2018
Alisson Clark
What you need to know about preventing suicide
With a 30 percent increase since 1999, “suicide in the United States is becoming an epidemic," says Dr. Andres Pumariega, chief of the division of child and adolescent psychiatry in the UF College of Medicine and a member of UF’s Evelyn F. and William L. McKnight Brain Institute.
More than 45,000 people take their lives each year, with the increase especially pronounced in adolescents. For National Suicide Awareness and Prevention Month, Dr. Pumariega shared what you need to know to help prevent suicide.
1. Minimizing the situation doesn’t work.
If you know someone who’s thinking or talking about suicide, it’s important to discuss it openly with them and with loved ones. “Bringing it out with the person helps diffuse the risk,” Pumariega said.
2. You can help people who are at risk.
Pumariega helped modify the Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale — an evidence-based tool first used in research — into a brief screener for use in clinical settings, and now it’s available for use by the general public. The C-SSRS helps assess someone’s suicide risk with simple questions that judge the urgency of the situation. Whether you’re a coach, teacher, parent or friend, there’s a customized version of the questionnaire at http://cssrs.columbia.edu/the-columbia-scale-c-ssrs/cssrs-for-communities-and-healthcare/, available in English or Spanish. Using this tool, “people can make a decision about when they need to take action,” Pumariega said.
3. Taking on the stigma is the first step.
“So many people adversely judge themselves about the idea that they might have a mental disorder, particularly depression, which is what most likely leads to suicide,” Pumariega said. If we can overcome the reluctance to talk about depression and suicide, he said, “we can save lives.”
4. Recognize mental illness as a treatable medical problem.
Pumariega emphasizes that clinical depression, clinical anxiety, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, which are associated with suicide risk, are all medical disorders that also have evidence-based treatments.
“These are not character flaws. These are not social problems. We have too many people who continue to view it in this manner,” he said.
5. Watch out for signs.
In addition to giving away valuables and expressing feelings of hopelessness, people at risk for suicide may also suddenly make amends for perceived past wrongs. Talking about suicide indirectly or directly is another red flag, as is isolation from other people. Someone who is down to very few trusted confidantes (often as a result of depression) and loses one — in a breakup, for example — can be particularly vulnerable. “That can be the trigger,” Pumariega said. “When they lose that person, then they feel alone and very much at risk.”
6. Know what to do.
If someone is actively thinking or talking about hurting themselves, get them to the emergency room, call a crisis service or even law enforcement, Pumariega says. “Many friends and relatives may feel like that’s a relationship breaker and may be loath to do that, but they may save a life.” The person they save will appreciate that they cared enough to act, he says. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, 1-800-273-8255, can provide guidance on the best option for the situation.
For more information from Dr. Pumariega, read his article in The Conversation here.
Additional experts who can assist journalists with suicide awareness and prevention stories can be found on the UF Experts Guide.
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This story is updated from its original version, which ran. Sept. 7, 2017.
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