Death by a Thousand Cuts
While the scientific community agrees that climate change is having a measurable effect on ice shelves in the Arctic and Antarctic, the extent of these impacts is not yet fully understood. In a first study of its kind, Assistant Professor of Geology Emma MacKie and Assistant Professor of Geography Katy Serafin set out to study the effects of climate change on large iceberg calving events — where over 100 square kilometers of ice break away — in Antarctica.
Even with 47 years of satellite data spanning from 1976 to 2023, the team still grappled with a limited sample size. This challenge was addressed with extreme value theory, a type of statistical analysis used when studying rare natural disasters like major earthquakes, extreme floods or volcanic eruptions.
They found that while we haven’t yet seen the “iceberg of the century,” which could be about the size of Denmark, the frequency of these large calving events has not increased in recent years. While the data suggests that large icebergs are not being significantly affected by climate change, the frequency of smaller calving events has increased, leading MacKie to conclude that the Antarctic ice sheets are undergoing a “death by a thousand cuts.”
Can violence change your DNA?
The lifelong effects of violence and trauma on those forced to live through it are well-documented. However, according to new research from Professor of Anthropology Connie Mulligan, violence-induced trauma may extend well beyond the lives of those who experience it, living on in their genomes and, subsequently, in their descendants. These findings were obtained by studying the genes of Syrian families, comparing the DNA of survivors of the 1982 Hama massacre and their children with those who were not subjected to that horrific event.
The changes Mulligan and her collaborators found were the result of epigenetics, where our cells respond to external stimuli by creating chemicals that alter a gene’s behavior, suppressing or facilitating its function. These changes can then be passed down, especially in women who are pregnant during the traumatic event. The effects of these genome modifications are not yet fully known, and it is likely that many of them won’t have a significant impact on quality of life, but scientists like Mulligan plan to investigate further in future research.
Big Data
Armed with a grant from the National Science Foundation, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Criminology & Law Edo Navot has begun a first of its kind study to search for the root causes of income inequality. The study examines the role of the employer, and uses data gathered by the U.S. Census Bureau, cross-referencing it with administrative data drawn from unemployment insurance databases from all 50 states.
Navot’s dataset for this study is massive, and only made possible by accessing information through the Florida Research Data Center. The FLRDC is a data network that allows researchers access to restricted data while maintaining respondent confidentiality. The FLRDC is located on the east side of UF’s Gainesville campus and is one of 35 research data centers across the country.
Unseen factors in COVID predictions
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, government officials and scientists across the country searched for ways to control the disease’s spread. Prediction models were used to help decision makers determine their course of action and a new study suggests the formulas may have been incomplete. Led by Robert D. Holt, Arthur R. Marshall, Jr., Chair of Ecological Studies at UF, the study sheds light on how the concept of metapopulations can influence the dynamics of everything from ecosystems to infectious disease spread.
By not fully considering relationships between and within metapopulations, or groups of populations linked by movement of individuals, some of the lockdown measures taken during this time may have actually contributed to the disease’s spread. Holt recommends taking into account how different populations interact and adopting a larger-scale perspective in widespread emergencies like this one.
