UCF in the News

Jim Kingsley of Orange County (Calif.), who recently flew Southwest on a two-leg journey from Minneapolis to Los Angeles, likened the budget-friendly airline to In-N-Out Burger. Both brands are affordable, consistent and more simplistic compared with competitors, Kingsley said. “They’re not trying to offer all the things everybody else offers,” he said, “but they get the quality right and it’s a good value.” Change, however, is in the air. An even bigger draw of Southwest, according to Kingsley, is its policy of including two free checked bags per ticket. This perk often makes Southwest a better bargain, especially for longer trips or bigger groups, he said. The free bags are a big deal to customers, experts said, and contribute to the airline’s consumer-friendly brand. The airline hasn’t indicated any plan to change its bag policy. “Southwest has always had a really good, positive vibe,” said Alan Fyall, chair of Tourism Marketing at the University of Central Florida’s College of Hospitality. “It’s free bags, good prices and point-to-point routes. That’s what they stand for and that’s what people love about them.” Southwest’s change to assigned seating doesn’t mean it’s no longer a budget-friendly airline, Fyall said, but it does differentiate the carrier from the lowest-cost, lowest-amenity options such as Frontier and Spirit.

WKMG Lisa Bell talks with UCF Engineering Prof. Yang Yang, of the Nanoscience Technology Center, about raw materials, including lithium, used in batteries that could be causing a shortage in the supply chain, and are made outside the U.S. Prof. Yang provides advice to consumers about extending the life of batteries. “We still highly rely on some of the material,” said Yang Yang, Ph.D., associate professor at UCF’s NanoScience Technology Center. “Supply chain is still outside of the U.S.”

The University of Central Florida’s College of Optics and Photonics, or CREOL, is only one of six such engineering programs nationwide. CREOL hosted three week-long summer camps for students in 10th through 12th grade interested in physics and engineering. News 6’s Julie Broughton asked Dr. David Hagan, CREOL’s dean, to tell us more about what happens at the school.

The long-awaited return of EA Sports’ college football series happens this week, ushering in a new gaming era that reflects the changing landscape of college athletics and allows users to play as their favorite players. The game, EA Sports’ first college football offering since 2013, was developed in Orlando and, for the first time, will feature the names, images and likenesses of actual players at their respective institutions. Customers who purchased the deluxe edition or have an EA Play membership could play College Football 25 on Monday afternoon, but it will be widely released on Friday. Andrew Barr, 17, bought the deluxe edition and then for his first try played the University of Central Florida against cross-state rival the University of South Florida. The game exceeded his expectations. “The crowd reactions, hearing the band and the specific college cheers definitely makes the game very fun,” said Andrew, a student at Lake Brantley High School in Altamonte Springs. “Once I heard the band drums go off and the loading screen came up, it brought up so much joy and excitement.” Ben Noel, executive director of the Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy at UCF and former chief operating officer of EA Studios in Orlando, said “pent-up demand” has fueled excitement for the release of the game this week. The academy is a partner with EA and plenty of its graduates are now company employees. Noel said several UCF students intern at EA Sports every year and some end up employees of the company also called EA Tiburon. “We’ve got over 100 of our alumni there at Tiburon and so obviously there’s dozens of our alumni that are on college football and Madden football both,” Noel added.

A fully constructed rover that was due to blast off to the moon next year will instead be dismantled due to budgetary issues, NASA has announced – leading researchers to question whether the space agency is truly committed to landing a crewed spacecraft on the moon in 2026, as it currently claims. The Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) was scheduled to be sent to the moon’s south pole in September 2025 to hunt for water ice. Equipped with a drill, the rover would have looked for ice under the lunar surface in multiple locations, including in some permanently shadowed craters. Phil Metzger at the University of Central Florida says the cancellation is a “very bad mistake” for NASA, especially in light of the agency’s broader goal to land humans at the south pole of the moon in 2026 as part of its Artemis programme. Plans to potentially use the moon’s water ice as a resource for rocket fuel could also be under threat. “Having a rover with a drill is an absolutely vital part of the mission,” says Metzger. “There definitely will be some effect on planning the human missions.”

UCF‘s football practice fields will be renamed the Wayne Densch Practice Complex in honor of a $2.5 million pledge from the Wayne Densch Charitable Trust. It’s all part of a commitment from the former Knights supporter and Orlando businessman, who passed away in 1994 through his charitable trust. “Mr. Densch’s handshake commitment to former Athletic Director Gene McDowell to donate $1M dollars to help save the UCF football team in 1985 is a key cornerstone of his legacy in our community,” John, Michael and Len Williams, trustees of the Wayne Densch Charitable Trust said in a statement. “Our father rightfully continued this legacy of support, and our family is honored by the opportunity we have to continue Mr. Densch’s generosity and dedication to UCF.”

Parkinson’s is the most common motor disorder and second most frequently diagnosed neurodegenerative disease, second only to Alzheimer’s. Almost ten million people are living with it and although there are drugs to treat the disease, many people become resistant to them over the years. Now, a new patch is being tested that could help. “The Parkinson’s patient, they’re losing the dopamine neurons deep in the brain,” said Kiminobu Sugaya, a neuroscientist at the UCF College of Medicine. The technology helps to stop the loss of those neurons through specially designed ceramics wrapped in a rubber blanket. Infrared light travels through the ceramic and activates the neurons. Mice treated with the infrared ceramics had an increase in the number of brain cells in the area associated with Parkinson’s disease and in turn, the mice had better control of their balance and movement. “We are not going to say that this is going to regenerate the neurons, but that this is preventing the loss of the neurons even further,” said Sugaya. The therapy would be delivered through a patch that sits on your head, no surgery needed.

Studies show that 75 percent of non-organic produce has pesticides, and while 86 percent of Americans wash their produce before eating it, washing may not get rid of all of it. A peaches delicate skin makes it easy for chemicals to get inside. One report found 36 types of pesticides on strawberries. Pesticides were found on 91 percent of cherries. And when it comes to spinach and other lettuces some reports claim they are contaminated with what are considered the most potent pesticides used on foods. “The outer layer of the fruit and vegetable is a membrane and that’s permeable, which means that the pesticide can soak inside the produce, and it can be very difficult to remove,” said Steven Burroughs, Instructor University of Central Florida in the Department of Health Sciences. Despite all of this, the CDC says washing your produce is one of the safest things to do if you plan on eating it. First, wash your hands with soap and warm water for at least 20 seconds. “By using 10 seconds of water, you’re able to keep the integrity and structure of the fruit and vegetable so that you get the best quality and remove some of the pesticides as best as you can,” explained Burroughs.

A team of five in The University of Central Florida’s College of Sciences and College of Engineering and Computer Sciences, led by their Center for Research in Computer Vision, recently received a National Science Foundation grant to help low-income students seeking education in artificial intelligence.