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Shark attacks decline worldwide in midst of economic recession

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GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The recession may be responsible for a slump of a different sort: an unexpected dive in shark attacks, says a University of Florida researcher.
Shark attacks worldwide in 2008 dipped to their lowest level in five years, a sign that Americans may be forgoing vacation trips to the beach, said George Burgess, ichthyologist [...]

Filed under Environment, Florida, Research, Sciences on Thursday, February 19, 2009.

UF study: Rapid burst of flowering plants set stage for other species

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — A new University of Florida study based on DNA analysis from living flowering plants shows that the ancestors of most modern trees diversified extremely rapidly 90 million years ago, ultimately leading to the formation of forests that supported similar evolutionary bursts in animals and other plants.

Filed under Environment, Natural History, Research, Sciences on Monday, February 9, 2009.

World’s largest snake shows tropics were hotter in the past

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The largest snake the world has ever known — as long as a school bus and as heavy as a small car — ruled tropical ecosystems only 6 million years after the demise of the fearsome Tyrannosaurus rex, according to a new discovery published in the journal Nature.

Filed under Environment, Natural History, Research, Sciences on Wednesday, February 4, 2009.