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Science Stories



Florida Museum scientists engage in research around the world every day, but only a small number of these discoveries are displayed in the public exhibits space. This Science Stories site is an ongoing collection of news articles about Florida Museum natural science research. From collecting expeditions to new discoveries by Museum researchers, Science Stories covers a range of topics for aspiring scientists and curious spectators.

Current Stories

fossil
Plant fossils give first real picture of earliest Neotropical rainforests
(10/2009) Scientists from the Smithsonian Institution, University of Florida and two other universities found that many of the dominant plant families existing in today's Neotropical rainforests - including legumes, palms, avocado and banana - have maintained...
fossil shark
Acoustic tags give UF researchers glimpse into bull sharks' movement
(10/2009) Indian River Lagoon, on Florida's east coast, has historically served as habitat for an abundance of marine life. But human pressures have changed all that, and Florida Museum researchers now are working to understand the...
fossil shark
Catch and release: Tagging Gulf sharks vital to understanding population dynamics
(09/2009) The sun had barely broken over the trees as Jason Romine, a research biologist at the Florida Museum of Natural History, guided a boat down the remote Waccasassa River. He and Florida Museum field biologist Johanna Imhoff looked for...
fossil shark
Preserved Shark Fossil Adds Evidence to Great White's Origins
(08/2009) For the last 150 years, some paleontologists have concluded the great white shark is a smaller relative of the line that produced megalodon, the largest carnivorous fish known. Other paleontologists disagree...
dna barcoding
DNA Barcoding Offers New Tool for Determining Butterfly Species
(07/2009) A new study from a Florida Museum of Natural History researcher has shown that a genetic technique for identifying butterfly species can be used over large geographical areas and holds the...
early bloom
An Early Bloom of Evolution
(06/2009) A new Florida Museum of Natural History study based on DNA analysis from living flowering plants shows that the ancestors of most modern trees diversified extremely rapidly...
norris
Florida Museum Researcher Wins Award from Smithsonian for Work in Tropical Botany
(05/2009) Florida Museum of Natural History botanist and herbarium curator Norris Williams has won the Smithsonian Institution's prestigious José Cuatrecasas Medal for Excellence in Tropical Botany for his 40-year career studying...
giant snake
At 45 Feet Long, "Titanoboa" Snake Ruled the Amazon
(05/2009) 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...

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