Kissing occurs in a variety of animals but presents an evolutionary puzzle: it appears to carry high risks, such as disease transmission, while offering no obvious reproductive or survival advantage. Despite kissing carrying cultural and emotional significance in many human societies, up to now researchers have paid little attention to its evolutionary history. In the new study, “A comparative approach to the evolution of kissing,” published this week in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior, the researchers carried out the first attempt to reconstruct the evolutionary history of kissing using a cross-species approach based on the primate family tree. The results indicate that kissing is an ancient trait in the large apes, evolving in the ancestor to that group 21.5 – 16.9 million years ago. Kissing was retained over the course of evolution and is still present in most of the large apes. The team also found that our extinct human relatives, Neanderthals, were likely to have engaged in kissing too. This finding, together with previous studies showing that humans and Neanderthals shared oral microbes (via saliva transfer) and genetic material (via interbreeding), strongly suggests that humans and Neanderthals kissed one another. “While kissing may seem like an ordinary or universal behavior, it is only documented in 46% of human cultures,” said Catherine Talbot, co-author and assistant professor in the College of Psychology at Florida Tech. “The social norms and context vary widely across societies, raising the question of whether kissing is an evolved behavior or cultural invention. This is the first step in addressing that question.” Matilda Brindle, lead author and evolutionary biologist at Oxford’s Department of Biology, said: “This is the first time anyone has taken a broad evolutionary lens to examine kissing. Our findings add to a growing body of work highlighting the remarkable diversity of sexual behaviors exhibited by our primate cousins.” To run the analyses, the team first defined what constitutes a kiss. This was challenging because many mouth-to-mouth behaviours look like kissing. Since the researchers were exploring kissing across different species, the definition also needed to be applicable to a wide range of animals. They therefore defined kissing as non-aggressive, mouth-to-mouth contact that did not involve food transfer. Having established this definition, the researchers collected data from the literature on which modern primate species have been observed kissing, focusing on the group of monkeys and apes that evolved in Africa, Europe and Asia. This included chimpanzees, bonobos, and orangutans, all of which have been observed kissing. They then ran a phylogenetic analysis, treating kissing as a ‘trait’ and mapping this to the family tree of primates. They used a statistical approach (called Bayesian modelling) to simulate different evolution scenarios along the branches of the tree, to estimate the probability that different ancestors also engaged in kissing. The model was run 10 million times to give robust statistical estimates. Stuart West, co-author and professor of evolutionary biology at Oxford, said, “By integrating evolutionary biology with behavioral data, we’re able to make informed inferences about traits that don’t fossilise – like kissing. This lets us study social behaviour in both modern and extinct species.” While the researchers caution that existing data are limited – particularly outside the large apes – the study offers a framework for future work and provides a way for primatologists to record kissing behaviors in nonhuman animals using a consistent definition.

By Steven Lazarus Like many coastal regions, Florida’s Space Coast faces significant climate resilience challenges and risks. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Florida has over 8,000 miles of shoreline, more than any other state in the contiguous U.S. In addition, the 2020 census indicates that that there are 21 million Florida residents, 75-80% of which live in coastal counties. This makes our state particularly vulnerable to rising sea levels, which are directly responsible for a host of coastal impacts, such as saltwater intrusion, sunny-day (high-tide) flooding, worsening surge, etc. There is growing evidence that storms are becoming wetter as the atmosphere warms— increasing the threat associated with compound flooding, which involves the combined effects of storm surge, rainfall, tides and river flow. Inland flooding events are also increasing due to overdevelopment, heavy precipitation and aging and/or inadequate infrastructure. The economic ramifications of these problems are quite evident, as area residents are confronted with the rising costs of their homeowners and flood insurance policies. As the principal investigator on a recently funded Department of Energy grant, Space Coast ReSCUE (Resilience Solutions for Climate, Urbanization, and Environment), I am working with Argonne National Laboratory, Florida Tech colleagues, community organizations and local government to improve our climate resilience in East Central Florida. It is remarkable that, despite its importance for risk management, urban planning and evaluating the environmental impacts of runoff, official data regarding local flooding is virtually nonexistent! Working alongside a local nonprofit, we have installed 10 automated weather stations and manual rain gauges in what was previously a “data desert” east of the Florida Tech campus: one at Stone Magnet Middle School and others at local homes. “We think that a ‘best methods’ approach is proactive, informed and cost-effective. The foundation of good decision-making, assessment and planning is built on data (model and observations), which are critical to adequately addressing the impact of climate on our communities.” – steven lazarus, meteorology professor, ocean engineering and marine sciences Data from these stations are available, in real-time, from two national networks: CoCoRaHS and Weather Underground. The citizen science initiative involving the rain gauge measurements is designed to document flooding in a neighborhood with limited resources. In addition to helping residents make informed choices, these data will also provide a means by which we can evaluate our flood models that will be used to create highly detailed flood maps of the neighborhood. We are working with two historic extreme-precipitation events: Hurricane Irma (2017) and Tropical Storm Fay (2008)—both of which produced excessive flooding in the area. What might the local flooding look like, in the future, as storms become wetter? To find out, we plan to simulate these two storms in both present-day and future climate conditions. What will heat stress, a combination of temperature and humidity, feel like in the future? What impact will this have on energy consumption? The station data will also be used develop and test building energy-efficiency tools designed to help the community identify affordable ways to reduce energy consumption, as well as to produce high-precision urban heat island (heat stress) maps that account for the impact of individual buildings. The heat island and building energy modeling will be complemented by a drone equipped with an infrared camera, which will provide an observation baseline. We think that a “best methods” approach is proactive, informed and cost-effective. The foundation of good decision-making, assessment and planning is built on data (model and observations), which are critical to adequately addressing the impact of climate on our communities.

Florida Tech astrophysicist Howard Chen is offering new insights to help aid NASA’s search for life beyond Earth. His latest theoretical work investigates the TRAPPIST-1 planetary system, one of the most widely studied exoplanetary systems in the galaxy. It has captured scientists’ attention for its potential to host water, and thus possibly life, on its planets. Now, he’s offering an explanation for why telescopes have yet to find definitive signs of either. The paper “Born Dry or Born Wet? A Palette of Water Growth Histories in TRAPPIST-1 Analogs and Compact Planetary Systems” was authored by Chen, an assistant professor of space sciences, and researchers from NASA, Johns Hopkins University and Harvard University, was published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters in September. It explores the likelihood that TRAPPIST-1’s three innermost exoplanets contained no water when they formed, despite existing in a zone where water is viable. TRAPPIST-1 is a red dwarf star located about 40 light-years away from us. (One light year is about 6 trillion miles.) It is thought to be about 7.6 billion years old, or 3 billion years older than our Sun. Astronomers are captivated by the TRAPPIST-1 system because its seven known planets are rocky and Earth-like. They also fall within the star’s habitable zone: the distance range from a star at which temperatures are not too hot or cold to support liquid water. Researchers are searching for any evidence of water on these planets, but have yet to detect anything. Some think a lack of gas in the atmosphere is disrupting the light needed to pick up detailed visuals. Others predict water could have escaped the planets’ atmospheres throughout their evolution. Chen and his team, however, decided to research a different theory: that there was no water to begin with because there was no gas to contain it. He would test it not from an observational perspective, but with mathematical modeling of the planets’ initial formation. “You have astronomers who are using telescopes to see what’s out there. I come from a different perspective,” Chen said. “I’m both trying to explain what we’re seeing while trying to make predictions about what we can’t.” The researchers created models that examined the composition and growth of these planets starting when they were as small as one kilometer wide. They simulated how material aggregated during collisions with other celestial objects until they reached their final planetary formations. There are several key factors in collision events that heavily influence a planet’s final composition. Chen’s models incorporated impact delivery, which is the transfer of materials like water and gases during a celestial collision; impact erosion, which refers to the removal of materials in a planet’s atmosphere due to impact; and mantle-atmosphere exchange, which is the transfer of water and gases between a planet’s atmosphere and mantle to maintain its conditions. The team ran hundreds of collision simulations, which returned thousands of different possibilities for how TRAPPIST-1’s planets might have formed. They varied several components, such as the amount of water available to the system, the profile of the initial planet formation environment, the planets’ density profiles and the initial system conditions. For the inner worlds, specifically the first three planets, most of the simulations came back dry. “Whatever we did, we couldn’t get much water in these inner planets,” Chen said. He believes that the main reason the planets couldn’t acquire water is due to the nature of the collision events. Compact planet collisions are higher velocity, so they are more aggressive and energetic, Chen said. This means that instead of acquiring material for a gaseous atmosphere, planets’ atmospheres were completely cleared out by the power of the collisions. With no gas in the atmosphere to contain water, it’s possible that any previously existing water escaped back into space during these collision events. Understanding a planet’s earliest characteristics, its water, air and carbon content, builds the foundation for how they evolve. That way, when researchers identify a planet that seems viable for life at the surface level, they can use Chen’s model to simulate what these distant worlds might be like on the inside, on the surface and in the air. Combining the theoretical context of a planet’s formation with the state in which it was discovered can help researchers – and NASA – make informed, efficient decisions on which planets are worth investigating and when it’s time to move on to the next. If you're interested in connecting with Howard Chen about the search for life beyond Earth, let us help. Contact Adam Lowenstein, Assistant Vice President for External Affairs at Florida Institute of Technology, at adam@fit.edu to arrange an interview today.

There's a mystery brewing in the Pacific Ocean, and it's worrying marine researchers. Every winter, between January and April, a blast of cold water surges from the bottom to the top of the Gulf of Panama. The cold surge helps marine life survive heat waves. However, this year, there was no blast. Researchers are concerned about the disappearance and believe it could be a sign of a larger problem. The phenomenon has garnered the attention of reporters from outlets like the New York Times, as well as others from across the nation. They're looking for answers.  To help find those answers, experts such as the Florida Institute of Technology's Richard Aronson are available to help explain what's happening deep beneath the surface. Each year between January and April, a blob of cold water rises from the depths of the Gulf of Panama to the surface, playing an essential role in supporting marine life in the region. But this year, it never arrived. “It came as a surprise,” said Ralf Schiebel, a paleoceanographer at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry who studies the region. “We’ve never seen something like this before.” Richard Aronson, a professor of marine sciences at the Florida Institute of Technology, has studied this particular patch of ocean off the coast of Panama for decades. The cold blob gives those corals a better chance of surviving marine heat waves than other areas, he said. Heat stress has plunged the world’s coral reefs into ongoing mass bleaching that began in January 2023. About 85 percent of the world’s coral reef areas have been affected, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “The climate is warming, that’s putting coral reefs at risk,” said Dr. Aronson, who was not involved with the paper. While corals can adapt to changes in temperature, the climate is changing too quickly for them to keep up in the long run, he said. Sea surface temperatures have risen by more than 1 degree Celsius since humans began burning fossil fuels during the Industrial Revolution, breaking records in 2024 and 2023. It’s too soon to tell if the blob will return in future years. But if it disappears repeatedly, then “it’s cause for grave concern,” Dr. Aronson said. If you’re covering this topic or looking to speak with an expert about climate change and its impact on our oceans, Richard Aronson is available for interviews. Simply click the icon below to connect with him today.

Record-breaking heatwaves are plaguing the U.S. this summer, making it difficult to stay cool. However, the scorching temperatures aren't just affecting us at the ground level — they're disrupting air travel, too, with increasing flight delays and aircraft weight restrictions.  Visiting assistant professor of aeronautics Shem Malmquist, a recognized expert in aviation safety and operations, spoke with FOX 35 Orlando about how extreme temperatures can directly impact aircraft performance, particularly at high-traffic airports during the summer. "Temperatures are probably not something people think about," said Shem Malmquist, a graduate lecturer in aviation at Florida Tech. "But the delays just compound on each other. If you start getting delayed because people need more time to take breaks to stay cool, now that flight’s late, and that has a snowball effect." These limitations can affect passenger loads, cargo capacity and overall flight scheduling. As temperatures continue to climb, Malmquist warned that these disruptions could become the new normal — not just a seasonal inconvenience, but a growing challenge for the aviation industry in the face of climate change. A seasoned Boeing 777 captain and accident investigator, Malmquist has spent decades researching aircraft operations and emergency scenarios. He’s also contributed to global conversations on aviation safety policy and climate-related infrastructure resilience. If you’re covering this topic or looking to speak with an expert on the intersection of climate and air travel, Malmquist is available for interviews. Click the icon below to connect with him.

Call it a matter of pride, national security or a desire for astronomical dominance; there's a sense of urgency within the U.S. government to return to the moon, sparked by China's team of taikonauts, who could land there before American astronauts get back to the lunar surface. The latest space race is a topic that is making national news. Florida Tech's experts are lending their opinions and insights about the likelihood of a lunar return, and what it might mean. NASA, with the urging of many politicians, has been racing to get astronauts back to the moon — before the Chinese land taikonauts on the lunar surface. But what’s the rush to return to a place the United States has already been and left 53 years ago? Especially when Mars looms as an enticing option for interplanetary travel. Space experts say there’s plenty of reasons for the urgency: national pride and national security. But also returning to the moon and building habitats would mean long term dominance in space and ensure access to resources that NASA didn’t know where there when the Apollo missions flew. Now with the Chinese making significant progress in human space exploration, the clock is ticking. “The Chinese in the last 20 years have made amazing strides in all aspects of space. They’re sending robots to the moon on a very regular basis. Now they’re doing some pretty amazing activities even on the far side of the moon, and they have a Chinese space station now in Earth orbit,” said Don Platt, associate professor of space systems at Florida Tech. Can China beat NASA to the moon? “The Chinese have really caught up,” said Platt. “I do believe that the Chinese are definitely advancing their efforts on the moon, and are identifying it as a critical aspect of their strategic future in space." When asked about the prospect of Chinese astronauts making it to the moon before NASA's planned Artemis III mission, Platt said he believes it’s a possibility and he cited the efforts China is making to highlight the importance of the nation's space efforts to its own populace. “They have some amazing videos. They’re really engaging the Chinese public, and really using it to do what what we’ve always done in space, and that is to inspire the next generation and to show the world the technical abilities of the Chinese,” said Platt.  May 21 - USA Today The race is on, and it's getting a lot of attention. If you're a journalist following this ongoing story, let us help with your coverage. Dr. Don Platt's work has involved developing, testing and flying different types of avionics, communications and rocket propulsion systems. He also studies astrobiology and biotechnology systems and human deep space exploration tools. Don is available to speak with media anytime. Simply click on the icon below to arrange an interview today.

When Luis Quiroga-Nuñez, Ph.D was appointed director of Florida Tech’s Ortega Observatory and its primary tenant – a non-functioning, 32-inch telescope – in 2023, he decided it was time to provide astronomy students and others a window to space. The observatory is already a base for research across a spectrum of cosmic exploration through disciplines such as astronomy and astrophysics, heliophysics, planetary science and astrobiology. However, current students have yet to see the stars up close, as the aging telescope, commissioned in 2008, has sat dormant for the last several years. With restoration, the telescope could be a powerful tool to train students to use professional telescopes and make observations – critical skills that will help prepare them for their future careers. It soon became apparent, however, that this was no simple task. The restoration would necessitate reverse engineering on a large scale to even understand how to fix and upgrade the telescope, much less actually repair it. It would also, as Quiroga-Nuñez wisely recognized, be its own powerful educational opportunity, providing unique hands-on learning opportunities for students in the College of Engineering and Science. “We are an institute of technology. We have perfectly capable people, like these young students, ready to join hands-on projects, get crazy and start to be creative.” Luis Quiroga-Nuñez With various issues to tackle and eager to support home-grown expertise, Quiroga-Nuñez and Lee Caraway, Ph.D, an instructor in the department of electrical engineering and computer science, recruited students with varied backgrounds, from astronomy to electrical engineering and computer science. Students could apply what they learned in class and grow their portfolios with a real-world project, the sort of experiential learning that is a hallmark of a Florida Tech education. Some improvements have been made, but the project remains an exciting puzzle for students and faculty alike. Here’s how they are doing it. An Interdisciplinary Project In January 2023, Quiroga-Nuñez partnered with Caraway to rebuild the telescope from the inside out. They say the conversation started over lunch, sketching ideas on a napkin. With various issues to tackle and eager to support home-grown expertise, Caraway and Quiroga-Nuñez recruited students with varied backgrounds, from astronomy to engineering to computer science. “This is about as real-world as you can get without leaving school. We have this giant piece of technology that is not working. Figure out why,” said recent graduate Adrianna Agustin ’24, who helped update the telescope’s communication system. “All of those problem-solving skills will directly translate to wherever we go in the future.” The project’s multidisciplinary nature also boosts collaboration between both sides of the college. “We keep integrating different parts of the university and involving students in a project that we were blinded by,” Quiroga-Nuñez says. “We sit between the scientists and the engineers.” And there’s no shortage of tasks. In addition to the refurbishment, Quiroga-Nuñez and Caraway are also completing routine telescope maintenance, with students taking on adjacent projects around the observatory. With the telescope repair, each student is given their own task, such as redesigning a small clip that supports the dome’s electric current, reviewing the conditions of the finder’s lens or understanding how analog devices control the telescope’s focus. This allocation allows each student to claim their own individual contribution to the greater telescope puzzle. Opening a Time Capsule The telescope’s biggest issues were mechanical and electrical, all exacerbated by age. Its motors were decades old and naturally failing, Caraway said. These motors controlled the telescope’s right ascension and declination – essentially, its ability to move. The chaotic interior also involved multiple individual systems with dozens of wires. And the circuits controlling the motors, which dated back to the 1980s, were also failing due to age. As Caraway noted, his students are sweeping off “dust older than them.” “The technology back then simply did not exist to control the motors, run the diagnostics and make it all happen,” Caraway explained. “They’re not designed to run 30 years.” Additionally, the computer program that controlled the motors was outdated and did not meet to the university’s security requirements. Given all this, the team needed to develop a new communication system for the telescope, starting with the computer software. They decided instead of purchasing an upgraded computer system, they could build and program their own in-house from scratch. Next, once the new computer was up and running, it needed motors to command. Marisa Guerra ’24 worked on a senior design project involving a robotic arm whose motor structure was the same as the telescope’s. She crafted a blueprint for the telescope’s new motors using what she learned for her capstone project. At the same time, Agustin worked on developing a cleaner communication system between the computer to the motors. Her senior design research focused on electric vehicles and their internal circuit systems, and she could replicate something similar within the telescope – but not without digging through the decaying electronics first. “We had to reverse engineer and actually redraw the circuits, which was good practice because a lot of the time, for senior design at least, you don’t really have to design a new circuit. You are just kind of puzzle-piecing it together,” Agustin said. “But with this circuit, all of them were bad.” Using Guerra’s and Agustin’s senior design research, the team reprogrammed the telescope’s circuits. What once took 20 wires to operate now only takes two. They also reduced the weight of the telescope’s motors from 40 pounds to just 2 pounds. Once the communication system was finished, the team was just waiting for mobility. And on a day in Spring 2024, thanks to the refurbished system, they were able to create movement within the telescope for the first time in years. “I didn’t even know if that device could move internally,” Quiroga-Nuñez says. The moment was celebrated, but the team knew this success triggered a new challenge. It was time to tackle high astrometric precision – a crucial element of properly tracking movement in space. “We are pointing to tiny points in the sky. If we do not track that properly, we are going to be lost in the universe,” Quiroga-Nuñez says. The Value of Time Perfecting precise movement is expected to take some time, but that’s not a bad thing, Quiroga-Nuñez says. He believes that a lengthy timeline will offer more value in the long run because it will give even more students a chance to get involved. Besides, its primary purpose will be to teach students how to use a telescope and allow them to make observations and prepare for their future careers. Ultimately, Quiroga-Nuñez predicts that the telescope could pick up its first image from space in about a year if everything stays on track. However, the team still has a lot of ground within the telescope to uncover, with an unpredictable number of potential troubleshooting challenges. For example, while rebuilding the motor, they discovered that the internal mirror that illuminates the telescope’s visuals was in poor condition – it needed cleaning and new aluminum to reflect enough light to see the telescope’s imagery, Agustin explains. So, the team had to remove the mirror and ship it to New York for refurbishment – a process that took several months. Once the mirror is reinstalled, they can return to their quest for better precision. The mirror is just one example of unpredictability in reverse-engineering. Ultimately, dedicating more time to understanding and solving the unforeseen challenges allows more students to participate in the telescope’s journey, Quiroga-Nuñez says. “This is like a big Lego for them,” he says. “They are learning the process, and the students, I think, will have found a very valuable life experience.” If you're interested in connecting with Luis Quiroga-Nuñez, director of Florida Tech’s Ortega Observatory - simply contact  Adam Lowenstein, Director of Media Communications at Florida Institute of Technology at adam@fit.edu to arrange an interview today.

A Florida Tech-led group of researchers was selected to help NASA solve challenges in aviation through its prestigious University Leadership Initiative (ULI) program. Over the next three years, associate professor of computer science and software engineering Siddhartha Bhattacharyya and professor of aviation human factors Meredith Carroll will work to understand the vital role of trust in autonomy. Their project, “Trustworthy Resilient Autonomous Agents for Safe City Transportation in the Evolving New Decade” (TRANSCEND), aims to establish a common framework for engineers and human operators to determine the trustworthiness of machine-learning-enabled autonomous aviation safety systems. Autonomous systems are those that can perform independent tasks without requiring human control. The autonomy of these systems is expected to be enhanced with intelligence gained from machine learning. As a result, intelligence-based software is expected to be increasingly used in airplanes and drones. It may also be utilized in airports and to manage air traffic in the future. Learning-enabled autonomous technology can also act as contingency management when used in safety applications, proactively addressing potential disruptions and unexpected aviation events. TRANSCEND was one of three projects chosen for the latest ULI awards. The others hail from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach – researching continuously updating, self-diagnostic vehicle health management to enhance the safety and reliability of Advanced Air Mobility vehicles – and University of Colorado Boulder – investigating tools for understanding and leveraging the complex communications environment of collaborative, autonomous airspace systems. Florida Tech’s team includes nine faculty members from five universities: Penn State; North Carolina A&T State University; University of Florida; Stanford University; Santa Fe College. It also involves the companies Collins Aerospace in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and ResilienX of Syracuse, New York. Carroll and Bhattacharyya will also involve students throughout the project. Human operators are an essential component of aviation technology – they monitor independent software systems and associated data and intervene when those systems fail. They may include flight crew members, air traffic controllers, maintenance personnel or safety staff monitoring overall system safety. A challenge in implementing independent software is that engineers and operators have different interpretations of what makes a system “trustworthy,” Carroll and Bhattacharyya explained. Engineers who develop autonomous software measure trustworthiness by the system’s ability to perform as designed. Human operators, however, trust and rely on systems to perform as they expect – they want to feel comfortable relying on a system to make an aeronautical decision in flight, such as how to avoid a traffic conflict or a weather event. Sometimes, that reliance won’t align with design specifications. Equally important, operators also need to trust that the software will alert them when it needs a human to take over. This may happen if the algorithm driving the software encounters a scenario it wasn’t trained for. “We are looking at how we can integrate trust from different communities – from human factors, from formal methods, from autonomy, from AI…” Bhattacharyya said. “How do we convey assumptions for trust, from design time to operation, as the intelligent systems are being deployed, so that we can trust them and know when they’re going to fail, especially those that are learning-enabled, meaning they adapt based on machine learning algorithms?” With Bhattacharyya leading the engineering side and Carroll leading the human factors side, the research group will begin bridging the trust gap by integrating theories, principles, methods, measures, visualizations, explainability and practices from different domains – this will build the TRANSCEND framework. Then, they’ll test the framework using a diverse range of tools, flight simulators and intelligent decision-making to demonstrate trustworthiness in practice. This and other data will help them develop a safety case toolkit of guidelines for development processes, recommendations and suggested safety measures for engineers to reference when designing “trustworthy,” learning-enabled autonomous systems. Ultimately, Bhattacharyya and Carroll hope their toolkit will lay the groundwork for a future learning-enabled autonomous systems certification process. “The goal is to combine all our research capabilities and pull together a unified story that outputs unified products to the industry,” Carroll said. “We want products for the industry to utilize when implementing learning-enabled autonomy for more effective safety management systems.” The researchers also plan to use this toolkit to teach future engineers about the nuances of trust in the products they develop. Once developed, they will hold outreach events, such as lectures and camps, for STEM-minded students in the community. If you're interested in connecting with Meredith Carroll or Siddhartha Bhattacharyya - simply click on the expert's profile or contact  Adam Lowenstein, Director of Media Communications at Florida Institute of Technology at adam@fit.edu to arrange an interview today.

For the second time in two weeks, air traffic controllers directing planes into the Newark, New Jersey, airport briefly lost their radar. The outages have sparked travel chaos, with hundreds of flight delays and cancellations after the FAA slowed air traffic to ensure safety.  The country's aging air traffic control system is in the spotlight. Media, politicians and the public are demanding both solutions for the system and answers on how safe traveling is at the moment. To provide insight, Florida Tech's Margaret Wallace is lending her expert opinion and perspective on the issue. Margaret Wallace is Assistant Professor of Aviation Management at Florida Institute of Technology, where she teaches Air Traffic Control and Airport Management courses. She spent over 15 years in the industry prior to teaching as an Airport Manager (4 years) at Ramstein Air Base in Germany and an Air Traffic Controller (10+ years) in the U.S. Air Force. “The recent communication failure at Newark Liberty International Airport has raised serious concerns about the safety and dependability of air traffic control systems in the United States. On April 28, 2025, the Newark air traffic facilities lost all radio communication with approximately 20 airplanes for up to 90 seconds due to an equipment breakdown. During the outage, pilots and controllers were unable to communicate. Controllers were unable to maintain aircraft separation during crucial flight phases, and pilots were unable to receive air traffic clearances and instructions. Situations like this, as well as aircraft incidents, bring stress and trauma to the controller's mental state. Most people cannot fathom how much mental stress the controller experiences in everyday job settings. Situations with defective equipment, combined with lengthy work hours due to a scarcity of controllers, appear to have taken their toll based on the fact that several controllers have taken leave for mental stress. This situation posed a safety risk to all planes and passengers. Fortunately, there were no incidents, and everyone remained safe. However, this demonstrated some of the flaws in the outdated air traffic system equipment. Sean Duffy, the new Transportation Secretary, has acknowledged the critical need to improve our current technology. While air travel is generally safe, our current administration must continue to prioritize the upgrade of air traffic systems and increasing the staffing in air traffic facilities. To ensure safety, I believe we should consider having airlines restrict the number of flights available and the Air Route Traffic Command Center to introduce delays to avoid overloading the system.” Margaret Wallace If you're interested in connecting with Margaret Wallace about the ongoing issues at airports across the country, let us help. Contact Adam Lowenstein, Director of Media Communications at Florida Institute of Technology, at adam@fit.edu to arrange an interview today.