Hurricane Helene, a major storm that made landfall in late September in Taylor County, inflicted up to $162.2 million in agricultural losses in Florida.

The University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, or UF/IFAS, on Tuesday released a report estimating losses from Helene. Helene closely followed the path of Hurricane Debby, which made landfall in August in Taylor County.

Combined, the two storms caused estimated agricultural losses of $134 million to $425 million, according to Tuesday’s report and an earlier UF/IFAS report about Debby.

Helene resulted in an estimated $40.3 million to $162.2 million in losses, with the total expected to be narrowed in the coming months. Debby led to an estimated $93.7 million to $263.2 million in losses.

“There were some things that weren’t in the path or weren’t at risk of Hurricane Helene because they were already damaged by Hurricane Debby,” Christa Court, UF/IFAS economic impact analysis program director, said Tuesday during a conference call with reporters.

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A damage survey showed larger effects from Debby, which was a more rain-intense storm with more flooding than Helene, which moved rapidly through Florida before heading north, Court said.

Court also said some farmers had not replanted between Debby, which made landfall Aug. 5, and Helene, which made landfall Sept. 26.

Hurricane Milton hit the state Oct. 9, making landfall in Sarasota County. Data on the impacts from Milton is still being collected.

During a legislative organization session Tuesday, Senate President Ben Albritton, a Wauchula Republican who is a citrus grower, expressed a need to help farmers, along with homeowners, affected by the storms.

“In the days following hurricanes Helene and Milton, I spent time with several senators whose constituents were catastrophically impacted. The devastation is heartbreaking. Florida agriculture was heavily impacted. And many of our coastal communities suffered from tornadoes, wind and flooding,” Albritton said. “What’s worse is that many of these communities were still recovering from hurricanes Debbie, Idalia and Ian. Be assured, together, we are going to recover, and we are going to rebuild.”

Helene, which made landfall with 140 mph sustained winds, affected more than 6 million acres of agricultural land in Florida, mostly in North Florida’s Big Bend region, with two-thirds of the land used for livestock grazing.

Field and row crops took the biggest financial hit, with estimated losses between $12.76 million and $48.16 million, followed by losses in livestock and animal production between $11.79 million and $44.4 million.

Vegetable and melon production sustained $10.47 million to $38.22 million in losses and greenhouses and nurseries received $2.16 million to $15 million in losses. Fruit and tree-nut losses were estimated at $3.17 million to $12.13 million.

The UF/IFAS figures are mostly tied to the current growing season and don’t include damage to items such as fertilizer and feed or repairs for damaged and destroyed infrastructure.

While Helene and Debby made landfall in North Florida, Milton cut a path across the central part of the state, which includes the heart of the citrus industry.

Court said Milton data will include losses from tornadoes outside of areas where hurricane-force winds occurred.

Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson has estimated that Milton might have caused between $1.5 billion and $2.5 billion in losses.

Debby affected more than 2.2 million acres of agricultural land in Florida.

As examples of the damage, livestock losses from Debby are estimated between $41.1 million and $98.5 million. Flooding caused field crops to suffer between $19.3 million and $53.1 million in losses. Greenhouses and nurseries had up to $53.6 million in losses, including from power outages that hindered cooling and irrigation.

Debby interrupted the planting schedule for vegetables, melons and potatoes and resulted in $12.1 million to $32.1 million in anticipated losses.

The Florida Gators have been plagued by the injury bug all season. It’s taken a few key players on both sides of the ball each week and left them trying to fill the void with others. 

However, they have tons of depth on this roster and it showed once again on Saturday. While the Gators were without starting linebacker Grayson Howard against LSU, true freshman Myles Graham made sure there was little drop-off in talent on the field. 

According to PFF, Graham was graded out as the best true freshman linebacker in the country in Week 12 against the Tigers with a PFF grade of 77.6. He accounted for seven tackles in this game and five of them were assisted while the other two were solo. His seven tackles were also his highest in a single game this season. 

Additionally, PFF gave him an 82.7 tackling grade in this contest, which is the highest he has received all season and also the highest of any Gator defender on Saturday. 

The young star in the making has been shining over these past few weeks as well, so it is no surprise seeing him perform like this. 

From the first week of the season against Miami to the Tennessee game near the middle of October, Graham only totaled five tackles and all of them were assisted. In the last four though, he has 17 tackles, (10 assists and seven solo) one tackle-for-loss and one sack. 

It is unclear yet as to when Howard will be back for the Gators. Like every week prior, we’ll have to wait for the availability report for that. But if his absence extends into this weekend, then the Gators will have a dependable replacement in Myles Graham. 

A professor at the University of South Florida (USF) analyzed a 2,000-year-old Egyptian mug and discovered that the ancient object once held a psychedelic concoction used in a magical ritual. 

The mug studied was an Egyptian Bes mug donated to the Tampa Museum of Art in 1984. The mug is one of few still in existence. 

Research into the rare mug began in 2021, USF professor Davide Tanasi told Fox News Digital via email. 

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These mugs displayed the head of Bes, according to the press release.

Many of Bes’ worshipers were ancient Egyptian newlyweds, according to the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum, as the god of fertility and childbirth.

Tanasi and his team scraped a sample of tiny particles from inside the vase to analyze. 

The team originally thought the vessel would have contained an alcoholic beverage, but what they ended up finding was far different from their original theories.

Advanced DNA and chemical analysis found the vase contained what Tanasi described as a “cocktail” of different components. 

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Included in the mix was an alcoholic base, Tanasi told Fox News Digital, with flavoring agents like honey and or royal jelly sesame seeds, pine nuts or oil from Mediterranean pine and licorice.

Also included in the mix were several different medicinal and psychotropic substances, including Syrian rue, blue water lily and cleome species, Tanasi said.

The analyzed mug was donated to the Tampa Museum of Art in 1984. (Fabiola Santiago/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images/File)

Human fluids including blood, breast milk and mucus were also part of the concoction, according to Tanasi. 

The bodily fluids in particular served as a large indicator that the mix was used in ancient ritual practices, according to the research. 

“It was then a magical potion, meant to inebriate, satiate and induce hallucinations,” Tanasi said of the mixture. 

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This first-of-its-kind finding provides physical evidence that mirrors written records and myths about ancient Egyptian rituals. 

“At this point, we believe that the psychotropic substances found in it were used for ‘incubation rituals’ connected with the cult of Bes,” Tanasi told Fox News Digital. 

A drinking vessel is shown in the shape of Bes’ head. (Tampa Museum of Art/Philip LaDeau)

“Incubation rituals are religious practices where people sleep in a sacred space to receive a dream from a deity that may provide healing or an oracle,” Tanasi said. 

“In [the] Greek cult of Asklepios, god of medicine, sick worshipers had to spend the night in the sanctuary and wait to be visited by the god curing them during their dreams. Those dreams were triggered by drugs (pharmaka) dispensed by the priests. So, our research confirms an earlier practice that has later comparisons in several other cultures.”

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The mug is now on display at the Tampa Museum of Art as part of its “Prelude: An Introduction to the Permanent Collection” exhibit.

As far as further research goes, Tanasi said he hopes similar analysis continues.

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“To prove that the concoction that we found was the base recipe for a standard beverage administered during the rituals in honor of Bes, we plan as [a] next step to hopefully carry out the same analyses done on the example from the Tampa Museum of Art on other examples of [the] Bes Mug, kept at the Allan Pierson Museum in Amsterdam,” he said.

These, he added, “were produced with the same mold used for the Tampa one, to assess whether there was one and only recipe for this magical potion for Bes.”