The Essential Rhythm 12/11/22: Cytochrome oxidase what?

Producer/Host: Sarah O’Malley

This episode explains the function of the CO1 gene, which is used for DNA barcoding animals. The gene codes for part of the protein cytochrome oxidase, which is integral to aerobic respiration and the generation of ATP. It is also idea for barcoding because of its not to fast/not too slow mutation rate.

About the host:
Sarah O’Malley is an ecologist, naturalist and science communicator passionate about deepening her listeners’ experiences with the natural world. She teaches biology and sustainability at Maine Maritime Academy and is currently collaborating on a guide book to the intertidal zone in the Gulf of Maine.

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The Nature of Phenology 12/10/22: Rock polypody fern

Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn
Host: Hazel Stark

An evergreen fern to look for, even once there’s some snow on the ground.

Photos, a full transcript, references, contact information, and more available at thenatureofphenology.wordpress.com

About the host/writers:
Joe Horn lives in Gouldsboro, is Co-Founder of Maine Outdoor School, L3C, and is a Registered Maine Guide and Carpenter. He is passionate about fishing, cooking, and making things with his hands. He has both an MBA in Sustainability and an MS focused in Environmental Education. Joe can be reached by emailing [email protected]

Hazel Stark lives in Gouldsboro, is Co-Founder and Naturalist Educator at Maine Outdoor School, L3C, and is a Registered Maine Guide. She loves taking a closer look at nature through the lens of her camera, napping in beds of moss, and taking hikes to high points to see what being tall is all about. She has an MS in Resource Management and Conservation and is a lifelong Maine outdoorswoman. Hazel can be reached by emailing [email protected]

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Earthwise 12/10/22: The Holly and the Mistletoe

Producer/Host: Anu Dudley

About the host:

Rev. Dr. Anu Dudley is an ordained Pagan minister and a retired history professor. She continues to teach classes, including the three-year ordination curriculum at the Temple of the Feminine Divine, and others such as History of the Goddess, Paganism 101, Ethical Magic, and Introduction to the Runes. Currently she is writing a book about how to cast the runes using their original Goddess meanings. She lives in the woods off-grid in a small homesteading community in Central Maine.

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Let’s Talk About It 12/9/22: Surviving Domestic Violence – Melody and Melissa

Producer/Host: Patrisha McLean
Production assistance: Tammy Oropesa
Music: Jackie Lee McLean

Let’s Talk About It: Conversations with Survivors of Domestic Abuse

Guests:
Melody Rose Paul, author of Savaged to Wellness and The Road to Recovery and Melissa, who barely survived the violent rampage of her ex who was out on bail when he committed this. Melody is a Mi’kmaq native who says that being incarcerated was a relief from her captivity at home by her controlling ex.

Topics:
Incarceration, the link between substance abuse and domestic abuse, no justice for victims of domestic abuse, turning pain into art.

About the host:
Patrisha McLean is the founder/president of Finding Our Voices, the grass roots survivor-powered non-profit organization breaking the silence of domestic abuse one conversation and community at a time  all across Maine.

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Common Ground Radio 12/8/22: Maine Organic Dairy Farms Are In Trouble – How You Can Help

Producer/Host: Holli Cederholm
Editing: Clare Boland

Common Ground Radio is an hour-long discussion of local food and organic agriculture with people here in the state of Maine and beyond.

This month:
On the December 2022 episode of Common Ground Radio, host Holli Cederholm discusses the organic dairy crisis in the Northeast and how it is impacting farms in Maine with the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association’s Organic Dairy and Livestock Specialist Jacki Martinez Perkins, who grew up on an organic dairy farm, and Annie Watson, who co-owns Sheepscot Valley Farm, an organic dairy in Whitefield, Maine. Watson also currently serves on the boards of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA) and the Northeast Organic Family Farm Partnership, and she is board president of the Maine Dairy Industry Association. Additionally, she is CEO and a founding partner of the Maine Organic Milk Company, a start-up working to bring organic dairy processing to the state. Tune in to hear why organic dairy farms are an important part of Maine’s landscape, why they’re in trouble and the ways that listeners can help support these farms to the benefit of Maine’s communities, local economies and the environment.

Key Discussion Points:
-Organic dairy industry
-Origin of Livestock USDA organic rule
-Cost of organic production
-Organic dairy pay price
-Where to buy local, organic milk
-Farm Bill 2023
-Pasture health
-Grass-fed dairy
-Grain price inflation

Guest/s:
Jacki Martinez Perkins, who grew up on a small, award-winning, organic dairy in central Maine. She has worked in various aspects of the dairy industry including as an artificial insemination technician and a herd manager before becoming the organic dairy and livestock specialist for the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA). Her work includes supporting organic dairy and livestock operations through management and organic certification considerations as well as helping to develop policies regarding organic production.

Annie Watson, who is a co-owner of Sheepscot Valley Farm, an organic dairy farm in Whitefield, where she lives with her husband, Mike Moody, and their three young sons. She currently serves on the boards of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association and the Northeast Organic Family Farm Partnership, and she is board president of the Maine Dairy Industry Association. Additionally, she is CEO and a founding partner of the Maine Organic Milk Company, a start-up working to bring organic dairy processing to the state.

FMI Links:
Find Local, Organic Farmers and Producers
Articles on Organic Livestock and Poultry Standards Proposed Rule, and Origin of Livestock final rule in MOFGA’s The Organic Sprout newsletter — indd.adobe.com/view/04e87eab-9318-4e85-95fc-1dd7ddd5d605
Northeast Organic Family Farm Partnership
Maine Dairy Industry Association
Ways to Support Organic Dairy
About the hosts:

Holli Cederholm has been involved in organic agriculture since 2005 when she first apprenticed on a small farm. She has worked on organic farms in Maine, Vermont, Connecticut, Scotland and Italy and, in 2010, founded a small farm focused on celebrating open-pollinated and heirloom vegetables. As the former manager of a national nonprofit dedicated to organic seed growers, she authored a peer-reviewed handbook on GMO avoidance strategies for seed growers. Holli has also been a steward at Forest Farm, the iconic homestead of “The Good Life” authors Helen and Scott Nearing; a host of “The Farm Report” on Heritage Radio Network; and a long-time contributor for The Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener, which she now edits in her role as content creator and editor at MOFGA.

Caitlyn Barker has worked in education and organic agriculture on and off for the last 17 years. She has worked on an organic vegetable farm, served on the Maine Farm to School network, worked in early childhood education and taught elementary school. She currently serves as the community engagement coordinator for MOFGA.

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Around Town 12/8/22: Develop Sears Island or Mack Point? Public Meeting Next Week

Producer/Host: Amy Browne

This week: Sears Island is an uninhabited 940 acre island off the coast of Searsport that has been eyed by developers for various projects over the years.
The latest threat, to at least part of the island, is the potential that a facility for building and launching offshore wind turbines may be built there.

Friends of Sears Island, Islesboro Islands Trust, and the Maine Chapter of the Sierra club have all spoken out against the site location, instead urging that the facility be built on nearby Mack Point, which is already extensively developed. Theoretically, Mack Point and also Eastport are being considered as possible locations along with Sears Island, but many worry that Sears Island is what the state is really focusing on.

Next Monday morning there will be a meeting of the state’s task force that will be making recommendations about the site location, and advocates for protecting the island are urging the public to listen in. You can read the agenda and register for the zoom meeting here

Earlier this week we checked in with Rolf Olsen, Vice President of the Board for Friends of Sears Island for all the details

About the host:
Amy Browne started out at WERU as a volunteer news & public affairs producer in 2000, co-hosting/co-producing RadioActive with Meredith DeFrancesco. She joined the team of Voices producers a few years later, and has been WERU’s News & Public Affairs Manager since January, 2006. In addition to RadioActive, Voices, Maine Currents and Maine: The Way Life Could Be, Amy also produced and hosted the WERU News Report for several years. She has produced segments for national programs including Free Speech Radio News, This Way Out, Making Contact, Workers Independent News, Pacifica PeaceWatch, and Live Wire News, and has contributed to Democracy Now and the WBAI News Report. She is the recipient of the 2014 Excellence in Environmental Journalism Award from the Sierra Club of Maine, and Maine Association of Broadcasters awards for her work in 2017 and 2021.

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Notes from the Electronic Cottage 12/8/22: Holiday Gift Settings Redux

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

As we excitedly gather all sorts of amazing electronic digital devices to bestow on others during this gift-giving season, here are a few thoughts that might be worth considering before the recipients fire those devices up and start using them.

About the host:
Jim Campbell has a longstanding interest in the intersection of digital technology, law, and public policy and how they affect our daily lives in our increasingly digital world. He has banged around non-commercial radio for decades and, in the little known facts department (that should probably stay that way), he was one of the readers voicing Richard Nixon’s words when NPR broadcast the entire transcript of the Watergate tapes. Like several other current WERU volunteers, he was at the station’s sign-on party on May 1, 1988 and has been a volunteer ever since doing an early stint as a Morning Maine host, and later producing WERU program series including Northern Lights, Conversations on Science and Society, Sound Portrait of the Artist, Selections from the Camden Conference, others that will probably come to him after this is is posted, and, of course, Notes from the Electronic Cottage.

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Maine: The Way Life Could Be 12/6/22: Series Finale – A Look Back, and a Look Ahead

Producers/Hosts: Jim Campbell and Amy Browne
This series is made possible in part by a grant from the Maine Arts Commission

Maine: The Way Life Could Be, a series in which we look at challenges and opportunities facing Maine in the lifetimes of people alive today.

This episode:
What are the most important issues Mainers will be facing in the lifetimes of those of us alive today?
That is the question Amy Browne and Jim Campbell, cohosts of Maine: The Way Life Could Be, posed to listeners nearly a year ago. The year-long series that followed has focused on the issues you raised in your responses.

In this episode we wrap up the series with a look back — and a look ahead.

Guests:
Donna Loring, Penobscot Indian Nation Tribal elder and former council member. She represented the Penobscot Nation in the State Legislature for over a decade, and is a former Senior Advisor on Tribal Affairs to Governor Mills. Donna is the author of “In The Shadow of The Eagle A Tribal Representative In Maine”. You can catch up on her Wabanaki Windows series on tribal sovereignty on the WERU archives here, and hear her new shows on the 4th Tuesday of every month at 4.

Amy Fried, Professor of Political Science at the University of Maine. Fried’s most recent book is At War With Government: How Conservatives Weaponized Distrust from Goldwater to Trump, published in 2021. She is in the process of finishing a new book on New England politic, slated for publication next year. Professor Fried also writes a biweekly column in the Bangor Daily News

Dr. Phil Caper of Maine AllCare. From his bio on Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), “Dr. Phil Caper received his BA, MS and MD degrees at UCLA, and trained in internal medicine on the Harvard Medical Unit at Boston City Hospital. He has held professorships at Dartmouth Medical School and the University of Massachusetts Medical School, where he was also Vice-Chancellor for Health Affairs, chief of the medical staff, and hospital director. He has been an adjunct lecturer on health policy and management at the Harvard School of Public Health, a research associate at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and an associate in health policy and management at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. From 1971 to 1976, he was a professional staff member on the United States Senate Labor and Human Resources subcommittee on health, chaired by Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.).”

Dr. Caper was a charter member of the nation’s top health care advisory panel, the National Council on Health Planning and Development from 1977 to 1984, chairing the panel from 1980 to 1984. He was also the founder and chairman of the Codman Group from 1986 to 2001, a health care software and consulting company with an international reputation and clientele. He is a founding member of the National Academy of Social Insurance and is a founding board member of Maine AllCare, the Maine chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program. He is also a former national board member of PNHP. He has published numerous articles in professional journals and written many letters to the editor and op-ed articles advocating for a publicly run universal health care program.

About the hosts:

Jim Campbell has a longstanding interest in the intersection of digital technology, law, and public policy and how they affect our daily lives in our increasingly digital world. He has banged around non-commercial radio for decades and, in the little known facts department (that should probably stay that way), he was one of the readers voicing Richard Nixon’s words when NPR broadcast the entire transcript of the Watergate tapes. Like several other current WERU volunteers, he was at the station’s sign-on party on May 1, 1988 and has been a volunteer ever since doing an early stint as a Morning Maine host, and later producing WERU program series including Northern Lights, Conversations on Science and Society, Sound Portrait of the Artist, Selections from the Camden Conference, others that will probably come to him after this is is posted, and, of course, Notes from the Electronic Cottage.

Amy Browne started out at WERU as a volunteer news & public affairs producer in 2000, co-hosting/co-producing RadioActive with Meredith DeFrancesco. She joined the team of Voices producers a few years later, and has been WERU’s News & Public Affairs Manager since January, 2006. In addition to RadioActive, Voices, Maine Currents and Maine: The Way Life Could Be, Amy also produced and hosted the WERU News Report for several years. She has produced segments for national programs including Free Speech Radio News, This Way Out, Making Contact, Workers Independent News, Pacifica PeaceWatch, and Live Wire News, and has contributed to Democracy Now and the WBAI News Report. She is the recipient of the 2014 Excellence in Environmental Journalism Award from the Sierra Club of Maine, and Maine Association of Broadcasters awards for her work in 2017 and 2021.

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