When author and educator Carole Burns’ father Frank passed away earlier this year she found a small, simple notebook amongst his things that he’d carried with him during his time as a volunteer at the slough, where he’d led tours since 2001. She wrote an essay about finding that notebook and sent it our way, so we thought it would be a good reason to have a conversation about what the slough meant to her father, and what finding that notebook meant to her — and what the Six Mile Cypress Slough Preserve has meant, and means, to so many of the people who’ve visited it over the past nearly half-century.

Kratom is currently legal in the U.S. but a better scientific understanding is needed about its safety, efficacy, and potential therapeutic applications for opioid use disorder and withdrawal. The USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture has awarded a $650,000 grant to University of Florida and its Institute of Food & Agricultural Science to study the kratom plant’s genome, gene expression and metabolites to try and get a better handle on how it affects the body, and help researchers begin to understand whether it could someday be used as a more formal way of addressing opioid addiction and withdrawal. We talk with one of the researchers to learn more.

When Dr. Nadine "Deanie" Singh founded Premier Mobil Health Services in 2018 as a mobile clinic operating out of an RV she bought with her own money on eBay. They serve uninsured and underinsured children, families and individuals at multiple locations across Lee County, as well as at a walk-in, bricks-and-mortar clinic in Fort Myers. Dr. Singh recently traveled to Boston to attend an executive education course for nonprofits at the Harvard Business School — which was supported by a scholarship from the Harvard Club of Naples — so we brought her into the studio to talk about her path that led to founding Premier Mobile Health Services, the work they do, and what she took away from her trip to Boston.

The Florida legislature passed SB 1084 during the 2024 session. It makes it a second-degree misdemeanor to sell or manufacture cultivated, or so-called ‘lab grown’ meat in the state. Gov. DeSantis signed it into law in May, and now, the California-based company Upside Foods has filed a lawsuit challenging the new law, arguing it gives an unconstitutional advantage to Florida farmers over out-of-state competitors. Shortly after lawmakers approved SB 1084, we spoke with a meat science and safety expert to get a better understanding of the science behind cultivated meat and its implications for our current agriculture system and economy.

Picayune Strand in Collier County was once slated to become the largest subdivision in the world. In the 1970s, momentum grew to restore the area’s natural hydrologic flow and environmental integrity. Now the ambitious Picayune Strand Restoration project is nearly complete. FGCU Professor in the Department of Ecology & Environmental Studies Win Everham, Ph.D. has been monitoring the site’s restoration progress by studying the status of several indicator species. He joins us to talk about the project ahead of his lecture later this month titled “Picayune Strand Restoration Project: It could have been Cape Coral South.”

Dr. Robert Hilliard has worn many hats over the course of his life. Born in 1925, Hilliard served as a soldier in World War II. Since then, he's been a journalist, educator, author, playwright, and humanitarian activist. He lives in Southwest Florida these days and is a member of the nonpartisan nonprofit Floridians for Democracy. At the age of 99 and having lived the life he’s lived, we invited him back into the studio to reflect on the place we find ourselves politically in this country. And get his take on what he calls open fascism in the modern political right, with the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 being a prime example.

Florida Southwestern State College has deployed an “AI gun detection and intelligent situational awareness solutions” across its four campuses, using their existing camera systems. We talk with one of the founders of the company that makes the system, called ZeroEyes, as well as FSW’s Chief Operating Officer and its Chief of Police.

So far this year there have been almost a thousand travel-related cases of dengue fever reported in the continental United States, with 278 of them coming from Florida. This means someone contracted the disease outside of the country and then got sick once they were back home. There have also been 16 locally acquired cases of dengue so far this year — all of those were acquired here in Florida. Dengue is a mosquito-borne disease, so we sit down with two people from the Lee County Mosquito Control District to learn about their extensive operations.

We learn about the Immokalee Foundatin's Mentor Program, which pairs volunteer mentors with students whose interests align with their expertise. The nonprofit has been supporting and educating students in the small, rural, mostly agricultural community about 25 miles east of Naples since 1991.

Project 2025 is not an entirely new concept. The Heritage Foundation has published what it calls Mandate for Leadership policy blueprints since 1979. The first one preceded the first Reagan administration. Over the decades they have outlined what conservatives hope to see out of a Republican administration, if that’s who wins the election. But, Project 2025 has a different tone and nature — and is far more detailed when it comes to exactly what policies it’s calling for, and just how they can be achieved.