In The NoCo

There’s a lot of content these days about self-care: how to stay mentally and physically balanced when work, family or other stresses grind you down. We often see social media influencers posting about bubble baths, the perfect tea, or the best skin care routine. 

But a new book argues that self-care isn’t simply about focusing on ourselves. Rather, it’s a crucial part of how we show up for other people. And losing sight of that can lead to guilt or strained relationships with loved ones.   

Author Jordan Quaglia is a professor of psychology at Naropa University in Boulder and he wrote From Self-Care to We-Care: The New Science of Mindful Boundaries and Caring from an Undivided Heart. 

Jordan spoke with In the NoCo’s Brad Turner about the book and how he hopes it nudges readers away from the more selfish or even materialistic versions of self-care. 

Jordan Quaglia will speak about his book at the Boulder Bookstore on May 29 at 6:30 p.m.  

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Questions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email us: [email protected]
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Host and Producer: Erin O'Toole
Producer: Ariel Lavery
Executive Producer: Brad Turner
Theme music by Robbie Reverb
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions

In The NoCo is a production of KUNC News and Community Radio for Northern Colorado.

You know spring is here when the sound of lawn mowers fills your neighborhood. But some folks think mowing isn’t a great idea this time of year. 

There’s been a trend in yard care called No Mow May – as in, don’t mow your lawn until June. The concept started in the U.K. in 2019. The idea is to protect pollinators like bees and butterflies by letting dandelions and clover grow for a while before cutting them back.  

But is No Mow May a good idea in Colorado and the Front Range? 

For answers, we reached out to Alison O’Connor. She’s a horticulture professor with Colorado State University Extension, and an expert in yards, gardens, and the creatures that live among our plants.  

She spoke with Erin O’Toole last spring about the trend – and offered lots of helpful ways to support pollinators. We’re listening back to that conversation today. 

Find more tips from CSU Extension about creating pollinator-friendly landscaping and about how to attract native bees to your yard. 

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Sign up for the In The NoCo newsletter: Visit KUNC.org
Questions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email us: [email protected]
Like what you're hearing? Help more people discover In The NoCo by rating the show on your favorite podcast app. Thanks!
 
Host and Producer: Erin O'Toole
Producer: Ariel Lavery
Executive Producer: Brad Turner
 
Theme music by Robbie Reverb
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions
In The NoCo is a production of KUNC News and Community Radio for Northern Colorado.

Colorado is home to lots of people who are passionate about bicycling. They ride during all seasons.  

Our host, Erin O’Toole, however, is more of a casual bike rider, with her bicycle spending many of the colder months cooped up in the garage. This means it often needs some maintenance before going on that first cruise of the year.   

So today we’re talking about how to get our bikes ready for summer riding. 

Schuyler Gantert is the owner of Road 34, a bike shop in Fort Collins, and he’s a bike maintenance expert. He joined Erin and gave a few tips on some do-it-yourself bike maintenance. 

Sign up for the In The NoCo newsletter: Visit KUNC.org
Questions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email us: [email protected]
Like what you're hearing? Help more people discover In The NoCo by rating the show on your favorite podcast app. Thanks!

Host and Producer: Erin O'Toole
Producer: Ariel Lavery
Executive Producer: Brad Turner
Theme music by Robbie Reverb
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions

In The NoCo is a production of KUNC News and Community Radio for Northern Colorado.

For the past seven years if you were a Colorado farmer who was struggling and felt overwhelmed, you had a place to turn for help.
   
The AgWell program offered mental health support to farmers and ranchers in several Western states. It gave them stress management tools and support from their peers. That’s important because farmers statistically struggle with isolation and die by suicide at rates twice as high as the general population.   

But those services are on hold now. Amid other spending cuts ordered by the Trump administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture in April froze $10 million in funding for support programs like AgWell.  

Colorado Sun reporter Tracy Ross recently wrote about the program. She spoke with Erin O’Toole about the abrupt loss of its funding.

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Sign up for the In The NoCo newsletter: Visit KUNC.org
Questions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email us: [email protected]
Like what you're hearing? Help more people discover In The NoCo by rating the show on your favorite podcast app. Thanks!
 
Host and Producer: Erin O'Toole
Producer: Ariel Lavery
Executive Producer: Brad Turner
 
Theme music by Robbie Reverb
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions
In The NoCo is a production of KUNC News and Community Radio for Northern Colorado.

An artist in Lakewood who specializes in creating tiny books and illustrations received an unusual offer recently. An art gallery reached out to Evan Lorenzen and asked for his help in creating a book of original art – no bigger than your thumbnail – to be placed on the moon.   

 
The Moon Gallery, based in Amsterdam, works to send cultural artifacts into space. They’ve shipped artwork to the International Space Station. Now they wanted to focus on the moon.  
 
Evan worked with the Moon Gallery to compile a tiny, 80-page book filled with images and poetry by dozens of artists and writers.   

They called the book Moon Bound. It’s set to be launched into space later this year. Evan spoke with Brad Turner about the challenge of making the tiny book and some of the highlights from artists who contributed to the projects.

Sign up for the In The NoCo newsletter: Visit KUNC.org
Questions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email us: [email protected]
Like what you're hearing? Help more people discover In The NoCo by rating the show on your favorite podcast app. Thanks!

Host and Producer: Erin O'Toole
Producer: Ariel Lavery
Executive Producer: Brad Turner
Theme music by Robbie Reverb
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions

In The NoCo is a production of KUNC News and Community Radio for Northern Colorado.

When people speculate about fallout from President Trump's threatened tariffs, they often talk about how tariffs on steel could drive up car prices, or how tariffs on some food products or imported wines will drive up prices at the store.  

But tariffs are hitting some small outdoor recreation businesses in Colorado especially hard. Think about the price of a stand-up paddleboard or a ski jacket almost doubling. And some companies that sell Colorado-made products in other countries are cancelling orders altogether.          

Colorado Sun reporter Jason Blevins recently spoke with the owners of several small outdoor companies about how the tariffs are hitting their bottom line. He talked with Erin O’Toole about how they’ll try to cope in the coming months amid the uncertainty.  

The Mountain West News Bureau’s Rachel Cohen also reported on how tariff hikes could impact companies that make and sell outdoor gear. Find that story here.

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Sign up for the In The NoCo newsletter: Visit KUNC.org
Questions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email us: [email protected]
Like what you're hearing? Help more people discover In The NoCo by rating the show on your favorite podcast app. Thanks!
 
Host and Producer: Erin O'Toole
Producer: Ariel Lavery
Executive Producer: Brad Turner
 
Theme music by Robbie Reverb
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions
In The NoCo is a production of KUNC News and Community Radio for Northern Colorado.

A new study suggests that researchers should take a closer look at cannabis as a treatment for cancer and its symptoms. The team behind the study says the results suggest the federal government should remove restrictions on that research.  

An organization called Cancer Playbook, which is based in Evergreen, paid for the study. Cancer Playbook’s head of research says it works to provide people battling cancer with information about what treatments have helped other cancer patients – and that often includes medical marijuana. 

The study reviewed more than 10,000 published papers on medical cannabis. That makes it the most comprehensive analysis ever conducted on the topic, according to a recent story in The Guardian.  

Ryan Castle is the director of research for Cancer Playbook and he led the study. It found that cannabis showed clear promise in many aspects of cancer treatment, from reducing pain to shrinking tumors. 

Ryan talked with Erin O’Toole about study and why it’s hard to get reliable data on the effectiveness of medical marijuana – which is legal in Colorado and many other states, but still illegal at the federal level.

Sign up for the In The NoCo newsletter: Visit KUNC.org
Questions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email us: [email protected]
Like what you're hearing? Help more people discover In The NoCo by rating the show on your favorite podcast app. Thanks!

Host and Producer: Erin O'Toole
Producer: Ariel Lavery
Executive Producer: Brad Turner
Theme music by Robbie Reverb
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions

In The NoCo is a production of KUNC News and Community Radio for Northern Colorado.

An innovative new prosthetic foot dreamed up by students at Colorado State University could offer new options to amputees and other people with limb differences.  

The team behind it calls it the “Goldilocks foot” because it serves as a middle option. It’s more comfortable than cheaper prosthetics but costs less than prosthetics built for running and other competitive sports. The design team says the Goldilocks foot is especially useful for walks and light exercise.  

CSU senior, Garrison Hays, worked with a team of engineering undergrads to create the design. And he drew on his personal experience: His leg was partially amputated to remove cancer when he was a kid.  He spoke with Brad Turner about how he realized he wanted  to make a prosthetic that was affordable, but also durable and comfortable.

Sign up for the In The NoCo newsletter: Visit KUNC.org
Questions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email us: [email protected]
Like what you're hearing? Help more people discover In The NoCo by rating the show on your favorite podcast app. Thanks!

Host and Producer: Erin O'Toole
Producer: Ariel Lavery
Executive Producer: Brad Turner
Theme music by Robbie Reverb
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions
In The NoCo is a production of KUNC News and Community Radio for Northern Colorado.

Writer Cassondra Windwalker’s new horror novel uses fiction to highlight a real-life crisis that often goes ignored.  

Ghost Girls and Rabbits touches on the thousands of unsolved cases of Indigenous American and Alaska Native women who were missing or murdered. More than 4,000 cases fit that description, according to the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs. 

The novel tells the story of two Indigenous American women: one who has lost her daughter, and the other who has herself been kidnapped. Windwalker is originally from Oklahoma, spent time in Alaska and now lives in Berthoud.  

Ghost Girls and Rabbits comes out May 5, which is also a day of awareness to call attention to the issue. Windwalker spoke with Erin O'Toole about the horror writer who inspired her, and how she hopes the book raises awareness about an urgent problem.

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Sign up for the In The NoCo newsletter: Visit KUNC.org
Questions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email us: [email protected]
Like what you're hearing? Help more people discover In The NoCo by rating the show on your favorite podcast app. Thanks!
 
Host and Producer: Erin O'Toole
Producer: Ariel Lavery
Executive Producer: Brad Turner
 
Theme music by Robbie Reverb
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions
In The NoCo is a production of KUNC News and Community Radio for Northern Colorado.

In 2025, artificial intelligence gives us personalized shopping recommendations. It writes emails for us. And all those quick tasks require lightning-fast computing and huge amounts of data. Which is why tech companies like Microsoft and Amazon are building massive data centers around the country. 

Some state lawmakers have proposed incentives for companies that want to build data centers in Colorado. They say the facilities will create jobs and tax revenue – and that Colorado is competing with other states for that economic boost. 

But skeptics point out that data centers use enormous amounts of electricity and water, which strains power grids and water supplies.   

 
To sort through the economic benefits and the environmental costs, we reached out to Vijay Gadepally. He's a senior scientist at MIT who researches high performance computing and artificial intelligence. He’s also the chief technology officer of an AI cloud computing company that hopes to build a data center in Colorado.  

He talked with Erin O'Toole about why some people think Colorado’s a good place to build more data centers, and how they work.

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Sign up for the In The NoCo newsletter: Visit KUNC.org
Questions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email us: [email protected]
Like what you're hearing? Help more people discover In The NoCo by rating the show on your favorite podcast app. Thanks!
 
Host and Producer: Erin O'Toole
Producer: Ariel Lavery
Executive Producer: Brad Turner
 
Theme music by Robbie Reverb
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions
In The NoCo is a production of KUNC News and Community Radio for Northern Colorado.