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Bertha Vasquez spent most of her career in the classroom teaching science to middle schoolers in Miami-Dade County. She’s a passionate advocate for the scientific method and the many ways it’s made life better for humanity. And she’s a strong believer in skepticism when it comes to understanding the world around us, especially when extraordinary claims are made — like we see more and more these days thanks to the power of social media and the internet. Since retiring last year, Ms. Vasquez has taken on the role of Director of Education at the The Center for Inquiry, and Director of its Teacher Institute for Evolutionary Science. The CFI’s roots go back to the 1970s when Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov, and other critical thinkers began seeing the need to mitigate growing belief in pseudoscience and paranormal claims using rational means and methods.

Hurricane Ian left an indelible mark on southwest Florida, especially our barrier islands, when it made landfall on Sept. 28, 2022 as a powerful category 4 storm with 150+-mile an hour winds and storm surge levels we hadn’t seen in this part of Florida for decades. Our guest has lived on Sanibel Island for nearly 40 years, and he writes about this area’s flora and fauna so has a keen sense of the natural world around us, particularly on the barrier islands. Charles Sobczak has published ten books, including “The Living Gulf Coast: A Nature Guide to Southwest Florida” and “Living Sanibel: A Nature Guide to Sanibel & Captiva Islands” — and he gives lectures on topics like “The Changing Face of Nature” and “The Great Florida Invasion – From Pepper to Pythons” and his newest one, which reflects on Hurricane Ian, is called “Surviving the Storms: Hurricanes, Humans & Wildlife.”

According to data released more than two years ago, the American Medical Association is warning that about 1 in 5 U.S. physicians are leaving, or scaling back patient care. Our guest is one of those 1 in 5 doctors the AMA warned would quit practicing. Dr. Maryann Wilbur is now a non-practicing surgeon. She’s a GYN Oncologist — that means she’s a surgeon who focuses on cancers of the female reproductive tract. She is now Director & CEO of a new startup called Health Equity Consulting; and co-author of a book called “The Doctor is No Longer In: Conversations with U.S. physicians” which will compile data collected from interviews with physicians who have recently left practice.

As the internet has become the go-to place for most people to find news and information there has been a rise in organized efforts to create fake news and misinformation on a large scale — these are what are referred to as Troll Farms. They're like sweatshops for news articles — oftentimes meant to misinform — that have come to be known as 'pink slime' websites. They are essentially websites that are created to look like legitimate, often local, news sources but are really an effort to trick people who visit them into thinking the news they present is coming from actual journalists, when in reality they are overt attempts to misinform and often to sow division. Our guest went through the process of having one of these AI Content Farms built to see how the process works, and wrote about the experience for the Wall Street Journal.

There are a number of factors at play when it comes to predicting how active a hurricane season will be, the most important being the surface water temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico. Back in April and May temperatures in the region of the Atlantic where storms tend to develop were already what we would expect to see in early summer — and now in June temperatures are already at levels we would expect in August, which is when hurricane season peaks. We have a conversation about the 2024 season, and the various factors contribute to how active it will be, with Megan Borowski from the Florida Public Radio Network.

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.

Back in the mid-1960s Bill Strickland was a directionless public school student in Pittsburgh who didn’t really see a path for success for him or his fellow lower class, minority student friends. Then, one day he walked past a classroom and saw a teacher sitting at a pottery wheel — and that moment, and how he responded to it, changed his life. And since then has changed the lives of countless young people not only in Pittsburgh, but around the country and beyond. Manchester Bidwell Corporation (MBC) takes seemingly disparate elements — adult career training, youth arts education, jazz presentation and botanical sales (they grow orchids) — and combines them into a program with a proven record of positively changing the lives of underserved populations. Bill has helped start an additional 13 centers, including five in Pennsylvania, 6 in other US states, 1 in Puerto Rico, and 1 in Israel.

When it comes to the ways global climate change impacts the world’s oceans things like melting ice caps and glaciers, and what’s called thermal expansion — that’s when water takes up more volume as its temperature goes up — are probably what first come to mind. Or how increased water temperatures impact sea life, like recent, widespread coral bleaching events off Florida’s coast and around the world. Or even how changes in temperature and salinity can alter ocean currents, which are crucial for regulating global climate and weather patterns. But, an overlooked aspect of this story is how increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases the acidity — or the pH level — of the world’s oceans.

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.

In the late 2000s several local governments in Southwest Florida began implementing ordinances that prohibited the application of lawn fertilizer during the rainy season. Lee County’s ordinance, which was passed in 2008, just took effect again. As of June 1, it is prohibited to apply lawn fertilizer containing nitrogen or phosphorus anywhere in unincorporated Lee County until the beginning of November. Most municipalities in southwest Florida have similar ordinances, including Cape Coral, the City of Fort Myers and Fort Myers Beach, and the City of Naples. Charlotte, Sarasota, and Manatee counties have similar rainy season bans. We get an overview of Lee County’s ordinance, and the importance of complying with these rules to benefit our ecosystems.