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We listen back to our 2012 conversation with autism advocate, speaker and author Temple Grandin. She’ll be the keynote speaker at the Promising Pathways: The Road to Best Practice in Autism Spectrum Disorder Conference at FGCU on Saturday, April 9.

During NASA’s Apollo missions during the late 1960s and early 70s astronauts collected lunar rocks, core samples, pebbles, sand, and dust, and brought those materials back to earth. Those samples have been tested extensively over the decades, but now, for the first time ever, a team of researchers at University of Florida have demonstrated that terrestrial plants can be grown in lunar soil, which is called lunar regolith.

Robert N. Macomber is an award-winning author of maritime novels, best known for his Honor Series, including the 16th title “Code of Honor” which was released in April of 2022. We’ve had him on the show over the years to talk about his novels and his life’s adventures, and he was a guest on our show Three Song Stories back in 2018. But, today he joins us to talk about what he and his wife have experienced since Hurricane Ian made landfall, completely destroying their Pine Island home.

When Mexico’s president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, was elected with a wide majority in 2018 he promised to take a different approach to the war on drugs, including demilitarizing the anti-drug mission, and legalizing some drugs, like marijuana. He also said he would offer scholarships and increase educational opportunities to youth to keep them out of organized crime. While he has done some of these things to some degree, organized crime and corruption have increased in Mexico since his election. And, despite that, he remains quite popular with a roughly 60% approval rating with two years left in his one six-year term.

Legendary hall of fame outfielder Roberto Clemente joined the Major Leagues in 1955. That was eight years after Jackie Robinson became the first Black player in the history of the league, and nine years before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 became law. For the first thirteen years of his career the Pirates spring trained at Terry Park in Fort Myers — this was during the time of Jim Crow. He died on December 31, 1972, in a plane crash while departing Puerto Rico to deliver help to earthquake devastated Nicaragua. We discuss his life and legacy, which continues to this day.

This has turned out to be a record year for the number of dolphin calves born in and around Sarasota Bay. Researchers with the Chicago Zoological Society’s Sarasota Dolphin Research Program (SDRP) have documented 22 dolphin births so far this year, exceeding the record of 21 set in 2017. We learn about the program, and what’s made 2021 a record breaking year for new dolphin births.

For 17 years as an Extension agent with the Florida Sea Grant program at University of Florida, Betty Staugler has been based at the UF/IFAS Extension’s Charlotte County office, helping coastal residents and people whose livelihoods depend on the marine ecosystem deal with issues including harmful algal blooms in southwest Florida.She's taking on a new role now as NOAA’s Harmful Algal Bloom Liaison, where her work will include developing new data-driven communication tools about harmful algal blooms to better serve decision-makers in addressing this growing concern.

A human rights group finds itself with an interesting problem — an overwhelming number of videos to catalog as it builds legal cases. Computer scientists are creating tools to analyze the videos.

Coral reefs continue to face serious threats all over the world, and are dying at alarming rates because of things like coral bleaching, various diseases, and environmental stressors like warming water temperatures and increased acidification. In response, there are many efforts around the world to find ways to restore corals, and we’re going to learn about two ongoing research programs doing just that.

We’re marking Holocaust Awareness Week by meeting a Naples woman who has spent more than four decades as an advocate for awareness and education. Both of Felicia Anchor’s parents were holocaust survivors, and she was born shortly after the war, one of 2,000 babies born from the end of the war until the displaced persons camp her parents were living in closed. She and her husband Kenneth are chairing the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s 2021 ‘What You Do Matters’ Southeast Virtual Event on February 11, which seeks to inspire people to remember the lessons of the Holocaust and to help combat modern-day antisemitism and hatred.