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This episode originally aired on April 27, 2021.On February 15, 1991 two Air Force fighter pilots — Capt. Stephen R. Phillis and 1st Lt. Rob Sweet — flew together for the 30th time on a mission during Operation Desert Storm. During that mission, Lt. Sweet’s aircraft was hit by enemy fire and he was forced to eject. As he descended in his parachute toward thousands of members of Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard forces, his wingman, Capt. Phillis remained flying overhead in order to draw their fire and give Sweet a better chance at surviving. After nearly four minutes of circling his A-10 was also hit and then crashed. Our guest today is on a mission to have the Medal of Honor awarded posthumously Capt. Phillis for his actions on that day.

A new column in the Naples Daily News and the News-Press called "The Racial Reality" hopes to stir the hearts and minds of readers and move them to act boldly in the service of racial justice in Southwest Florida and beyond. The columnist is Florida Gulf Coast University associate professor of sociology, and Director of FGCU’s Center for Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, Dr. Ted Thornhill. He's been a professor at FGCU since 2015, where he’s taught classes on Sociology, Social Stratification, The African American Experience, White Racism, and Racism and Law Enforcement.

We meet the new Senior Scientist in Mote's Research Division, Dr. Demian Chapman, who will also serve as the Manager for the Sharks & Rays Conservation Research Program, and hold the title of Perry W. Gilbert Chair in Shark Research. Dr. Chapman was recently an Associate Professor at Florida International University in the Department of Biological Science, and was the lead scientist for the international initiative, Global FinPrint, which is the world’s largest-ever shark survey.

We talk with a professor at Florida Gulf Coast University who is working with a team of researchers at the University of Geneva in Switzerland to try and help the World Health Organization decrease the number of deaths and disabilities caused by venomous snakebites by half by 2030. Their team has developed a web-based app called Snake ID that uses visual pattern recognition algorithms to help doctors and patients identify venomous snakes. The technology can also be used to help healthcare systems determine what kinds of antivenom treatments to have on hand in particular geographic areas.

The latest reading scores for students in Florida show that 47% of Florida’s 3rd graders are not reading on grade level. And data shows that if a student is struggling in third grade they are very likely to struggle in middle school and beyond. Eighty-percent of high school dropouts were struggling readers in 3rd grade.In the new book "America's Embarrassing Reading Crisis: What We Learned From COVID" Dr. Lisa Richardson Hassler explores reading proficiencies among third-graders, both pre and post-pandemic, and compares established virtual learning methods like those used by Florida’s Virtual School with traditional brick-and-mortar schools.

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.

As the country continues to react to the disclosure by Politico of the draft of a Supreme Court opinion that would overturn the right to abortion established in Roe v. Wade, reportedly circulated by Justice Samuel Alito, we are revisiting a conversation we had last October on the history of the legality, and criminality, of abortion in the United States going all the way back to its founding.We also get a snapshot of the work being done by Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida.

As our loved ones get older it becomes increasingly important to have what can often be difficult conversations about their hopes and intentions around end-of-life issues. May is Older Americans Month, so today we’re going to have a conversation about ways to have those conversations. We learn about a program called Elderoscopy which is essentially a guide with tips for conversations between older adults and their loved ones that examines their wants and needs, and getting a handle on their hopes and intentions for things like end-of-life plans, finances, relationships driving, and more.

As the coronavirus outbreak continues researchers and doctors continue working to find new ways to treat Covid-19. Since the end of April Lee Health has been testing the use of convalescent plasma. It’s taken from the blood of people who have recovered from Covid-19 and then infused into people who are sick to hopefully reduce the severity of the disease.

Marine researchers of all kinds began studying the ecological impact caused by the Piney Point pollution release, including those with the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program, which was asked by the National Oceanographic & Atmospheric Administration to expand its monitoring efforts to include the dolphin population near Piney Point. While that research work is still in its infancy, we're checking in with Dr. Randy Wells, director of the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program, which is the world's longest-running study of a dolphin population.