By Dr. Janis Petzel

It’s been a cold winter, but that’s a good way to slow down parasites like the hemlock woolly adelgid or the invasive green crab. It’s a shame that the cold has not stopped ICE agents from doing their dirty work in Minneapolis and now in Maine. Maine has a low number of immigrants compared to most states; per the Maine Center for Economic Policy, there are “just under 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, 5,000 of whom live in Maine.”

By Eva Murray

Peak’s Island, in Casco Bay, takes some ribbing for “not being a real island.” I am on a lot of committees made up of people from a lot of islands, and I’ve heard Peak’s get that teasing more than once: they get called a suburb, a mere neighborhood of Portland. But if you’re sick, and you’re huddled up in the Portland Fireboat in a storm in the middle of the night at the Peak’s Island dock, you’ll definitely feel like you live on an island.

We’ve received hundreds of letters this winter from our fellow Islanders, asking what on earth to do with all the wood ash that piles up in sullen grey mountains behind our houses each winter. After several earnest and time-consuming wood ash experiments, we’ve come up with the game changer for all wood ash!

By Sandy Oliver

Seed Orders: Ok, it’s a cliché: you’ve got your mug of hot chocolate with or without marshmallows, and you’ve collected up all your seed catalogs – or you’ve opened the seed company websites online. You’re ready to put your order in. Or maybe you were really smart and did so in November because it seems with lots more people gardening these days, some seed varieties sell out very quickly.

IIT’s new homebase is well underway! If you have not yet had the opportunity to drive by our Blueberry Hill Preserve and see the progress being made in constructing our new classroom and office space, I urge you to stop by.

By Dylan Purington

Well, it’s finally happened, the bottom fell out of the Labubu Market. You know what that means? It’s a great time to buy! Once the dip is over, I will be holding most of the Labubu on the Mid Coast, including all of the Pink Microwaves in the state, though I still can’t find an Energy Secret. Once I do, I will be able to buy that Dark Harbor cottage I have had my eye on, or more realistically, an empty lot up island to fill with my also-soon-to-be-highly-valuable boats. In the meantime, I am waiting for it to be above 20 degrees so that I can go to the mailbox and see who I am letting down by not sending them a Christmas card this year. I also thought I might share with you a story.

By Catherine Demchur-Merry

Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) video surveillance technology, developed in Germany in 1942, was first used in the United States during atomic bomb testing. It works by broadcasting to a limited number of monitors and stores recordings for twenty-four hours to ninety days before recording over them. Banks and casinos keep the recordings longer. Recordings can be stored locally using a DVD or SD card or in the cloud if using Ring, Nest, or another app. Local storage provides the most privacy and security since only authorized users have access, except in some cases when law enforcement is involved.

By Amy Mulnix, PhD

Stress is everywhere—social, psychological, physical, environmental, biological. If it feels like it’s getting worse, you’re right. Global rates of anxiety, depression, and stress-linked chronic illnesses like heart disease and hypertension are surging to unprecedented levels.