Andrew Kennedy, Gabrielle Chua ’18, and ŔÖ˛Ľ´ŤĂ˝ students

Molecule created by ŔÖ˛Ľ´ŤĂ˝ students could lead to more effective treatment for cancer and Alzheimer’s patients — Multiple outlets

A variety of news organizations reported the invention at ŔÖ˛Ľ´ŤĂ˝ of Bobcat339, a molecule created by students that could have implications for research and treatment of cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.

Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Andrew Kennedy and seven students co-authored a paper describing the molecule, which inhibits the ability of a certain enzyme to regulate genes. This class of so-called TET inhibitors could one day limit the aggressiveness of cancers.

With their professor, Andrew Kennedy (right), three of the seven student coauthors of the scholarly article describing Bobcat339 posed last May in a Dana Chemistry lab: from left, Michael Bennett, Haoyu Sun, and Nathanael Kuzio, all ’19. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/ŔÖ˛Ľ´ŤĂ˝ College)

Gabrielle Chua ’18 was the student who ultimately structured the molecule.

“It’s big for the field of epigenetics, it’s big for cancer research, and it’s big for the field of memory,” Kennedy told local NBC affiliate WCSH-TV, whose segment on the molecule was shared on Facebook by “NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt.”

Read the stories: 

• “,” WCSH-TV, Oct. 25, 2019 
• “,” Maine Public, Oct. 30, 2019

Holly Ewing

ŔÖ˛Ľ´ŤĂ˝ snags federal cash to help study Lake Auburn — Sun Journal

Steve Collins of the Sun Journal reported that the college will receive $842,000 of a $6 million National Science Foundation grant to figure out how to track and predict cyanobacterial blooms in lakes.

Holly Ewing, professor of environmental studies and the Christian A. Johnson Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies, is key to the investigation, which is led by Alberto Quattrini Li of Dartmouth College.

Often important sources of drinking water, U.S. lakes are experiencing increases in cyanobacterial blooms, says Holly Ewing. The NSF project will allow better water-quality monitoring than ever before.

The multi-institution, multidisciplinary team will use boats and aerial drones to collect a wide variety of data on several lakes, including Lake Auburn. The project requires understanding communities’ relationships with their lakes, Ewing said.

“Understanding people’s values with respect to how we pay attention to lakes, how we interact with lakes — there’s definitely a cultural and place-based component to that,” she said. “And all of this is intimately related to the science.”

Read the story: 

• “,” Sun Journal, Oct. 25, 2019

Ryan Smith

Auburn’s Ryan Smith wins marathon, qualifies for U.S. Olympic Trials — Sun Journal

ŔÖ˛Ľ´ŤĂ˝ staff member Ryan Smith talked to the Lewiston Sun Journal’s Adam Robinson about his victory in the Hartford Marathon in October, which qualifies him for the U.S. Olympic Team marathon trials.

Smith, manager of purchasing, accounting, and licensing for ŔÖ˛Ľ´ŤĂ˝ Information and Library Services, ran the marathon in 2 hours and 18 minutes.

He’s now headed to Atlanta for the Feb. 29 trials, where he hopes to break the top 50 (the top three in each gender make the Olympic team).

“I’m certainly excited to see the full-time professionals, as always,” Smith said. “In terms of nerves, I think the pressure of trying to qualify is much more nerve-wracking than actually competing there. I’m just going to try and beat as many people as possible.

“That sounds more fun than nerve-wracking, especially because it’s a hilly course and I’m really good on hills.”

Read the story: 

• “,” Sun Journal, Oct. 18, 2019

Nolwazi Nosisa Ngwenyama ’16

UCT’s 2020 Mandela Rhodes scholars — University of Cape Town News

The University of Cape Town announced that Nolwazi Nosisa Ngwenyama ’16, a ŔÖ˛Ľ´ŤĂ˝ graduate and graduate student in gender studies, has won a prestigious Mandela-Rhodes scholarship.

Nolwazi Ngwenyama ’16 listens to a speaker at the Office of Intercultural Education at ŔÖ˛Ľ´ŤĂ˝ in 2014. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/ŔÖ˛Ľ´ŤĂ˝ College)

The scholarships are awarded to African citizens with “exceptional leadership capacity” and provide funding for postgraduate study in South Africa.

Ngwenyama triple-majored in politics, anthropology, and women and gender studies at ŔÖ˛Ľ´ŤĂ˝. A native of Eswatini, she volunteers with the United World Colleges Eswatini National Committee.

Read the story: 

• “,” University of Cape Town News, Nov. 7, 2019

Rebecca Herzig

For Millennial women, body hair presents a complicated choice — HuffPost

In the HuffPost, Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies Rebecca Herzig helped guest writer Sofia Barrett-Ibarria round out her argument that while choosing not to remove body hair might be a “feminist” choice, body hair is more complicated than a “to shave or not to shave” binary.

In 2014, Rebecca Herzig heads to the lectern to deliver a talk. (Sarah Crosby/ŔÖ˛Ľ´ŤĂ˝ College)

Herzig is the author of Plucked: A History of Hair Removal. In the HuffPost, she pointed out that while there is some mainstream acceptance of body hair on women, the stigma around body hair can have real, negative consequences, especially for women who are not “able-bodied, white, young, thin and toned, expensively dressed, etc. — in every other way,” she told Barrett-Ibarria.

Read the story: 

• “,” HuffPost, Nov. 5, 2019 

Peter Weyand ’83

Inside the six-figure project to solve the mystery of NBA flopping — The Guardian

It’s a phenomenon that baffles and frustrates basketball fans: flopping. And from a science perspective, Peter Weyand ’83, a professor of applied physiology and biomechanics at Southern Methodist University, knows more about it than almost anyone, writes The Guardian’s Patrick Hruby.

Funded by Houston Rockets owner Mark Cuban, Weyand and his team set out in 2014 to measure how much force it takes to knock someone over and what it looks like when a basketball player is genuinely set off balance, vs. embellishing a light hit or straight-up faking a foul — that is, flopping. They ran tests using first a dummy, then real people wearing heavy padding.

Turns out, it doesn’t take much force to knock someone over. “In many cases, if the defender just doesn’t move their feet, then down they go,” Weyand said. “I’ve been through thousands of charge-block collisions, and never realized how easy it was.”

A rather obvious indication of a flop, the SMU team found, is when players stick their arms straight up as they go down — that doesn’t happen naturally.

Read the story: 

• “,” The Guardian, Oct. 30, 2019

Renee Leduc ’98

Will 5G Affect Weather Forecasts? — BBC Click

The program quotes Renee Leduc ’98 on how a recent Federal Communications Commission action could harm meteorologists’ ability to forecast the weather, including dangerous hurricanes.

The issue has to do with an FCC decision to auction off specific wireless radio frequencies to commercial wireless providers for next-generation 5G networks.

The scientific community, including Leduc, opposes the move. They say that giving these frequencies to 5G networks will interfere with unique measurements from weather satellites that are very important to weather forecasting models, the two most well-known being the American model (GFS) and the European model (the ECMWF). The FCC says the interference is not a threat.

Renee Leduc is quoted in this BBC Click story about how turning over specific radio frequencies to wireless providers could harm weather forecasting.

Founder and principal of the consulting firm Narayan Strategy, Leduc is a member of the American Meteorological Society’s Board on Enterprise Economic Development and its International Affairs and Radio Frequency Allocation committees.

She told The Washington Post that it’s “crucial” that the question of interference is “decided in a way that is informed by atmospheric science since the measurements are so crucial to sound weather predictions.”

The issue is front and center at the World Radiocommunications Conference, which ends Nov. 22 and where “for the past month they have been working to coordinate the deployment of 5G technologies across the world,” Leduc tells ŔÖ˛Ľ´ŤĂ˝News.

Read the stories:

• “,” The Washington Post, March 8, 2019
• “” Nature, Nov. 22, 2019

Carrie Jones ’93

The unstoppable Carrie Jones; New thriller ‘In the Woods’ released — Mount Desert Islander

Down East arts journalist Nan Lincoln spoke with author Carrie Jones ’93 about her new young-adult thriller, In the Woods.

The novel, co-written with Steven E. Wedel, follows a teenage girl as she investigates possibly paranormal events. The two writers’ conversation, however, ventured into Jones’ other projects, from the children’s book festival she helped organize to her prolific books and blogs.

“I have to write — all the time,” Jones said. “If I don’t get my ideas onto the page they pile up. But I love seeing where my characters will take me. It’s always a new adventure.”

Read the story: 

• “,” Mount Desert Islander, Oct. 27, 2019 

Matt Moretti ’06

Pioneering mussel farmer buys rival, plans expansion — Portland Press Herald

The Portland Press Herald reported that Bangs Island Mussels, a Portland, Maine-based producer of rope-grown mussels, bought local competitor Calendar Island Mussel Co.

Bangs Island Mussels is owned by Matt Moretti ’06.

In 2016, Matt Moretti ’06 feeds mussels into a machine that works to break apart tissue connecting many of the clusters. (Josh Kuckens/ŔÖ˛Ľ´ŤĂ˝ College)

The company produces mussels by growing them on ropes suspended from rafts, selling the product to Portland restaurants as well as wholesalers. The key to sustainable mussel farming, Moretti told PPH reporter Peter McGuire, is scale, and with the new acquisition Bangs Island Mussels can double its production and workforce.

“The economics of it are such that the faster you can add on volume to your production, the sooner your costs drop and profits go up,” he said.

Read the story: 

• “,” Portland Press Herald, Nov. 18, 2019  

Elizabeth Strout ’77

Oprah reveals Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout as new book club pick — CBS This Morning

With bestselling author Elizabeth Strout ’77 sitting next to her, Oprah Winfrey announced on CBS This Morning that Strout’s new novel, Olive, Again, is her new book club selection.

Olive, Again is the sequel to Strout’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel Olive Kitteridge.

Winfrey said she admires Strout’s ability to take “the simplest of things and turn them into something that feels real to us.”

Oprah Winfrey talks with Elizabeth Strout ’77 on CBS This Morning.

Melissa Wong ’01

Women Of The C-Suite: “Fear is a liar; fear will tell you the craziest things” with Melissa Wong, CEO of Retail Zipline — Authority Magazine

Carly Martinetti of Authority Magazine, a publication on the platform Medium, interviewed Melissa Wong ’01, co-founder of Retail Zipline.

Building a company, Wong said, requires fearlessness — even when you think you should be afraid.

“Fear is a liar,” she said. “Fear will tell you the craziest things. When I first started, I legitimately feared our company would fail. … When you’re in the moment, don’t let feelings of fear lead your actions or choices.”

Working in communications for Old Navy showed Wong how hard it is for large retail brands to get their own stores to implement ideas. So she and a co-founder started Retail Zipline, which streamlines that kind of communication.

Read the story: 

• “,” Authority Magazine, Nov. 3, 2019 

Maine native Matt Moretti ’06 has always loved the ocean.

“From the beginning, I’ve been interested in the sea and the way organisms function, in a biological sense,” he says. “And while I had that interest, it was always a nondescript, undefined kind of love for natural processes. It wasn’t fully formed.”

At ŔÖ˛Ľ´ŤĂ˝, Moretti’s passion began to take shape as he majored in biology and took marine biology courses, amassing knowledge that would eventually support a stint at the New England Aquarium, a Northeastern master’s program in marine biology, and global sojourns to far-flung ecosystems like Mo’orea in the South Pacific, where an encounter with French Polynesian shrimp farmers turned on a lightbulb.

Moretti’s mussels operation on Custom House Wharf in Portland includes, at right, his working boat, La Cozze, and his houseboat, at left.

“I realized the traditional ocean research track wasn’t what I wanted to do [with my life],” he says, so after his time in Mo’orea and Catalina, as part of his master’s work, “aquaculture presented itself as a tangible something I could do, not just be interested in.”

Moretti returned to his home state, eager for experience and work. He found it on an oyster farm, where he cultivated his love for aquaculture.

And then he learned that a Casco Bay mussel farm was for sale.

Son and Pop Shop

In 2010, Moretti and his dad, Gary, bought Bangs Island Mussels.

For some, mixing business and family would be an instant recipe for disaster, but Moretti appreciates his business arrangement.

Moretti and his father, Gary Moretti, pose for a portrait at the Bangs Island Mussels processing facility on the Portland waterfront.

“Dad’s given me a lot of freedom to do things in the business that I wouldn’t have had in a more traditional relationship with a business partner. He puts a lot of faith in my ability to help make things happen.”

He pauses.

“We have a lot of trust in one another, I suppose. He always has my back, and I always have his.”

Early Bird

On harvest days, which occur two or three times a week throughout the year, Moretti and his team begin at six o’clock; for five months of the year, that’s before the sun has risen.

They meet at a marina warehouse, the home of Bangs Island Mussels land operations, located on a wharf off Commercial Street in downtown Portland.

The supplies for the day are lowered into an idling boat, La Cozze, Italian for “The Mussel,” by a small crane over the cargo hold. Crates packed with ice, empty “totes” (large plastic bins), and a silvery stainless-steel sorting table are arranged on the deck.

Then, the boat shoves off, carefully minding Loretta, the harbor mascot, a partially-blind seal who makes her home in the calm waters of the marina, before setting course due east.

It will take slightly less than an hour to reach the first raft.

Moretti ’06 steers La Cozze out of Portland Harbor toward Clapboard Island in Casco Bay, the site of the day’s mussel harvest.

Grit-Free Grub

You can cultivate mussels any number of ways. Moretti uses the Spanish style, in which thick, coarse ropes, each seeded with mussels, hang suspended from rafts that float in the cool waters of the Casco Bay.

It takes the mussels about 18 months to mature. All the while, the filter-feeding shellfish feed on the nutrients within their ecosystem, giving Bangs Island Mussels a distinctive flavor profile, says Moretti.

Bangs Island Mussels grow on ropes that hang from rafts, and each rope is about 35 feet long.

“It’s not dissimilar to wine, where the same type of grape will taste different depending on where it’s grown, the specific region of earth, and its surrounding climate.”

Unlike some of their bivalve brethren, the mussels don’t come into contact with the sandy bay bottom, so they are grit-free, creating a more enjoyable experience for the eventual diner.

Plus, because the rafts are protected with nets, the mussels aren’t in danger of being eaten by crabs or starfish. With the lack of predation, the mussel’s shell remains thinner, allowing the meat to grow thick, sweet, and plump.

Moretti has 10 rafts on his aquatic farm, along with a processing barge, “and we can have 400 lines on one raft alone,” he says.

Phase 1

Once the team reaches the farm, the work continues. First, they use their boat to pull the barge — which houses all of the processing equipment — into position next to one of the rafts.

After reaching the harvest site off Clapboard Island in Casco Bay, the crew prepares the barge for harvesting.

Next, the team begins to pull lines, attaching the mussel ropes to a medieval-looking pulley system on the barge that drags the lines through a tiny hole, releasing the mussels from the rope like beads from a broken necklace.

As the mollusks spill onto the deck, they’re moved into a large pile with colorful plastic shovels, the Crayola red and yellow standing in sharp contrast to the mud-soaked planks of the barge. Moretti and his workers spray the mussels, both to wash off mud that collects despite their perch above the ocean floor and to keep them cool and fresh.

A pulley and winch pulls a mussel-encrusted rope onto the barge for processing.

The mussels are then spun through the stainless-steel declumper and grading wheel, which help weed out the smaller mussels from the market-grade fare.

The hum of the hydraulic motors running the declumper forbids any conversation below a hearty yell. Instead, the team works with a quiet cadence, using hand signals when necessary.

Once the mussels are carefully hand-sorted, they are placed on ice and loaded onto the boat.

On the barge, Moretti (left) feeds the clumped mussels into a machine that breaks their byssal threads and does an initial sorting. Crew member Adam Shapiro (right) collects the separated mussels.

Duck Tales

“Aquaculture on the ocean, like we do it, basically takes two jobs with very unpredictable elements — farming and fishing — and puts them together,” says Moretti.

“We’re in the open ocean, vulnerable to a lot of elements at play that we don’t have control over. We try and mitigate those risks as much as possible.”

After they’re declumped, cleaned, and sorted by machine, the mussels are hand-sorted by crew members Kirstina Littig and Daniel Dunham.

While heavy winds and torrential storms can spell trouble for raft-style mussel farms, it’s a certain duck-billed deviant that poses the biggest (and perhaps most annoying) threat.

“Eider ducks are the bane of my existence,” says Moretti, chuckling softly. “They’re incredible mussel eaters. They can eat their body weight in mussels in a single day.”

Moretti and his crew spend a large amount of time and energy attempting to passively deter the ducks from eating their mussels by deploying protective netting that hangs below the waterline around the rafts.

Good fences make good neighbors…and tasty mussels grown to term.

Sorting It Out

The harvest is delivered back to the warehouse by 3 p.m., where the second shift waits to begin their day’s work.

Back at the Bangs Island processing facility on the Portland waterfront, workers process and prepare the harvest for delivery to eateries near and far.

Under the watchful eye of Gary, who manages this second phase of the harvest, the Bangs Island team members continue the “wash, rinse, repeat” mantra executed on the barge.

The mussels are fed through a variety of sorting and debearding machines, and are subject to more inspection and hand-grading before they’re packed on ice, ready for the distributors.

On average, the team can process 2,500 pounds of product in a single day.

Building a Responsible Business

From an environmental perspective, mussel farming is a very low impact way of producing food compared to other farming systems. And Moretti’s proud of that fact.

“We wouldn’t get into a business that had a negative effect on the environment,” says Moretti.

“Our ocean farming practices go back to our core company goals: to provide the finest quality seafood in a completely safe and sustainable manner,” says Moretti.

As active filter feeders, mussels improve local water quality by “removing phytoplankton, which in excess can reduce water quality,” explains Professor of Biology Will Ambrose.

Mussels also remove carbon from the water but whether that helps make seawater less acidic — a claim made by some aquaculture supporters — isn’t proven, Ambrose says, noting that “the carbonate system that controls seawater pH is very complicated.”

Moretti and his father believe strongly in employing environmentally safe farming methods. “We don’t add anything artificial or foreign to the system to help grow the mussels,” says Moretti.

“Our ocean farming practices go back to our core company goals: to provide the finest quality seafood in a completely safe and sustainable manner.”

Spreading the Love

Today, Bangs Island Mussels are distributed nationally, from Atlanta restaurants to Denver eateries and everywhere in between.

Close to home, one of Moretti’s local buyers is self-taught culinary wizard Andrew Taylor ’03, an award-winning chef and co-owner of three Portland restaurants, Eventide Oyster Co., Hugo’s, and The Honey Paw.

Bangs Island mussels are featured in the New England Clam Bake at Eventide.

At The Honey Paw, Taylor uses Bangs Island mussels in dishes like a Vietnamese masa crepe (fried mussels, shrimp and tomatillo sambal, and maple dipping sauce) and at Eventide in a “New England Clam Bake”: mussels, clams, lobster tail, potatoes, salt pork, and a hard-boiled egg nestled into a bed of rock seaweed.

“Having Matt harvesting mussels less than a mile away and bringing them straight to our restaurant the day they’re out of the water — from a quality perspective, you can’t get better mussels than that,” says Taylor, whose ŔÖ˛Ľ´ŤĂ˝ food network also includes Eric Peters ‘86, proprietor of Norumbega Oyster Co. in Damariscotta.

“Then you add the additional benefits of supporting local agriculture, local businesses, keeping it all in everybody’s pockets in Maine. We feel really great about that, too.”

Moretti poses with one of his clients: Andrew Taylor ’03, chef and co-owner of three Portland restaurants, including Eventide Oyster Co.

Eventide has “always supported us with our mussels,” says Moretti, who counts that support to include his new venture into sugar kelp. “They enjoy taking a chance on some local, high-quality seafood, and they’ve been fantastic partners.”

Despite his national reach, Moretti feels a certain level of responsibility and privilege contributing directly to the Portland public.

“We employ people who live here,” says Moretti. “We buy as much as we can locally and enjoy sharing our mussels with the Portland community. I absolutely love that.”