UMaine graduate students Grayson Hutson and Julia Sunnarborg collecting an eDNA sample through the ice at Walker Pond. Grayson and Julia and colleagues at the University of Maine and University of Southern Maine are using eDNA to study migration patterns of alewives as they move between saltwater and freshwater to understant their affects on lake and estuary ecosystems, especially in cases where dams are being removed to increase fish passage. They are even mining the lake sediments for ancient eDNA to understand what fish populations might have looked like in the past.

Working Waterfront

Sifting DNA from ocean holds promise

Researchers are finding many more species of fish associated with kelp forests using eDNA than are observed visually. This raises questions about whether these species are transient or using kelp as an important habitat. SEE MORE

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Pathways to possibility

In the past ten years, we’ve invested over $1.2 million in education and career development. More than half of these funds have gone to our Mentoring, Access, and Persistence (MAP) scholarship. SEE MORE

The Jacob Pike underway. PHOTO: PENOBSCOT MARINE MUSEUM

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The Jacob Pike, a victim of January’s storms

In 2022, The Penobscot Marine Museum acquired a collection of several thousand Jim Moore’s maritime-related negatives SEE MORE

Vinalhaven's downtown as seen from the water. FILE PHOTO: TOM GROENING

Working Waterfront

When high standards can stand in the way

Recently, I wrote an incorrect answer to a question in front of a group of students. We were learning how to work with variable lists in Javascript and how the rules we established for variables still applied... SEE MORE

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COA names new president

The College of the Atlantic board of trustees has announced its unanimous selection of Dr. Sylvia Torti as the college's seventh president. Torti, an accomplished writer, ecologist, and innovative academic leader with 15 years of experience in higher education, will succeed president Darron Collins upon his retirement at the end… SEE MORE

Monhegan School. FILE PHOTO: TOM GROENING

Working Waterfront

The wonder and work of island schools

Teaching a handful of students, each in a different grade, in a quaint one- or two-room school overlooking the harbor on a remote Maine island accessible by ferry that runs intermittently in the winter might sound like complete nuttiness to one person, an interesting puzzle to figure out to another,… SEE MORE

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Funding is ending for affordable internet program

Brenda Hunt lives in a shipping container on her five acres of land in Blue Hill. But her rugged dwelling is equipped with fiber optic cables, which are expected to be able to deliver highest-speed internet for many years. The internet has reached more people in the U.S. now than… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

The new shape of water

How does water shape communities? I think about this as I load onto the Sunbeam on my way to Frenchboro, an island community off the coast of Mount Desert Island. It is a beautiful blue-sky morning, deceivingly sunny for my weather app to be reading 20 degrees. Working and living… SEE MORE

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Herring Gut Science Center names new director

Sarah D. Oktay, PhD has joined the Herring Gut Coastal Science Center as executive director. SEE MORE

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Islesboro’s Olivia Britton serving on UMaine board

“The decisions that happen at the board level, even though they are sometimes complicated and a little bit confusing, affect our everyday lives,” Britton said SEE MORE