The Scope Podcast The Scope: Boston

Jazz has long been a male dominated genre, embracing female vocalists but rarely female bassists, drummers, and other musicians. In Sudbury, an all-female ensemble, Women in World Jazz, is playing a different tune — one of progress and inclusion.  



This episode was produced by Mirjana Hutnik and edited by Rebeca Pereira. 



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Contact The Scope editorial team by sending an email to Elisabeth Hadjis at thescopenu@gmail.com.

Even northerners know how to get down like the folks in Louisiana! On the Saturday before Mardi Gras, Cambridge, Massachusetts’ Regattabar hosted a jazz-centered jubilee in the spirit of the land of jambalaya. 

Elana Lane transports us there, introducing us to Josiah Reibstein’s band and Robbie Pate’s vocals.

This episode was produced by Elana Lane and edited by Rebeca Pereira. 

Want to keep up with the latest community news in Boston? Follow us online and on social media for more. 

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Contact The Scope editorial team by sending an email to Elisabeth Hadjis at thescopenu@gmail.com.

Disability rights activists are engaging in a renewed effort to ban an aversive therapy — electric shock therapy — that, despite being condemned as torture by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, is still practiced at the Judge Rotenberg Center in Canton, Massachusetts. The center is a day and residential school for students with intellectual disabilities. 

Contributing writer Darin Zullo joins us on The Scope Podcast to discuss his article “Self-advocates lead movement against Judge Rotenberg Center’s controversial skin shocks.”

Zullo won a Best of SNO award for his article, which you can read at thescopeboston.org. 

This episode was produced, hosted, and edited by Rebeca Pereira with reporting by Darin Zullo. 

Music from Mattc90, striptheband, and smethng through freesound.org.

Want to keep up with the latest community news in Boston? Follow us online and on social media for more. 

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Contact The Scope editorial team by sending an email to Elisabeth Hadjis at thescopenu@gmail.com.

Boston’s public parks are like open-air studios for the city’s artists and street performers. At the Boston Commons, Nick Shea attracts crowds with his one-dollar portraits and simple tools: a stack of index cards and a Sharpie marker. 

One Sunday afternoon in February, Mirjana Hutnik sat beside Shea to watch the artist at work and survey his customers. 

This episode was produced by Mirjana Hutnik and edited by Rebeca Pereira. 

Want to keep up with the latest community news in Boston? Follow us online and on social media for more.

Website: ⁠⁠thescopeboston.org⁠⁠ 

Instagram: @thescopeboston

X (Twitter): @thescopeboston

Threads: @thescopeboston

Contact The Scope editorial team by sending an email to Elisabeth Hadjis at thescopenu@gmail.com.

Near Dover, MA, reeds grow out of sandbars along the Charles River where sediment has built up over time. Wetland vegetation offers a diverse habitat for microorganisms to thrive and pathways for nutrients like nitrogen, which in excess quantities can pollute the water, to exit the river. 

Yet in the Charles’s lower basin, an area that extends from the Watertown Dam to Boston Harbor, that natural process is completely absent. Here, large rocks, granite retaining walls, and the Esplanade’s manicured lawns contain the river, limiting habitat diversity for microorganisms and contributing to nutrient pollution.

Engineer Max Rome estimates that, in the steady climb toward total ecological restoration, the Charles is “90% of the way there,” but there is still more to be done. 

Rome, a stormwater program manager at the Charles River Watershed Association, investigated ways of reintroducing vegetation to the river and came across “one simple way to take a granite wall and turn it into something that’s very alive”: Rafts carrying wetland plants rooted entirely in the water column. 

“All of the nutrients that they need to grow, they're pulling right out of the water. So, the same things that are pollution to the Charles River — excess nitrogen, excess phosphorus — those things are actually sustaining the growth of these wetland plants,” Rome said in an interview with The Scope. “The roots that are going down to the water are creating a kind of complex habitat as a substrate for microorganisms and tiny animals to survive in ways that would be difficult for them to survive elsewhere in the river.”These symbiotic platforms are called "floating wetlands." Rome sat down with The Scope’s audio editor Rebeca Pereira to talk about them and the future of the Charles River.

This episode was produced and edited by Rebeca Pereira.

Music from Alec Cowan, Tim Kahn, MattJ99, Logic Moon, and EminYILDIRIM through freesound.org.

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It’s the beginning of a brand new Lunar New Year. Clara McCourt takes us inside how the holiday means more to one Boston business, Mei Mei Dumplings in South Boston, than meets the eye.

Join Clara as she steps inside Mei Mei, joining Jessica Coughlin, Caitlin Yam, Cal Callahan, and owner Irene Li as they explore the dumpling making process and celebrate Mei Mei’s second Lunar New Year. 

This episode was produced by Clara McCourt and edited by Rebeca Pereira. 

Want to keep up with the latest community news in Boston? Follow us online and on social media for more.

Website: ⁠⁠thescopeboston.org⁠⁠ 

Instagram: @thescopeboston

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Contact The Scope editorial team by sending an email to Elisabeth Hadjis at thescopenu@gmail.com.