Outside/In (NHPR)

In the midst of a battle with cancer, Kathy Kral found herself facing another diagnosis: major depression.

So, Kathy signed up for a clinical study to see if psilocybin – the psychedelic compound found in “magic mushrooms” – could help her confront her fears about cancer and death, as well as her deepest inner demons.

Featuring Kathleen Kral, Manish Agrawal, and Norma Stevens.

SUPPORT

Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. 

Talk to us! Follow Outside/In on Instagram or Twitter, or discuss the show in our private listener group on Facebook. 

Submit a question to our Outside/Inbox. We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).

LINKS

Can Psychedelic Therapy Offer a Sense of Peace for the Dying?

The Sunstone Psilocybin Playlist patients listen to during their psychedelic trips

Citations

• In the psilocybin study Kathy Kral participated in, 80% of participants experienced a significant reduction in depression, and half were no longer depressed at all. These results were persistent even a year and a half after their psilocybin sessions.
• Psychedelics cause hallucinations because they compromise the part of the brain that processes what you see, and promote communication between different parts of your brain that usually don’t talk to each other.
• Risks associated with psilocybin range from nausea and increased heart rate, to Hallucination Persisting Perception Disorder where people continue having hallucinations for months or years after the trip has ended. But magic mushrooms had the lowest rates of associated emergency room visits out of any drug surveyed by the Global Drug Survey in 2019, 2020, and 2021. And researchers have found that psychedelics are not addictive in lab animals, and the lethal dose of psilocybin is so high that overdoses are impractical and rare. 

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi
Reported, produced, and mixed by Felix Poon
Edited by Taylor Quimby with help from Rebecca Lavoie, Nate Hegyi, Justine Paradis, and Jeongyoon Han.
Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer
Special thanks to Evan Craig, Heather Honstein, Kathryn Tucker, and Erinn Baldeshwiler.
Music for this episode by Blue Dot Sessions, Pawan Krishna, the Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra, and Paul De Bra.
Theme music by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.

In the late sixties, a soap factory in suburban Illinois discovered one of its outflow pipes had been intentionally clogged by an industrial saboteur. Does environmental damage ever demand radical action? And when does environmental protest cross the line and become eco-terrorism?

This canine can be found all the way from Panama to Alaska, and shows no sign of going away anytime soon. But what are they? In this episode from Brave Little State, a podcast made next door in Vermont, we get some answers.

There’s a legend among energy nerds. According to this legend, California pot-growers — with their illicit capital and counter-cultural ideas — were instrumental in getting the solar industry off the ground, and without them, the industry as we know it would have withered on the vine.So we decided to find out: is it true?

You've left us lots of great questions on the Ask Sam hotline (1-844-GO-OTTER) so Sam and the team crammed into a studio to try and answer a few.  In this episode we'll tackle metamorphosis, animal sexuality, how to ride a bicycle when it's -18 degrees, and we'll introduce a new segment in which Sam is asked to ruin some of our favorite things.

In 2010 a researcher found a clutch of hybrid American-European lobster eggs in a Norwegian fjord. This kicked off a decade of research attempting to determine if Scandinavia was in the midst of a foreign lobster invasion. This question is hard to answer, especially when the fate of a business worth $150 million dollars a year hangs in the balance.

There have been a couple of important developments on the subject of Canadian hydropower since we released our 4-part series, Powerline. Today, we bring in NHPR's environmental reporter, Annie Ropeik, and our executive producer, Erika Janik, to talk about Northern Pass and the future of energy projects in New England. Plus, we look back at a handful of older episodes to see what has changed since we first put them out.  Beaver deceivers? Kiwi-berries? Crazy trail crew stories? Prepare to have your brain updated.

For thousands of years, natural spring waters have been associated with health. But recently something called the “raw water movement” has scientists and health officials reminding the public that drinking from untested springs can make you sick.  Today, we try to sort it all out: are springs a healing tonic, a source of unadulterated H20, or a passing fad and a dangerous throwback?

When you watch the Olympics, you think you’re watching the best in the world competing at the pinnacle of their fitness.

And while that is often true when it comes to America’s very best, when you start to get farther down the list, choosing which athletes deserve a ticket to the Olympics gets much more difficult… much more subjective.

And it’s often those margin calls, those athletes on the bubble, who have some of the most inspiring stories to tell. Today, the story of Jennie Bender.

The reality is, recycling doesn’t work because we believe in it. It works because it’s an industry.  You might be keeping that plastic bottle out of your trash bin, but the commodities market keeps it out of the landfill. That plastic bottle is cash in someone’s pocket. But what happens when the way we recycle no longer fits the rest of the equation? Where does our trash go when our partners aren’t buying?

Robert Person Sr. — Percy, as he’s known — has been shining shoes for 70 years. He started around age 10 and now, at 80, continues to work at Percy’s Shoe Shine Service in Nashville. He’s worn out, stressed out, but this veteran shoe shiner just can’t stop.

This episode comes to us from Neighbors, a podcast by Jakob Lewis made with Nashville Public Radio. 

  If you ask John Forester, there’s a war being fought, between the forces that want to eject cyclists from the roads, and those that want to preserve their right to ride. According to him, it’s been underway for at least a century, and environmentalists and cycling advocates have all been co-opted by the car lobby. 

Curiosity abounds in the listener ranks and the Ask Sam Hotline (1-844-GO-OTTER) has been ringing off the hook! Sam and the gang tackle your questions about decorative fountains, land fish and the difference between dog hair and dog fur. Oh, and think you love wood stoves? Think again. It's time for another Sam Ruined It!

Storm chasing is a pursuit we love to hate in the comment section, but if you look at the TV ratings, or YouTube views, it’s clear that we can’t look away, either. So what motivates chasers to actively put themselves in front of a storm when everyone is else is taking shelter? And, ultimately, do we owe them an apology?

Show that you love Outside/In! (And stick it to the guy in the corner office) Click here to donate: https://goo.gl/ijzVaZ

Mysteries are brewing in the sugar shack. Changes are coming to New England’s sugar bushes. And the very identity of a product that we’ve been crafting in basically the same way for centuries, could be on the verge of a radical shift. But a shift towards what? 

Show that you love Outside/In! (And stick it to the guy in the corner office) Click here to donate: https://goo.gl/ijzVaZ 

On June 27th, 1981, a bodybuilder, a stockbroker, and 10 other men entered the woods of New Hampshire, determined to settle an argument. They called it The First Annual Survival Game, and the details are the stuff of the legend. The game marked the birth of a multi-billion dollar sports industry, but also sheds light on the squishy art of myth-making. 

It took 200 years of dealing with with the invasive European green crab before American scientists finally decided to head back to the source. And when they did, they discovered that the invasive scourge of our estuaries is a straight up Italian delicacy. 

Bengal cat is an attempt to preserve the image of a leopard in the body of a house cat — using a wild animal’s genes, while leaving out the wild animal personality. But is it possible to isolate the parts of a wild animal that you like, and forgo the parts that you don’t?

Can you have your leopard rosette, and your little cat too?

Another year… another record-breaking wildfire season. Thanks to climate change the fire season now starts sooner and ends later.  Scientists also say climate change will make lightning more frequent, and winds more powerful… basically the world is a tinderbox.

But what if I told you that maybe the problem with all these big, out of control fires was *not enough* fire. 

There are between eight and ten thousand wildfires in the United States each year, but most quietly burn out and we never hear about them. The Pagami Creek Wildfire in Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area was supposed to be like that, but things turned out differently. And Greg and Julie Welch were camping right in its path.

News flash: men aren't the only people who enjoy the outdoors. No sh*#, right? But the outdoor gear industry has only recently started to realize that there are more people wanting high quality gear than traditionally fit men. 

Today, we're digging in to the fraught relationship between the gear industry and gender. When do women actually need something different, and when are companies just looking to make more money by selling women a product that is essentially the same thing... but smaller and pink? And what do you do if the available products - pink or not -  don't fit your body at all? 

Today, we’re giving you an inside look at what it takes to make the podcast. A bunch of people make this show, which means that our ideas meetings almost inevitably turn into total chaos when one of us starts shouting our favorite facts about our favorite animals.

This time, we gave up. Rather than fight it, we’re leaning in to bring you four stories about animals. Or rather… four cases for animals that are the best… the coolest… the niftiest… however you want to define that. And when it’s all said and done, we’d like you to settle this one for us. www.outsideinradio.org

Today, we take a step back to imagine a world without a web of GPS satellites telling your smartphone where you are every second of the day. While this might sound scary, come along and maybe you’ll discover you have a secret sixth sense...one that’s been inside you all along, if you just knew how to turn it on.

Today, we’re talking about population. How it went from being on the front pages of our newspapers and all over late night television to being the issue that you’ll only hear from out of the mouth of comic book super-villain Thanos. It's a big story, so we're spending two episodes on it.

Also, we promised you a link to David Roberts' Vox piece, so here's that.

Find more at outsideinradio.org

Today the second in our two-part series on the politics of population. In this episode, we’re digging into the story of how around the turn of the millennium, population got all tangled up in immigration in one vote at the Sierra Club.

That ugly fight represents a pivot point for the movement: a transition from the environmental politics of the 70s and 80s to the environmental politics of today.

Find more at outsideinradio.org

Listener feedback is a big part of working in radio and podcasting. We try to look for the lesson in every critical email, phone call, or tweet (even the cranky ones). However, there is one listener who has probably gotten in touch with producers at New Hampshire Public Radio more than any other - a vegan advocate named Laura Slitt. Her approach hasn’t always made it easy to take her seriously.

Today, we’ve got a deeply personal story from producer Taylor Quimby, who last year decided to strike up a relationship with Laura, to try and understand where she’s coming from and what made her decide to give up meat and dairy.

Heads up: This episode features descriptions of people killing animals to eat them.

Find more Outside/In at outsideinradio.org

Ask Sam: that special time when scientists worldwide cringe as Sam & the team speculate wildly on a diverse range of topics before picking up the phone to call in the real experts. 

This time, we've got another hirsute mystery: Are insect and plant hairs also made from the magical (seeming) protein called keratin? Also, do bugs get cancer? And which came first: the chachalaca (not a typo) or the turkey? 

The Ask Sam Hotline (1-844-GO-OTTER) is always open, so do your best to stump the gang and send us down another figurative rabbit-hole!

There's only one place in the world that you can find the axolotl—the Mexican salamander—in the wild. This creature is the living embodiment of Xolotl, the Aztec god of heavenly fire, of lightning and the underworld, and the renegade twin brother of Quetzalcoatl. But the wild axolotl’s fate might be bound to the Aztecs by more than myth: its life in 21st century could rely on a landscape both very old and very human.

Find more Outside/In at outsideinradio.org

Everyone's heard of Vikings - their daring North Atlantic voyages, their mysterious runes. But there's another ancient culture in Arctic Scandinavia that's much older, and just as fascinating - the Sámi. While the Vikings have been celebrated, Sámi music, language and traditions were forced underground. Why?

Check out Threshold at thresholdpodcast.org

And find more Outside/In at outsideinradio.org

Recently, our producer Justine Paradis noticed something. Humans really like to sing together in groups: birthday parties, sports games, church hymns, protest chants, singing along to Taylor Swift at the Eras concert… the list could get very long.

But… why? Did singing play a part in human evolution? Why does singing together make us feel so good?

Featuring Hannah Mayree, Ani Patel, Dor Shilton, and Arla Good. 

For full credits and transcript, visit outsideinradio.org.

SUPPORT

To share your questions and feedback with Outside/In, call the show’s hotline and leave us a voicemail. The number is 1-844-GO-OTTER. No question is too serious or too silly.

Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member.

Subscribe to our (free) newsletter.

Follow Outside/In on Instagram or BlueSky, or join our private discussion group on Facebook

LINKS

Bobby McFerrin in 2009 at the World Science Festival, demonstrating the intuitive power of the pentatonic scale, and in 2010, improvising in a stadium in Germany with 60,000 singers.

A short documentary about Sing For Your Life! and OneVoice Circle Singers.

Check out Hannah Mayree’s music and work.

Dor Shilton and Ani Patel collaborated on a paper (currently preprint) examining four societies where collective music-making is rare.

Dor Shilton’s paper on the evolution of music as an “interactive technology” and open-access analysis of patterns in group singing.

This journal presented the hypothesis of music as a mechanism for social bonding as part of an ongoing conversation. 

SingWell’s forthcoming research on group singing, aging, and Parkinson’s disease.

Like most modern publications, Low-tech Magazine has a website. But when you scroll through theirs, you’ll notice an icon in the corner: the weather forecast in Barcelona.

That’s because Kris Decker, the creator of Low-tech Magazine, powers the site off a solar panel on his balcony. When the weather gets bad, the website just… goes offline.

In a way, the solar-powered website is an experiment: an attempt to peel back the curtain and to reveal the infrastructure behind it, and to raise questions about our relationship with technology. Should everything on the internet be accessible, all the time? Could progress mean choosing to live with less?

Featuring Kris De Decker.

ELECTRIC VEHICLE SURVEY

We’re working on a series about electric vehicles, and we’re looking to hear from you. Would you consider going electric? What do you think about the EV transition?  

Help inform our reporting by filling out this survey. It’ll only take a couple minutes, and it really helps us produce the show. Thanks so much!

SUPPORT

Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. 

Subscribe to our (free) newsletter.

Follow Outside/In on Instagram or Twitter, or join our private discussion group on Facebook

LINKS

Low-tech Magazine has published instructions on how to build a low tech or solar-powered site. 

Solar Protocol, a solar-powered platform designed with the idea that “it’s always sunny somewhere!”

HTTP Archive tracks the history of web performance.

Re: that time it rained inside the data center.

This website lets you measure the emissions of any website (including this one).

Photographer Trevor Paglen’s images of undersea Internet cables (reportedly wiretapped by the NSA), and a video of sharks nipping at them.

Another example of the natural world interfering with computers, from the cutting room floor: the world’s first computer bug was a literal bug.

When Senator Ted Stevens described the internet as a “series of tubes,” many have opined that he actually wasn’t wrong.

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Producer: Justine Paradis

Editor: Taylor Quimby

Additional editing: Nate Hegyi, Jessica Hunt, and Felix Poon 

Executive Producer: Rebecca Lavoie

Special thanks to Melanie Risch.

Music: Pandaraps, Damma Beatz, Dusty Decks, Harry Edvino, Sarah the Illstrumentalist (sic), and Blue Dot Sessions.

The “Internet is a Series of Tubes” remix was created by superfunky59 on Youtube.

Support Outside/In during our Jan/Feb fundraiser and your gift will be matched dollar-for-dollar! Plus, if you donate $10 per month we’ll send you a pair of NH-made Merino wool socks from Minus33. 

Did you know that the humble pigeon is related to the dodo, makes milk (pigeon cheese, anyone?) and even played a role in the French Revolution? Surely this often-dismissed bird deserves some recognition. 

Well, on this episode we’re diving deep into the biology and history of Nate’s favorite overlooked animal, as explored by the brilliantly titled (and produced) podcast, What The Duck?! This absolute gem is from the Australian Broadcast Company and hosted by Ann Jones. It is so chock-full of wild animal facts that it’s a miracle they can all be contained in less than 30 minutes. 

So sit back and prepare to be wowed by a bird that haters love to hate, and a podcast so fun it could make you fall in love with a speck of dust. 

Featuring Rosemary Mosco, Nathan Finger, Dr Robin Leppitt, April Broadbent, and pigeon fanciers Aaron and Aria. 

SUPPORT

Listen to other episodes of What the Duck?! on Apple podcasts

Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. 

Subscribe to our newsletter (it’s free!).

Follow Outside/In on Instagram or join our private discussion group on Facebook.

Submit a question to the “Outside/Inbox.” We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).

CREDITS

Outside/In is hosted by Nate Hegyi. Our team includes Taylor Quimby, Justine Paradis, and Felix Poon. 

What the Duck?! Is produced and presented by Ann Jones, with Petria Ladgrove and additional mastering by Hamish Camilleri. 

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

The land had been cultivated and lived on for millennia when geologist Ferdinand Hayden came upon the astounding Yellowstone "wilderness." It wasn't long before the federal government declared it a national park, to be preserved in perpetuity for the enjoyment of all. Ostensibly. How did Yellowstone go from being an important home, hunting ground, thoroughfare and meeting place to being a park? 

This episode was reported and produced by our friends at the wonderful podcast Civics 101. 

Featuring: Megan Kate Nelson, author of Saving Yellowstone, Mark David Spence, author of Dispossessing the Wilderness and Alexandra E. Stern, historian of Native peoples and Reconstruction are our guides to this rocky start. 

LINKS

For more about the history of national parks and state-backed conservation, we’ve got episodes! 

We’ve also delved into the history of Yellowstone, with a focus on the original conservation strategy behind it and many other parks, a strategy pejoratively called “fortress conservation.”

“Himalayan Land Grab” tells the story of what happened when park developers applied the same “fortress conservation” strategy in northern India.

“Thin Green Line” is an exploration of the role of conservation law enforcement through the reality TV show North Woods Law.

We’ve also featured “The Problem with America’s National Parks,” an episode of the podcast The Experiment (no longer being produced) which asked: why not simply give the national parks back to Native Americans?

CREDITS

Hosted by Hannah McCarthy and Nick Capodice

Produced by Hannah McCarthy with help from Nick Capodice

Senior Producer: Christina Phillips

Executive Producer: Rebecca Lavoie

Civics 101 staff includes Jacqui Fulton.

Outside/In team: Nate Hegyi, Taylor Quimby, Justine Paradis, Felix Poon, and Jessica Hunt.

Music: Walt Adams, Silver Maple, Arthur Benson, Alexandra Woodward and Rocky Marciano.

On May 21, 2021, an influential environmental activist died of Covid-19 and you probably didn’t hear about it. Sunderlal Bahuguna’s passing didn’t make the major news outlets in the US, but it was a big deal in India, where he was the renowned leader of the Chipko movement against deforestation in the 1970s. 

Chipko is a Hindi word for “hugging”, but according to Bahuguna, he was just the messenger of the movement. “It was the ladies who hugged the trees,” he said.

This story is about the life and legacy of Sunderlal Bahuguna, and the tree huggers that saved India’s forests.

Featuring: Haritima Bahuguna

SUPPORT

Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. 

Subscribe to our newsletter.

Follow Outside/In on Instagram or Twitter, or join our private discussion group on Facebook

LINKS

On The Fence: Chipko Movement Re-visited

The Axing of the Himalayas

Appiko (To Embrace)

CREDITS

Reported and produced by Felix Poon

Host: Justine Paradis

Edited by Taylor Quimby

Additional editing by Justine Paradis, and Erika Janik

Executive producer: Rebecca Lavoie

Mixed by Felix Poon

Theme: Breakmaster Cylinder

Additional music by Saumya Bahuguna, Samuel Corwin, and Blue Dot Sessions

We’re used to seeing dogs and cats play with toys or get the zoomies… but do animals like rats and bumblebees play too? What is animal play for? How do scientists even decide what counts as play?

Today, we’re taking a serious look at goofy behavior. We’ll discover the five-part checklist that many scientists use to recognize play in nature, and find out why taking turns is so important for healthy brain development. 

This episode is a collaboration between Outside/In and Tumble, the science podcast for kids. 

Featuring Junyi Chu and Jackson Ham

Produced by Lindsay Patterson, Marshall Escamilla, and Taylor Quimby. For a transcript and full list of credits, go to outsideinradio.org. 

SUPPORT

Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. 

Follow Outside/In on Instagram or join our private discussion group on Facebook.

LINKS

Love this episode? Looking for family-friendly podcasts to listen to? There are over 150 episodes of Tumble to check out, including a few of our favorites: 

Do Trees Fart?

The Swift Quake

Why Are Sloths Slow

Are Cats Evil? 

The five-part play checklist mentioned in the episode was developed by play researcher Gordon M. Burghardt. His paper, “Play in fishes, frogs and reptiles,” answers some other really interesting questions about animal play. 

In the early 1900s, people didn’t trust refrigerated food. Fruits and vegetables, cuts of meat… these things are supposed to decay, right? As Nicola Twilley writes, “What kind of unnatural technology could deliver a two-year old chicken carcass that still looked as though it was slaughtered yesterday?”

But just a few decades later, Americans have done a full one-eighty. Livestock can be slaughtered thousands of miles away, and taste just as good (or better) by the time it hits your plate.  Apples can be stored for over a year without any noticeable change. A network called the “cold-chain” criss-crosses the country, and at home our refrigerators are fooling us into thinking we waste less food than we actually do. 

Today, refrigeration has reshaped what we eat, how we cook it, and even warped our very definition of what is and isn’t “fresh.” 

Featuring Nicola Twilley.

SUPPORT

Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. 

Follow Outside/In on Instagram or join our private discussion group on Facebook.

LINKS

You can find Nicola’s new book “Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet and Ourselves,” at your local bookstore or online. 

CREDITS

Our host is Nate Hegyi.

Reported and produced by Nate Hegyi and Taylor Quimby.

Mixed by Nate Hegyi

Editing by Taylor Quimby

Our staff includes Justine Paradis, Felix Poon, Kate Dario and Marina Henke.

Executive producer: Taylor Quimby

Rebecca Lavoie is NHPR’s Director of On-Demand Audio

Music by Blue Dot Sessions. Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

Submit a question to the “Outside/Inbox.” We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).

Perhaps you’re familiar with our Outside/Inbox hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER. Anyone can leave us a voicemail sharing questions about the natural world, and we periodically answer them on the show. 

A few weeks ago, it came to our attention that we hadn't gotten a new voicemail in some time. Turns out our hotline has been bugging out for at least six months, and we have a lot of catching up to do.  

So, we present: Outside/Inbox, the lost voicemails edition. 

Featuring Stephanie Spera, with contributions from Ariel, Joe, Carolyn, Maverick, Jarrett, Eben, a rooster, and a closet (?) full of snakes.

SUPPORT

Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member. 

Subscribe to our newsletter for occasional emails about new show swag, call-outs for listener submissions, and other announcements.

Follow Outside/In on Instagram or Twitter, or join our private discussion group on Facebook.

LINKS

This is the study Marina mentioned with a comparative life cycle assessment of hand dryers vs. paper towel dispensers. 

If you want to learn more about chronic wasting disease, Nate recommends listening to Bent Out of Shape, a three-part series from KUNC. For a quick read, here’s a fact sheet from the CDC.

Listen to Outside/In’s behind-the-scenes journey into a human decomposition facility, aka “body farm,” reported by Felix Poon.

If you’ve been to Acadia National Park in Maine and taken photos of the fall foliage anytime since 1950, you can participate in research about how climate change is shifting the timing of peak foliage. Contribute your pictures of the autumn leaves to the Acadia National Park Fall Foliage Project here.

Many are predicting that fall 2024 will be a banner season for spectacular foliage, including our colleagues at NHPR’s Something Wild. Plus, here’s more on the dynamics of fall foliage, precipitation, and anthocyanin. 

CREDITS

Outside/In host: Nate Hegyi

Reported by Justine Paradis, Nate Hegyi, and Marina Henke. 

Produced and mixed by Justine Paradis.

Edited by Taylor Quimby

NHPR’s Director of Podcasts is Rebecca Lavoie

Our staff also includes Kate Dario.

Music by Blue Dot Sessions, Brigham Orchestra, Guustavv, Katori Walker, John B. Lund, and Bonkers Beat Club.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.

Editor's note: A previous version of this episode incorrectly stated that Forest Park is the biggest public park in the United States. It is the biggest in St. Louis, Missouri and arguably bigger than Central Park. The audio and transcript have been updated.

Become a sustaining member today. For $5 a month, we'll send you an Outside/In baseball cap. The first 250 people to donate during our fall fund drive will also receive a "ginkgo love" sticker.  Support Outside/In today!

As of late, Endless Thread co-host Ben Brock Johnson has been obsessed with a rock in Wyoming, a lot like the protagonist of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. 

But you won't find Ben in the kitchen, making a replica of the rock out of mud and chicken wire. Instead, you'll find him and co-host Amory Sivertson in this episode, traversing Reddit and TikTok, YouTube, and the actual state of Wyoming to find out why hundreds of thousands of people have been drawn to a monolith that has so many names and meanings.

This episode is part of Endless Thread’s latest 4-part series called Parks!

SUPPORT

Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. 

Subscribe to our newsletter (it’s free!).

Follow Outside/In on Instagram or join our private discussion group on Facebook.

Submit a question to the “Outside/Inbox.” We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).

CREDITS

Outside/In is hosted by Nate Hegyi. Our team includes Taylor Quimby, Justine Paradis, and Felix Poon. Our Executive Producer is Rebecca Lavoie.

This episode of Endless Thread was produced by Ben Brock Johnson, co-hosted by Amory Sivertson, and produced by Samata Joshi, Grace Tatter, and Quincy Walters

It was mixed and sound-designed by Paul Vaitkus.

Endless Thread is a production of WBUR. 

Outside/In is a production of NHPR. 

On a bluebird day, in April of 2019, Snow Ranger Frank Carus set out to investigate a reported avalanche in the backcountry of Mt. Washington. He found a lone skier, buried several feet under the snow. He was severely hypothermic but alive.

Wilderness EMTs can work for decades and never encounter this particular situation. And what happened next was an attempted rescue that people in Northern New England are still learning from. 

What happens when a rescue goes wrong? And how do first responders cope when an opportunity to save someone’s life slips through their fingers?

Editor’s Note: This episode first aired in May of 2022, and was later honored with a National Edward R. Murrow Award for News Documentary. 

Featuring: Denise Butler, Frank Carus, Jeff Fongemie, Nicholas Weinberg

SUPPORT

Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. 

Talk to us! Follow Outside/In on Instagram and Twitter, or discuss episodes in our private listener group on Facebook. 

Submit a question to our Outside/Inbox. We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).

LINKS

Learn more about avalanche safety here.

Read the Wilderness Medical Society Journal article about this incident here.

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by: Jessica Hunt

Mixer: Taylor Quimby

Editing by Taylor Quimby and Nate Hegyi, with help and feedback from Rebecca Lavoie, Justine Paradis, Felix Poon, Erika Janik, Sam Evans-Brown, Jimmy Gutierrez, and Christina Philips.

Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer

Special Thanks to: Matt Dustin, Ty Gagne, Frank Hubbell, and Andrew Parrella. 

Music for this episode by Blue Dot Sessions.

Outside/In  is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.

Humans are noisy. The National Park Service estimates that all of our whirring, grinding, and revving machines are doubling or even tripling global noise pollution every 30 years. 

A lot of that noise is negatively affecting wildlife and human health. Maybe that’s why we’re so consumed with managing our sonic environments, with noise-cancelling headphones and white noise machines — and sometimes, we get into spats with our neighbors, as one of our guests did…

So for this episode, producer Jeongyoon Han takes us on an exploration of three sonic landscapes: noise, silence, and something in between. 

Featuring Rachel Buxton, Jim Connell, Stan Ellis, Mercede Erfanian, Nora Ma, and Rob Steadman.

SUPPORT

Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. 

Subscribe to our newsletter (it’s free!).

Follow Outside/In on Instagram or join our private discussion group on Facebook.

Submit a question to the “Outside/Inbox.” We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).

LINKS

Behavioral ecologist Miya Warrington and her colleagues found that Savannah sparrows changed the tune of their love songs as a result of noisy oil fields in Alberta, Canada (The New York Times)

Bats have changed their day-to-day habits because of traffic noise, according to research conducted in the U.K.

Natural sounds are proven to improve health, lower stress, and have positive effects on humans. Rachel Buxton and her colleagues wrote about that in their study from 2021.

Erica Walker’s organization, the Community Noise Lab, monitors noise levels in Boston, Providence, and Jackson, Mississippi. You can read more about her work in this article from Harvard Magazine.

Are you interested in going to a Quiet Parks International-designated quiet park? The organization has a list of spaces across the world that they’ve certified. 

Here’s a radio story from NPR that serves as an homage to John Cage’s 4’33”. 

If you were ever curious about why bird songs are good for you… This article from the Washington Post should be on the top of your reading list!

This New Yorker piece from 2019 outlines how noise pollution might be the next public health crisis. Since that article, there’s been even more research showing that noise can take years off of our lives. 

So, you’ve heard lots of sounds in this episode. But do you want to see what sounds look like? Click here — and this is not clickbait!

Ethan Kross, who is a psychologist and neuroscientist, wrote a whole book about noise — the noise in your head, to be precise. It’s called Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It.

Mercede Erfanian’s research into misophonia and soundscapes is fascinating. You can hear her speak on the subject of different kinds of sounds in a show aired from 1A, or watch her presentation on the effects that soundscapes have on humans. 
 

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by Jeongyoon Han

Mixed by Jeongyoon Han and Taylor Quimby

Editing by Taylor Quimby, with help from Nate Hegyi, Jessica Hunt, and Felix Poon

Executive producer: Rebecca Lavoie

Music from Blue Dot Sessions, Edvard Greeg, and Mike Franklyn.

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

The Smithsonian National Zoological Park in Washington, DC is sometimes called “the people’s zoo.” That’s because it’s the only zoo in the country to be created by an act of US Congress, and admission is free.

But why did our federal government create a national zoo in the first place?

Producer Felix Poon has the scoop – from its surprising origins in the near-extinction of bison, to a look at its modern-day mission of conservation, we’re going on a field trip to learn all about the National Zoo.

Featuring Kara Ingraham, Daniel Frank, and Ellie Tahmaseb.

SUPPORT

Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. 

Subscribe to our newsletter (it’s free!).

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LINKS

William Hornaday founded the National Zoo, but his legacy is complicated, to say the least. Environmental journalist Michelle Nijhuis contemplates whether he’s a “villainous hero or heroic villain” (PBS).

“A Chinese cigarette tin launched D.C.’s 50-year love affair with pandas” tells the origin story of pandas at the National Zoo (The Washington Post).

The story of Ota Benga, the man who was caged by William Hornaday in the Bronx Zoo (The Guardian).

Environmental writer Emma Marris imagines a world without zoos in her opinion essay, “Modern Zoos Are Not Worth the Moral Cost” (NYTimes).

We looked at the court case of Happy the elephant in our 2022 Outside/In episode, “Et Tu, Brute? The Case for Human Rights for Animals.”

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported, produced, and mixed by Felix Poon

Editing by Taylor Quimby.

Our staff includes Justine Paradis

Executive producer: Taylor Quimby

Rebecca Lavoie is NHPR’s Director of On-Demand Audio

Thanks to Nick Capodice for performing William Hornaday voiceovers.

Music by Bluedot Sessions and Jules Gaia

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

Submit a question to the “Outside/Inbox.” We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).

Pickleball is the fastest growing sport in America. It may also be the most hated. Tennis and basketball players are complaining about losing court space because of an “invasion” of pickleballers. Residents are losing sleep because of the incessant noise. Fights over pickleball have led to a slew of petitions, calls to the police, and even lawsuits.

So why do pickleball players love this sport so much? Just how annoying is it to everyone else? And what will it take for everyone to just get along? 

Producer Felix Poon visits one of the most popular courts in Boston to see how the drama is unfolding there.

Featuring Kemardo Henry, Martha Merson, Soren Whited, and Zariyah Cherise.

For a transcript and full list of credits, go to outsideinradio.org. 

SUPPORT

Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. 

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LINKS

Want to play pickleball, but don’t want to annoy the neighbors? Check out this guide to quiet pickleball paddles.

Read the petition that first raised concerns over the popularity of pickleball at the South Street Courts in Jamaica Plain.

Learn more about the history of pickleball, which was invented near Seattle in Bainbridge Island, WA.

For more on the various conflicts arising from pickleball’s growing popularity, read One Man’s Lonely War on Central Park Pickleball (NYTimes), and Shattered Nerves, Sleepless Nights: Pickleball Noise Is Driving Everyone Nuts (NYTimes)

Sardines are in vogue. Literally. They are in Vogue magazine. They’re delicious (subjectively), good for you, and sustainable… right? 

Recently, a listener called into the show asking about just that.

“I've always had this sense that they're a more environmentally friendly fish, perhaps because of being low on the food chain. But I'm realizing I really have no sense of what it looks like to actually fish for sardines,” Jeannie told us.

The Outside/In team got together to look beyond the sunny illustrations on the fish tins. Is there bycatch? What about emissions? Are sardines overfished? If we care about the health of the ocean, can we keep eating sardines?

Featuring Jeannie Bartlett, Malin Pinsky, and Zach Koehn.

To share your questions and feedback with Outside/In, call the show’s hotline and leave us a voicemail. The number is 1-844-GO-OTTER. No question is too serious or too silly.

For full credits and transcript, visit outsideinradio.org.

SUPPORT

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Subscribe to our (free) newsletter.

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LINKS

If you’re interested in finding sustainable fisheries, our sources recommended checking out Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch and the Marine Stewardship Council.

Sardines (specifically, Fishwife) in Vogue. 

Why are tinned fishes in every boutique store, and why do all of those stores feel exactly the same? For Grub Street, Emily Sundberg reported on the digital marketplace behind the “shoppy shop.” 

The documentary about the epic South African sardine run is “The Ocean’s Greatest Feast” on PBS.

Zach Koehn’s paper, “The role of seafood in sustainable diets.” 

Malin Pinsky’s research found that small pelagic fish (like sardines, anchovies, and herring) are just as vulnerable to population collapse as larger, slower-growing species like tuna. 

Explore the designs of historical Portuguese fish tins (Hyperallergic).

An animated reading of The Mousehole Cat

The last sardine cannery in the United States closed in 2010. But you can explore this archive of oral histories with former workers in Maine factories (many of them women and children).

We’ve got answers to your burning questions: a query about the impacts of wildlife smoke on bird migration; a long-smoldering family debate over whether or not bears can hoot; and, perhaps, stamping out the fire in the gas furnace heating your home.

Question 1: What home heating system is best for the climate?

Question 2: Is wildfire smoke impacting bird migration?

Question 3: Do bears hoot?

Question 4: Are farmers practicing agroforestry in New England?

Do you have a question about the natural world? Submit it to the Outside/Inbox! Send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or call our hotline: 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837). Don’t forget to leave a number so we can call you back.

Featuring: Nate (The House Whisperer) Adams, Emily Mottram, Joe Lajewski, Olivia Sanderfoot, Anni Yang, Dave Mance III, Andy Timmins, David Telesco, Kate Macfarland, and Meghan Giroux.

SUPPORT

Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. 

Subscribe to our newsletter.

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CREDITS

Reported and produced by Felix Poon, Taylor Quimby, Jessica Hunt, and Justine Paradis

Host: Justine Paradis

Edited by Taylor Quimby

Additional editing by Cori Princell

Executive producer: Rebecca Lavoie

Mixed by Felix Poon, Taylor Quimby, Jessica Hunt, and Justine Paradis

Theme: Breakmaster Cylinder

Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions

Few bear witness to human decomposition. We embalm and seal bodies in caskets, and bury them six feet underground. Decomposition happens out of sight and out of mind, or in the case of cremation, is skipped over entirely.

But at human decomposition facilities, sometimes known as "body farms," students and researchers see rotting corpses every day. They watch as scavengers and bacteria feast on them. And when it's all over, they clean the skeletons, and file them away in a collection.

In this episode, producer Felix Poon visits a human decomposition facility in North Carolina to  see what the people who work there have learned about death, find out how a human body decomposes, and why a person might choose to wind up there in the first place. 

Featuring: Nick Passalacqua, Rebecca George, Carter Unger, Maggie Klemm, Carlee Green, Victoria Deal, Kadri Greene, Mackenzie Gascon, Reagan Baechle, Leigh Irwin, and Lucinda Denton

LINKS

You can watch Bill Bass tell the story of Colonel William Shy and the time since death estimation he got so wrong that led to him founding the first ever “Body Farm.”

If you want to hear from pre-registered donors about their decision to donate their bodies, you can watch a WBIR-TV segment, The Body Farm: A donor explains why she’s ready to hand off her corpse to the forensic center about Lucinda Denton, who we feature in this episode. And you can read Fawn Fitter’s article, My Afterlife on the Body Farm (NY Times), about how she intends to help solve crimes as part of a world-renowned criminal justice program after she dies.

If you’re curious to read more about the “CSI Effect,” check this article out: ‘CSI effect’ draws more women to forensics.

And if you want to read up on how the field of forensics is talking about evolving their concepts of race and gender, you can read Decolonizing ancestry estimation in the United States, and Centering Transgender Individuals in Forensic Anthropology and Expanding Binary Sex Estimation in Casework and Research.

SUPPORT

Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. 

Subscribe to our FREE newsletter.

Follow Outside/In on Instagram or Twitter, or join our private discussion group on Facebook.

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by: Felix Poon

Editing by Taylor Quimby, with help and feedback from Nate Hegyi, Rebecca Lavoie, Justine Paradis, and Jessica Hunt.
Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer

Special Thanks to: Fawn Fitter, Katie Zejdlik, Jimmy Holt, Carter Unger, Maggie Klemm, Carlee Green, Victoria Deal, Kadri Greene, Mackenzie Gascon, Reagan Baechle, and Leigh Irwin.

Music for this episode by Blue Dot Sessions.

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

According to our unscientific office poll, the annual changing of the clocks has all the popularity of a root canal. With few exceptions, people described the shift to and from Daylight Saving Time as disorienting, arbitrary, and unwelcome.

On a more existential level, winding the clocks back and forth reminds us that no matter how concrete minutes and hours may feel, the way we perceive time is fluid. Time flies when you’re having fun. A watched pot never boils. 

So to celebrate (or perhaps protest) another year setting back the clocks, the Outside/In team has uncovered four mini-stories that will poke at, stretch, or even obliterate your perception of time. From “time expansion experiences,” to time-space synesthesia, to the slow-motion life of a fly, prepare for a totally different type of time warp.

Featuring Steve Taylor, Rhitu Chatterjee, Kevin Healy, Katherine Akey, and Patricia Lynne Duffy.

For humans, roads epitomize freedom. For wildlife, it’s a different story: a million animals are killed by cars every day in the US alone.

How did our infrastructure turn so deadly? And what are people trying to do about it?

In this episode, we look at how two very different species are impacted by roads. Along the way, we visit a turtle rescue clinic, hear about a celebrity cougar that was trapped in the Hollywood Hills, and find out what it took to fund what will soon be the world’s largest wildlife bridge.

Featuring Ben Goldfarb, Alexxia Bell, Natasha Nowick, and Michaela Conder.

SUPPORT

Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. 

Talk to us! Follow Outside/In on Instagram or Twitter, or discuss the show in our private listener group on Facebook. 

LINKS

From bears to badgers, and crocodiles in Florida to salamanders in Vermont – check out these videos of wildlife crossings in action across the country. (NYTimes)

Check out Crossings: How Road Ecology is Shaping the Future of Our Planet, by Ben Goldfarb.

Read more about The Turtle Rescue League in Of Time and Turtles: Mending the World, Shell by Shattered Shell, by Sy Montgomery.

Engross yourself in the stories of the National Park Service’s Puma Profiles of the Santa Monica Mountains.

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported, produced, and mixed by Felix Poon.

Edited by Taylor Quimby.

Our team also includes Justine Paradis.

Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer.

Music for this episode by Jay Varton, Rand Aldo, and Blue Dot Sessions.

Theme music by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.

The Underdogs Ep2: It has to be earned

Nate flies to Minnesota to follow a new lead about the New Zealand racing team.

Advisory: This episode contains brief descriptions of injured animals and animal abuse that may be disturbing to some listeners. 

More about Outside/In presents The Underdogs: 

A few months ago, Outside/In host Nate Hegyi got a tip from the highest levels of the dog sledding community. It was about the first team from New Zealand to complete the Iditarod, a 1,000-mile race across some of Alaska’s harshest terrain. Over the past decade, Curt and Fleur Perano have transformed their success on the trail into a flourishing mushing tourism business in their home country’s south island. Some of their dogs have even appeared in a Marvel movie and a Taylor Swift music video. 

But behind the scenes, in the usually-guarded world of competitive dog sledding, the Peranos have burned bridges, destroyed friendships, and left a trail of debt totaling tens of thousands of dollars. 

In this special Outside/In mini-series, Nate investigates a story one musher describes as “one dead body away from Tiger King,” and exposes the singular culture within the world of elite mushing.

Featuring: Jamie Nelson, Jodi Bailey, Mike Williams Sr., and Amanda Hasenauer

SUPPORT

Outside/In presents The Underdogs is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. 

Subscribe to our FREE newsletter.

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LINKS

Humane Mushing (an advocacy group whose motto is “dog first, sport second”) used to compile an annual list of Iditarod sled dog deaths and injuries. Their information is taken from official race reports and Iditarod media advisories. (Humane Mushing)

Check it out: Alaska Natives took the top three spots in the 2023 Iditarod. (NPR)

An in-depth profile of Dallas Seavey, a five-time Iditarod winner who was publicly accused – and then publicly cleared – of doping his dogs. (GQ)

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by Nate Hegyi

Edited and mixed by Taylor Quimby

Editing help from Rebecca Lavoie, Jack Rodolico, Justine Paradis, Felix Poon, and Jessica Hunt

Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer

Graphics by Sara Plourde

Music for this episode by Blue Dot Sessions, Dylan Sitts, Joseph Beg, Hanna Lindgren, and Amaranth Cove. 

Outside/In presents The Underdogs  is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

When KALW’s Marissa Ortega-Welch hit the Pacific Crest Trail, she used her preferred method of navigation: an old-fashioned trail map. But along the way, she met a couple who only used phones to guide them, a Search and Rescue team that welcomes the power of GPS, and a woman who has been told her adaptive wheelchair isn't allowed in official wilderness areas (not actually true).

So… does technology help people access wilderness? Or does it get in the way? 

This week’s episode comes to us from “How Wild” produced by our friends at KALW Public Media. In this seven-part series, host Marissa Ortega-Welch charts the complex meaning of “wilderness” in the United States and how it’s changing. Marissa criss-crosses the country to speak with hikers, land managers, scientists and Indigenous leaders – people who spend every day grappling with how ideas about wilderness play out in the hundreds of designated wilderness areas across the U.S. 

LINKS

Check out more episodes of “How Wild” here.

SUPPORT

Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. 

Follow Outside/In on Instagram or join our private discussion group on Facebook

HOW WILD CREDITS

How Wild is created and executive produced by Marissa Ortega-Welch. 

Edited by Lisa Morehouse. Additional editing and sound design by Gabe Grabin. 

Life coaching by Shereen Adel. Fact-checking by Mark Armao. 

How Wild is produced in partnership with KALW Public Media, distributed by NPR and made possible with support from California Humanities, a partner of the NEH. This podcast is produced in Oakland, California…on the unceded ancestral homeland of the Ohlone. Learn more about the Indigenous communities where you live at native-land.ca

OUTSIDE/IN CREDITS

Outside/In Host: Nate Hegyi

Executive producer: Taylor Quimby

NHPR’s Director of On-Demand Audio is Rebecca Lavoie

Our staff includes Justine Paradis, Felix Poon, Kate Dario and Marina Henke. 

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

Submit a question to the “Outside/Inbox.” We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).

On the first day of January, people all over the world dive into the water as a way to start the new year fresh. It’s often referred to as a “polar plunge”. 

But cold water dipping is different.

It’s not a breathless in-and-out plunge, but a slow submersion: lingering in the cold water for 5 or 10 minutes. No wetsuit. 

This fall, Outside/In producer Justine Paradis got to know a community of dippers along the coast of Maine. Many of them described something happening once they’re in their water.. Something which they say changes their relationship to the cold, the ocean, and themselves. 

In this episode, we’re ringing in the new year by sharing a little more from those conversations.

Featuring Kelsy Hartley, Caitlin Hopkins, Puranjot Kaur, Betsy Dawkins, and Judy Greene-Janse. 

Thanks to everyone who sent in suggestions for winter surthrival. We featured ideas from James in Bend, Oregon; Kyra in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada; and Annie in Portland, Maine. 

Thanks also to Gin Majka, Guenola Lefeuvre, and Annie Ropeik.

A word on the risks of cold water immersion

People engage in cold water dipping and swimming around the world. Many claim health benefits, like a boosted immune system and reduced inflammation. But it’s not a risk-free activity. 

"I'm not sitting here as the fun police stopping people doing what they want to do. It's just we would encourage them to do it safely,” said Mike Tipton, a professor of Human and Applied Physiology at the Extreme Environments Laboratory at the University of Portsmouth. He shared a couple risks to consider before jumping in.

• Cold shock response, which occurs as you enter cold water and lasts a couple minutes. This prompts an involuntary gasp and hyperventilation – bad news if you’re underwater or in choppy water.
• Cardiac triggers. Cold water shock sends a signal to your heart telling it to beat faster, but face immersion tells your heart to slow down. These competing signals to your heart can potentially cause cardiac arrhythmia, especially when plunging and breath holding. On top of that, the cold water constricts your blood vessels, pushes up blood pressure, and makes your heart work harder.
• Swim failure, the result of direct cooling of the superficial nerves and muscles (especially in the limbs). This can occur before other effects of hypothermia. “This is where we see people swimming out to sea offshore, turning around and finding they can't get back because they become physically incapacitated… one of the obvious bits of safety advice is don't swim out of your depth and swim parallel to the shore, not away from it,” Mike said.

A few basic safety tips: 

1. Don’t go alone.
2. As one cold water swimmer put it, “Keep your feet on the ground.”
3. Get yourself checked for any pre-existing conditions that might be triggered by a sudden change in blood pressure.

SUPPORT

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LINKS

Caitlin Hopkins and Kelsy Hartley are also known as Ebb and Flow, the founders of Two Maine Mermaids. 

Puranjot Kaur is a member of Cold Tits, Warm Hearts on Mount Desert Island. There’s also another group in midcoast Maine called Wicked Nippy Dippahs.

In addition to dipping, many of the women featured are open water swimmers. Puranjot Kaur wrote this account of her second attempt to swim around Mount Desert Island, fueled by congee and community.

Check out these gorgeous photos by Greta Rybus of a community dip in an ice-hole in York, Maine, and these photos of some of the dippers in our episode.

A good interview with a “wild swimming” scientist on both the risks and benefits of immersion

CREDITS

Reported, produced, and mixed by Justine Paradis 

Edited by Taylor Quimby

The Outside/In team also includes our host Nate Hegyi, Felix Poon, and Jessica Hunt

Executive producer: Rebecca Lavoie

Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions, Quesa, and Autohacker

Theme music: Breakmaster Cylinder

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.

Redwood National and State Parks are home to giants: coast redwoods that can grow as tall as a thirty-story building. These ancient California forests support hundreds of different species, and store more carbon than any other forest on the planet. But in the last century, 95% of them were felled by loggers. 

Now, scientists have discovered a surprising strategy to foster the next generation of old-growth redwoods… and it involves chopping some of the younger trees down.

This week’s episode comes to us from “THE WILD with Chris Morgan,” produced by our friends at KUOW. Chris has got an infectious enthusiasm for the natural world, and the podcast has an immersive sound that makes it feel like you’re standing right under the redwoods with him.

LINKS

Check out more episodes of THE WILD at https://www.kuow.org/podcasts/thewild

SUPPORT

Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. 

Follow Outside/In on Instagram or join our private discussion group on Facebook.

THE WILD CREDITS

THE WILD is a production of KUOW and Chris Morgan Wildlife, with support from Wildlife Media. It is produced by Matt Martin and Lucy Soucek. It is edited by Jim Gates. It is hosted, produced and written by Chris Morgan. Fact checking by Apryle Craig. Theme music is by Michael Parker.

OUTSIDE/IN CREDITS

Outside/In Host: Nate Hegyi

Executive producer: Taylor Quimby

NHPR’s Director of On-Demand Audio is Rebecca Lavoie

Our staff includes Justine Paradis, Felix Poon, and Marina Henke. Our intern is Catherine Hurley. 

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

Submit a question to the “Outside/Inbox.” We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).

Last summer, former Outside/In host Sam Evans-Brown quit journalism to become a lobbyist for clean energy.

He’s not alone. Millions of people left their jobs or changed careers in the past couple years. But is the field of climate journalism going through its own “Great Resignation?” In a moment when the stakes are so high, are the people who cover the climate crisis leaving journalism to try to help solve it?

Producer Justine Paradis talks with two reporters who recently found themselves re-evaluating their personal and professional priorities: one who left journalism, and another who stayed.

Featuring Sophie Gilbert, Sam Evans-Brown, Stephen Lacey, Julia Pyper, Meaghan Parker, and Kendra Pierre-Louis.

SUPPORT

Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. 
Subscribe to our (free) newsletter.
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LINKS

The podcast episode of Warm Regards that Justine mentions is “Apocalyptic Narratives, Climate Data, and Hope, with Zeke Hausfather and Diego Arguedas Ortiz”

The history of objectivity is arguably one of the “great confusions of journalism.” In the early 20th century, reporter Walter Lippman and editor Charles Merz contended that objectivity is a practice akin to the scientific method. “The method is objective, not the journalist.”

More recently, plenty of folks have commented on problems with “bias” in journalism, including Lewis Raven Wallace, Wesley Lowery, and Sam Sanders, who wrote, “The avoidance of the ‘perception’ of ‘bias’ ultimately means the only reporters to be trusted are those whose lives haven’t been directly touched by the issues and struggles they’re covering. And you [know] what that means.”

Julia Pyper’s podcast Political Climate

Post Script Media, Stephen Lacey’s podcast company

How cable TV covered climate change in 2021.

Nate Johnson, a former journalist who left Grist to become an electrician, featured on How to Save a Planet.

Kendra Pierre-Louis spoke in greater depth about her career and what it’s like to be a Black woman in journalism with Mary Annaïse Heglar and Amy Westervelt on Hot Take.

The Yale Climate Opinion Maps find that 72% of Americans believe in global warming, although just 33% report hearing about climate in the media at least once a week. You can explore the data and see how climate attitudes vary by state and county.

For Sarah Miller, all the right words on climate have already been said. “I could end this story by saying ‘We kept swimming and it was beautiful even if it will all be gone someday,’ or some shit, but I already ended another climate story that way. I have, several times, really nailed that ending… Writing is stupid. I just want to be alive.”

CREDITS

Special thanks to Nate Johnson and Peter Howe

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported, produced, and mixed by Justine Paradis

Editing and additional mixing by Taylor Quimby

Additional editing: Rebecca Lavoie, Nate Hegyi, Felix Poon, and Jessica Hunt

Executive Producer: Rebecca Lavoie

Music: Sarah the Illstrumentalist, Daniel Fridell, baegel, FLYIN, Smartface, Silver Maple, By Lotus, 91nova, Moon Craters, Pandaraps, and Blue Dot Sessions

Theme Music: Breakmaster Cylinder

When it comes to protecting the biodiversity of Planet Earth, there is no greater failure than extinction. 

Thankfully, only a few dozen species have been officially declared extinct by the US Fish and Wildlife Service in the half century since the passage of the Endangered Species Act. 

But, hold on. Aren’t we in the middle of the sixth mass extinction? Shouldn’t the list of extinct species be… way longer? 

Well, yeah. Maybe.

Producer Taylor Quimby sets out to understand why it’s so difficult to officially declare an animal extinct. Along the way, he compares rare animals to missing socks, finds a way to invoke Lizzo during an investigation of an endangered species of crabgrass, and learns about the disturbing concept of “dark extinctions.” 

Featuring Sharon Marino, Arne Mooers, Sean O’Brien, Bill Nichols, and Wes Knapp.

SUPPORT

Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. 

Subscribe to our FREE newsletter.

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LINKS

Check out this 2005 feature from the CBS Sunday Morning archives: In search of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker… 

…and this one from 60 minutes, also from 2005, pulled from the archive and rebroadcast after the proposed delisting.

Nate’s favorite ivory-billed story came from NPR, and featured songwriter Sufjan Stevens.

Watch the US Fish and Wildlife Service virtual public meeting about the proposed delisting of the ivory-billed woodpecker on January 26, 2022.

Read this 2016 paper that outlines, among other things, the consequences of being wait-listed under the ESA: “Taxa, petitioning agency, and lawsuits affect time spent awaiting listing under the US Endangered Species Act.”

From Simon Fraser University, “Lost or extinct? Study finds the existence of 562 animal species remains uncertain.”

More on the unknown status of Cambodia’s national mammal, the kouprey.

Wes Knapps’ paper on “Dark Extinctions” among vascular plants in the continental United States and Canada.

Read about the extinction of smooth slender crabgrass, the first documented extinction in New Hampshire.

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by: Taylor Quimby

Mixer: Taylor Quimby

Editing by Rebecca Lavoie and Nate Hegyi, with help from Justine Paradis, Felix Poon, and Jessica Hunt.

Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer

Special thanks to Noah Greenwald, Jonathan Reichard, Tom Martin, and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Music for this episode by Silver Maple and Blue Dot Sessions.

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

A lot of discussion about sustainability revolves around the trash and waste we leave behind.  But at some point, every human being will die and leave behind a body. 

So what should we do with it? Casket? Cremation? Compost? And does our choice actually have a meaningful impact on the soils and skies around us?

Today, we’ve got another edition of our segment, “This, That, or the Other Thing”, where Outside/In’s unofficial decomposition correspondent Felix Poon investigates how we can more sustainably rest in peace. Featuring Regina Harrison, Katrina Spade, and Matt Scott

SUPPORT

Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. 

Subscribe to our newsletter (it’s free!).

Follow Outside/In on Instagram or join our private discussion group on Facebook.

Submit a question to the “Outside/Inbox.” We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).

LINKS

Find how you can help with climate solutions by drawing your Climate Action Venn Diagram.

Learn more about Project Drawdown’s Drawdown Solutions Library.

Tag along on a visit to the Recompose human composting facility (Youtube).

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by Felix Poon

Edited by Taylor Quimby

Our team includes Justine Paradis.

Rebecca Lavoie is NHPR’s Director of On-Demand Audio.

Music for this episode by Blue Dot Sessions

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

Submit a question to the “Outside/Inbox.” We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).

Some people think artificial intelligence is the best thing since sliced bread. Others say it’s the beginning of a science-fiction apocalypse. At COP28 – the U.N. Climate Change Conference – tech companies are saying AI is key to unlocking a more efficient future. 

But what if the truth is less sensational than all that? 

In this episode, how AI tools are helping and hurting efforts to curb climate change. From satellite-based flood maps to the growing energy cost of programs like ChatGPT, we’ll survey the use of artificial intelligence as a tool for climate action… and for climate distraction. 

Featuring David Rolnick and Karen Hao

SUPPORT

Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In.

Subscribe to our newsletter (it’s free!).

Follow Outside/In on Instagram or join our private discussion group on Facebook.

Submit a question to the “Outside/Inbox.” We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).

LINKS

David Rolnick is one of the lead authors of this paper, called “Climate Change and AI: Recommendations for government action.”

Check out ChatNetZero, an AI climate chatbot that gives you references when it answers your questions. 

A University of Washington researcher estimates the energy usage of ChatGPT (UW News)

After a Greenpeace report outlined how tech giants have worked with the fossil fuel industry, Google said it would no longer make AI tools to “facilitate upstream extraction” for oil and gas firms. (CNBC)

The Climate Summit Embraces A.I., With Reservations (New York Times)

COP28 president says there is ‘no science’ behind demands for phase-out of fossil fuels (The Guardian)

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported, produced and mixed by Taylor Quimby

Edited by Rebecca Lavoie, NHPR’s Director of On-Demand Audio. 

Special thanks to Angel Hsu, and Sajjad Moazeni.

Music by Blue Dot Sessions. 

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

In our long, evolutionary history, modernity is just a blip. The wiring of our brains took place over hundreds of thousands of years of hunting and gathering food out in the wilderness, and nothing proves that more vividly than the practice of mushroom hunting. It’s incredibly addictive, even to those who know all too well the associated dangers.

The story of Michael Proudfoot is everywhere, and the details are always more or less the same: a SCUBA diver exploring a shipwreck breaks his regulator, and surfaces in an air pocket deep in the belly of the ship. He finds a tea-kettle full of fresh water, and eats sea urchins to survive. But as producers of the Outside Podcast, Robbie Carver and Peter Frick-Wright, dig deeper and deeper into the tale, it becomes harder and harder to tell what's real and what isn't. 

From the perspective of Western science, plants have long been considered unaware, passive life forms; essentially, rocks that happen to grow. 

But there’s something in the air in the world of plant science. New research suggests that plants are aware of the world around them to a far greater extent than previously understood. Plants may be able to sense acoustics, communicate with each other, and make choices… all this without a brain.

These findings are fueling a debate, perhaps even a scientific revolution, which challenges our fundamental definitions of life, intelligence, and consciousness.

Featuring Zoë Schlanger.

SUPPORT

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LINKS

Zoë Schlanger’s book is called The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth. 

“Everything Will Be Vine” is a great podcast episode from Future Ecologies featuring Zoë’s journey into the Chilean rainforest, where researchers are mystified by a once-overlooked vine. 

Jagadish Chandra Bose was an Indian scientist who challenged the Western view of plants in the early 20th century. He studied electrical signaling in plants and argued that plants use language. Read about his life and work in Orion.

This is the now famous study by David Rhoades. Rhoades was derided for his “talking trees” theory, and only was proved correct after his death. Here’s an audio story which goes deeper on Rhoades.

Lilach Hadany, the scientist who likened a field of flowers to a “field of ears,” also recently found that plants produce sounds when stressed.

The study which found that plants respond to the sound of caterpillars chewing, a collaboration between Rex Cocroft and Heidi Appel.

The organization of the octopus nervous system is fascinating.

CREDITS

Outside/In host: Nate Hegyi

Reported, produced, and mixed by Justine Paradis.

Edited by Taylor Quimby

Our team also includes Felix Poon and Marina Henke.

NHPR’s Director of Podcasts is Rebecca Lavoie

Special thanks to Rex Cocroft for sharing the recordings of leafhopper mating calls and chewing caterpillars.  

Music by Mochas, Hanna Lindgren, Alec Slayne, Sarah the Illstrumentalist, Brendan Moeller, Nul Tiel Records, Blue Dot Sessions, and Chris Zabriskie.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.

Appalachia is Bigfoot territory. In a big way. This week, we look at the mythical beast's legend, lore and sizable economic impact in the region. And we follow one reporter’s journey through the mountains and foothills of western North Carolina in search of Sasquatch.

This episode comes to us from the wonderful folks at The Broadside from North Carolina Public Radio, a weekly podcast exploring stories happening in their home at the crossroads of the American South. Other topics include how the world ‘y’all’ is taking over the world, the impact of dangerous heat on workers, and why cola became the king of beverages.

Featuring Emily Cataneo and Jerry Millwood.

SUPPORT

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Subscribe to our (free) newsletter.

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LINKS

Check out Emily Cataneo’s story on Appalachian Bigfoot culture at The Assembly here.

CREDITS

Outside/In host: Nate Hegyi

Outside/In team: Justine Paradis, Felix Poon, Marina Henke, and Kate Dario.

Executive Producer: Taylor Quimby 

Intro music by bomull. 

NHPR’s Director of Podcasts is Rebecca Lavoie

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.

In Australia, conventional conservation wisdom has stated that in order to save the small indigenous mammals, it's necessary to kill invasive predators. But is it?  Today on the show, we follow environmental writer Emma Marris as she explores the concept, and possible limits, of compassionate conservationism.

Also, are you noticing that we're in your feed a little early? That's because this month, we're asking for you to pitch in and support the podcast with a donation, and because we know that's kind of annoying, we want to give you something a little extra as thanks. So for the month of April, instead of just 2 episodes, we're going to give you four.

Not only that we're giving away swag! We've lined up a bunch of nifty thank you gifts, which you can peruse at outsideinradio.org

So, if you want to send a little love our way click here to donate to our Outside/In Fund Drive, and get a limited edition O/I button (among other cool stuff)!

Textiles are all around us. We live in them, sleep on them, sit on them, walk on them, live in houses filled with them. It’s one of the biggest industries in the world. But it’s also one with a big problem and, at least for consumers in the United States, a largely invisible one - textile waste. Today, we’re tearing the very shirt off your back to explore the old is new approach to textiles that could eliminate millions of tons of garbage a year.

Find more Outside/In

A few weeks ago our host, Nate Hegyi, was on the edge of a very high cliff in Utah’s Zion National Park when he heard a little voice inside his head whisper… “jump.”  

He didn’t heed the call, thankfully, and when he got down safely he discovered that more than a third of all people might feel this urge, ominously known as “the call of the void.” 

Most of us can wave off these impulses. But what if you couldn’t? What if the call of the void was so intense that you almost acted? Is there a cure? 

This episode contains a contextual reference to suicidal ideation. If you or someone you know is struggling with depression, anxiety, or just needs someone to talk to, reach out to the folks at the Crisis Text Line, a texting service for emotional crisis support. To speak with a trained listener, text HELLO to 741741. It is free, available 24/7, and confidential.

Featuring: Jennifer Hames, Stephen Hunt

ELECTRIC VEHICLE SURVEY

Hey folks – we’re working on some stories about electric vehicles, and we’re looking to hear from you. Are you interested in going electric? Wish there was better charging infrastructure where you are? Or would you prefer sticking with the car/truck you’re used to? 

Tell us what you think about EVs, and help inform our reporting by filling out this survey. It’ll only take a couple minutes, and it really helps us produce the show. Thanks so much!

SUPPORT

Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. 

Subscribe to our FREE newsletter.

Follow Outside/In on Instagram or Twitter, or join our private discussion group on Facebook

LINKS

This 2020 study, in BMC Psychiatry, looks at the prevalence of high place phenomenon and whether it’s connected to suicidal ideation. 

Read Jennifer Hames’ paper in The Journal of Affective Disorders on the “call of the void”: “An urge to jump affirms the urge to live: an empirical examination of the high place phenomenon.”

The Imp of the Perverse, by Edgar Allen Poe

Marconi Union, “Weightless”

Listen to our previous episode “Even Hikers Get The Blues” 

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by: Nate Hegyi.

Mixer: Nate Hegyi and Taylor Quimby

Editing by Taylor Quimby, with help from Justine Paradis, Jessica Hunt, Felix Poon and Rebecca Lavoie.

Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer

Music for this episode by Marconi Union, Sour Mash, Dew of Light, Gavin Luke, and Christopher Moe Ditlevsen.

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

[Editor's Note: This episode first aired in April 2022]

Last year our host, Nate Hegyi, was on the edge of a very high cliff in Utah’s Zion National Park when he heard a little voice inside his head whisper… “jump.”  

He didn’t heed the call, thankfully, and when he got down safely he discovered that more than a third of all people might feel this urge, ominously known as “the call of the void.” 

Most of us can wave off these impulses. But what if you couldn’t? What if the call of the void was so intense that you almost acted? Is there a cure? 

This episode contains a contextual reference to suicidal ideation. If you or someone you know is struggling with depression, anxiety, or just needs someone to talk to, reach out to the folks at the Crisis Text Line, a texting service for emotional crisis support. To speak with a trained listener, text HELLO to 741741. It is free, available 24/7, and confidential.

Featuring: Jennifer Hames, Stephen Hunt

SUPPORT

Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. 

Subscribe to our FREE newsletter.

Follow Outside/In on Instagram or Twitter, or join our private discussion group on Facebook

LINKS

This 2020 study, in BMC Psychiatry, looks at the prevalence of high place phenomenon and whether it’s connected to suicidal ideation. 

Read Jennifer Hames’ paper in The Journal of Affective Disorders on the “call of the void”: “An urge to jump affirms the urge to live: an empirical examination of the high place phenomenon.”

The Imp of the Perverse, by Edgar Allen Poe

Marconi Union, “Weightless”

Listen to our previous episode “Even Hikers Get The Blues” 

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by: Nate Hegyi.

Mixer: Nate Hegyi and Taylor Quimby

Editing by Taylor Quimby, with help from Justine Paradis, Jessica Hunt, Felix Poon and Rebecca Lavoie.

Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer

Music for this episode by Marconi Union, Sour Mash, Dew of Light, Gavin Luke, and Christopher Moe Ditlevsen.

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

Ed Yong’s writing about the pandemic in Atlantic Magazine was read by millions of Americans. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 2021 for his coverage. 

But behind the scenes, he was struggling with burnout, anxiety and depression. 

Host Nate Hegyi sits down with Ed for a conversation about how he decided to step back from pandemic reporting, the benefits (and possible drawbacks) of birdwatching for mental health, and the unexpected club that’s bringing two halves of his life together. 

Featuring Ed Yong.

SUPPORT

Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. 

Follow Outside/In on Instagram or join our private discussion group on Facebook.

LINKS

Ed wrote an eerily predictive story about how America was not prepared for a pandemic in 2018. 

You can find a link to all of Ed’s reporting for Atlantic Magazine here. 

A description of “spoon theory” in Psychology Today.

For more information about the Spoonbill Club, check out Ed’s newsletter. 

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by Nate Hegyi

Mixed by Taylor Quimby, with help from our intern, Catherine Hurley

Editing by Taylor Quimby

Our staff includes Justine Paradise and Felix Poon

Executive producer: Taylor Quimby

Rebecca Lavoie is NHPR’s Director of On-Demand Audio

Music by Blue Dot Sessions

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

Submit a question to the “Outside/Inbox.” We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).

Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica is massive, bigger than the state of Florida. If it collapses, it could reshape every coast on this planet during this century. That’s why it’s sometimes known as “the Doomsday Glacier.”

And yet, until recently, we knew very little about it. Because Thwaites is extremely remote, reachable only by crossing the wildest ocean on the planet, scientists had never observed its calving edge firsthand. 

In 2019, a ground-breaking international mission set out to change that, and writer Elizabeth Rush was on board to document the voyage.  We caught up with her to learn about life on an Antarctic icebreaker, how she grappled with classic Antarctic narratives about exploration (and domination), and how she summons hope even after coming face-to-face with Thwaites.     

Featuring Elizabeth Rush.

SUPPORT

Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member. 

Subscribe to our (free) newsletter.

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LINKS

Our 2022 episode featuring Elizabeth Rush about community responses to sea level rise in Staten Island and Louisiana. If you’re interested in reading more about the journey to Thwaites, check out Elizabeth’s book, “The Quickening: Creation and Community at the Ends of the Earth”.

A paper published in Nature with some of the findings from this voyage, showing that Thwaites has historically retreated two to three times faster than we’ve ever observed. Here’s the one detailing findings about Thwaites’ past extent, extrapolated from their study of ancient penguin bones, and another sharing observations about water currents beneath its ice shelf.

We also recommend “Encounters at the End of the World,” Werner Herzog’s (2007) documentary about science and community in Antarctica.

CREDITS

Outside/In host: Nate Hegyi

Reported, produced, and mixed by Justine Paradis 

Edited by Taylor Quimby

Our team also includes Felix Poon. 

NHPR’s Director of Podcasts is Rebecca Lavoie

Music by Blue Dot Sessions, Nctrnm, Sometimes Why, FLYIN, Silver Maple, Chris Zabriskie, Ooyy, and the Weddell seals of Antarctica.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.

Consider the potato. 

The typical potato is not all that pretty. They can be beige and lumpy, dusty and speckled, and on top of that, they even sprout alien-like tentacles. Further, no one really knows what to make of the potato. Is it a vegetable, or so starchy that we should really consider it a grain? 

It’s time for answers. The Outside/In team ventures into the potato patch and presents three stories on this “fifth most important crop worldwide.” 

Part 1: An artist vaults the humble potato to luxury status.

Part 2: A deliberation on the potato’s true place in the food pyramid – or, that is, on “MyPlate.”

Part 3: When his mom was diagnosed with cancer, producer Felix Poon’s dad found a way to help her: fresh-squeezed potato juice. 

Featuring Laila Gohar, Kristina Peterson, and Paul Poon.

SUPPORT

Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. 

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Subscribe to our newsletter for occasional updates and special announcements.

LINKS

Laila Gohar wrote about her potato party, and the Marie-Antoinette-era rebrand of the potato, in her column for the Financial Times. 

For more details on the French pharmacist who transformed the potato’s image, check out this Atlas Obscura piece.

For a vinegary and vegetable-forward potato salad, Justine recommends this recipe from the great Deb Perelman.

Taylor recommends these vegan Bombay potatoes and peas (this is the closest recipe he could find online to the book recipe he uses at home).

Felix recommends trying Sichuan stir-fried potatoes from an authentic Sichuan Chinese restaurant if you haven’t had it before, and then give this Woks of Life recipe a try.

If you find yourself near the U.S.-Mexico border, Nate recommends you try some carne asada fries. Here’s a good recipe if you want to try them at home. 

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by Nate Hegyi, Justine Paradis, and Felix Poon

Mixed by Nate Hegyi, Justine Paradis, and Felix Poon.

Editing by Executive Producer Taylor Quimby

Rebecca Lavoie is NHPR’s Director of On-Demand Audio

Our intern is Catherine Hurley.

Music by Blue Dot Sessions and Patrick Patrikios.

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio
Submit a question to the “Outside/Inbox.” We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).

Episode art courtesy of Laila Gohar.

Shirtless influencers on TikTok and Instagram have acquired millions of followers promoting the carnivore diet. They say studies linking meat consumption and heart disease are flawed — and plant foods are making people sick. "Western medicine is lying to you," says content-creator Dr. Paul Saladino, who co-owns a company selling desiccated cattle organs.

The online popularity of the carnivore diet is undeniable. Yet, no controlled studies have been published confirming its advertised benefits. 

Our friends at WBUR’s podcast Endless Thread look at how social media cooked up the anti-establishment wellness trend.

SUPPORT

Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. 

Subscribe to our newsletter (it’s free!).

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LINKS

• "Red Shift" (The New Yorker)
• "The 'You’re doing it wrong'-ification of TikTok" (Vox)
• "The Evolution of Diet" (National Geographic)
• "Your Questions About Food and Climate Change, Answered" (New York Times)
• "Against Meatposting" (Heated)
• Endless Thread's unedited interview with Dr. Paul Saladino (WBUR)
•  

CREDITS

Outside/In Host: Nate Hegyi

Outside/In Executive producer: Taylor Quimby

Rebecca Lavoie is NHPR’s Director of On-Demand Audio

This episode of Endless Thread was written and produced by Dean Russell and Ben Brock Johnson. 

Mix and sound design by Emily Jankowski.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

Endless Thread is a production of WBUR in Boston. 

Submit a question to the “Outside/Inbox.” We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).

Forget about beer, or even water; it was hard apple cider that was THE drink of choice in colonial America. Even kids drank it! And since it’s made from apples – the “all-American” fruit – what could be more American than cider?

But apples aren’t native to America. They’re originally from Kazakhstan.

In this episode we look at the immigration story of Malus domestica, the domesticated apple, from its roots in the wild forests of Central Asia, to its current status as an American icon. And we look at how apples and cider were used in some of America’s biggest migrations – from Indigenous tribes who first brought apples west across the continent, to the new immigrants who are using hard cider to bridge cultures and find belonging.  

Featuring Soham Bhatt and Susan Sleeper-Smith.

Special thanks to everyone Felix spoke to at the Cider Days Festival, including Ben Watson, Charlie Olchowski, and Bob Sabolefski.

LINKS

How to Make Hard Cider

George and Ursula Granger: The Erasure of Enslaved Black Cidermakers, by Darlene Hayes.

An Apple Commons: reflections by cidermaker Melissa Maddens on what it means to forage from wild apple orchards – relics of this country’s history of dispossessing Indigenous people of their lands.

SUPPORT

Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. 

Subscribe to our free newsletter.

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Join our private podcast discussion group on Facebook.

CREDITS

Produced and mixed by Felix Poon

Edited by: Taylor Quimby

Executive producer: Rebecca Lavoie

Additional editing: Justine Paradis, Jessica Hunt,  and Rebecca Lavoie

Theme: Breakmaster Cylinder

Additional music by Jharee, Kevin MacLeod  and Blue Dot Sessions.

Move over, beef: there’s a new burger in town. Plant-based meats are sizzling hot right now; in 2020 alone, the alternative meat industry saw a record $3.1 billion in investment, with 112 new plant-based brands launching in supermarkets. These juicy, savory, chewy fake burgers are a far cry from the dry, weird-tasting veggie patties of the past. 

In this episode, Gastropod co-hosts Nicole Twilley and Cynthia Graber visit the Impossible Foods labs to swig some of the animal-free molecule that makes their meatless meat bleed, try fungal food start-up Meati's prototype "chicken" cutlet, and speak to the scientists and historians who compare these new fake meats to their predecessors—and to real meat! 

Can a plant-based sausage roll be considered kosher or halal? Are plant-based meats actually better for you and for the environment? And how might a mysterious protein-powerhouse fungus named Rosita help feed the world?

This episode was reported and produced by our friends at Gastropod.

Featuring Aymann Ismail, Celeste Holz-Schietinger, Malte Rödl, Tyler Huggins, and Raychel Santo.

SUPPORT

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LINKS

Read Aymann Ismail’s piece on the debates surrounding plant-based pig substitutes in Muslim communities here. 

Celeste Holz-Schietinger, the VP of Product Innovation at Impossible Foods, featured in Fast Company as one of the most creative people in business in 2020. 

Malte Rödl is a researcher in environmental communications at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. His PhD thesis is titled “Categorising Meat Alternatives: how dominant meat culture is reproduced and challenged through the making and eating of meat alternatives.”

Tyler Huggin’s company, Meati, which he started after “auditioning” thousands of fungus species and finally a protein powerhouse he and his team nicknamed “Rosita.”

Raychel Santo studies how plant-based meats measure up against animal meats in terms of both nutritional and environmental impacts. Read the full paper she and her colleagues wrote here.

CREDITS

Gastropod co-hosts: Nicola Twilley and Cynthia Graber 
Produced by Sonja Cho Swanson
Outside/In team: Justine Paradis, Taylor Quimby, Felix Poon, and Jessica Hunt
Executive producer: Rebecca Lavoie
Theme: Breakmaster Cylinder
Additional music by Ludwigs Steirische Gaudi and Jackson F. Smith 

At Outside/In, we often talk about the challenge of covering climate in a way that doesn’t leave us feeling hopeless or overwhelmed. For us, that’s often meant staying curious and keeping a sense of humor. 

But a few years ago, investigative journalist Amy Westervelt had another idea. Why not use one of podcasting’s most popular genres—true crime—to tell the story of climate change? 

From greenwashing to climate denialism and corporate propaganda, Drilled makes accountability journalism a thrill to listen to, while consistently being one of the most informative sources for in-depth climate news.

So today, we’re featuring the first episode of their latest three-part series: “Herb.” This is the story of Herb Schmertz, the political strategist-turned-oil-man who popularized corporate personhood, and how it's become one of the biggest problems facing climate action today. 

Featuring Robert Kerr and Robert Bruhl

Read the episode transcript.

SUPPORT

Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. 

Subscribe to our newsletter (it’s free!).

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Submit a question to the “Outside/Inbox.” We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).

CREDITS

This episode of Drilled was written and reported by Amy Westervelt. 

It was produced and sound designed by Martin Zaltz Ostwick. 

Sound engineer: Peter Doff 

Additional reporting by Julia Manepela

Fact checking: Wudan Yan

Outside/In is hosted by Nate Hegyi. The team also includes Tayor Quimby, Justine Paradis, Felix Poon, and Jeongyoon Han. 

Outside/In’s executive producer is Rebecca Lavoie

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

What’s the slowest heartbeat on the planet? What’s it like to live with zero sunlight? 

If you’ve ever picked up a copy of the Guinness Book of World Records, you know that people are drawn to extremes, be they geographical, philosophical, or biological. 

So this week, we’re cracking open the Outside/Inbox to answer your questions about the outer limits of life on Earth. We’ll learn about how landslides are way more common than you might think, why frogs are practically undead, and how researchers stay motivated through an Antarctic winter. 

Submit your own question (the weirder the better) on Instagram, via email at outsidein@nhpr.org, or by calling our Outside/Inbox hotline: 1-844-GO-OTTER. 

Question 1: How low can an animal’s heartbeat go? 

Question 2: What happens to your body if you get ZERO sunlight?

Question 3: Is climate change making landslides happen more often? 

Question 4: What is a “wet-bulb” temperature? 

Featuring: Carmen Possnig, Kira Mauseth, Corina Cerovski-Darriau, Daniel Vecellio, and Avikal Somvanshi.

Donate to support the show, and get your hands on a limited edition Outside/In opossum camp mug! Here's the link: https://bit.ly/3PvIzWy

SUPPORT

Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. 

Subscribe to our FREE newsletter.

Follow Outside/In on Instagram or Twitter, or join our private discussion group on Facebook

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported, produced, and mixed by Taylor Quimby, Justine Paradis, Jessica Hunt, and Felix Poon

Editing by Taylor Quimby with help from Justine Paradis

Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer

Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

Planting a tree often becomes almost a shorthand for doing a good deed. But such an act is not always neutral. In some places, certain trees can become windows into history, tools of erasure, or symbols of resistance.

This episode originally aired in October of 2020. 

Featuring: Liat Berdugo, Irus Braverman, Jonathan Kuttab, Noga Kadman, Iyad Hadad, Raja Shehadeh, Rabbi Arik Ascherman, Miri Maoz-Ovadia, and Nidal Waleed Rabie and his granddaughter Samera.

SUPPORT

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LINKS & BIBLIOGRAPHY

Berdugo, Liat. “A Situation: A Tree in Palestine.”Places Journal. January 2020. 
Braverman, Irus. Planted Flags: Trees, Land, and Law in Israel Palestine. Cambridge University Press: 2009.
Kadman, Noga. Erased from Space and Consciousness: Israel and the Depopulated Palestinian Villages of 1948. Indiana University Press: 2015.
Long, Joanna. “(En)planting Israel: Jewish national fund forestry and the naturalisation of Zionism.” University of British Columbia: 2005.
”Our History.” Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael Jewish National Fund. Accessed 8 October 2020.
Pappe, Ilan. The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. One World Oxford: 2006.
Shehadeh, Raja. Palestinian Walks: Forays into a Vanishing Landscape. Scribner: 2007.
Tal, Alon. Pollution in a Promised Land: An Environmental History of Israel. University of California Press: 2002.

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by: Justine Paradis

Mixer: Justine Paradis

Editing by Taylor Quimby, Sam Evans-Brown, and Erika Janik

Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer

Music for this episode by Blue Dot Sessions. 

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Special thanks to Yehoshua Shkedy, Amit Gilutz, Eliana Passentin, and Vered Ben Saadon. Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

Become a sustaining member today. For $5 a month, we'll send you an Outside/In baseball cap. The first 250 people to donate during our fall fund drive will also receive a "ginkgo love" sticker.  Support Outside/In today!

Earlier this year, our host Nate Hegyi picked a fight with Ryan Zinke. 

Zinke is the former Interior Secretary under Trump – the guy who rode into office on horseback.  In the midst of an awful few days in June, when Canadian wildfire smoke blanketed the entire east coast, Zinke took to Twitter and argued that the solution was “active forest management.” 

Nate assumed that was a political code word for more logging, something Republicans have been pushing for years. But instead of firing back, he decided to fact-check his assumptions and study up. Why are Canadian wildfires getting so intense? Is it possible to stop the smoke by logging the boreal forest? And what would Teddy Roosevelt have to say about this?!

Featuring Phil Higuera, John Vaillant, Ryan Zinke, and Courtney Shultz.

SUPPORT

Outside/In is made possible with listener support.   Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. 

Subscribe to our newsletter (it’s free!).

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Submit a question to the “Outside/Inbox.” We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).

LINKS

Check out our episode about prescribed burns (10X10: Pine Barrens).

The NPS has a good overview of how indigenous fire practices shaped North America.

“As Canada reels from wildfire, First Nations hope for larger role” (Al Jazeera)

CREDITS

Hosted, reported and produced by Nate Hegyi

Edited by Taylor Quimby and Rebecca Lavoie

Our team also includes Justine Paradis, Jeongyoon Han, and Felix Poon. 

Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer

Music by Blue Dot Sessions

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

What has Donald Trump claimed he would do when it comes to environmental policy in the U.S.? What happened during his last administration?  And what are the limits on executive powers when it comes to treaties and global agreements?

Just days before Trump’s inauguration, this episode comes to us from our friends over at Civics 101. 

Featuring Elizabeth Bomberg.

This episode was produced by Hannah McCarthy with help from Nick Capodice and Marina Henke. For a transcript and full list of credits, go to outsideinradio.org. 

LINKS

Check out Nate’s episode on Biden’s climate legacy  — “Is Biden a Good Climate President?” 

SUPPORT

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Humans have had an impressive run thus far; we’ve explored most of the planet (the parts that aren’t underwater anyway), landed on the moon, created art and music, and some pretty entertaining Tik Toks. 

But we’ve survived on the planet for just a fraction of the time horseshoe crabs and alligators have. And we’re vastly outnumbered by many species of bacteria and insects. 

So what is the most successful species on Earth? And how do you measure that, anyway? 

From longevity, to happiness, to sheer numbers, we put a handful of different organisms under the microscope in hopes of better understanding what exactly it means to succeed at life on a collective and individual scale.   

Featuring: Stephen Giovannoni, Rashidah Farid, and Steward Pickett

SUPPORT

Check out Stephen Giovannoni’s paper: “SAR11 Bacteria: The Most Abundant Plankton in the Oceans”

An interesting treatise on adaptability: “Why crocodiles still look the same as they did 200 million years ago”

From the NSF: “The most common organism in the oceans harbors a virus in its DNA”

More food for thought: “The non-human living inside you"

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by: Taylor Quimby

Editing by: Nate Hegyi, Rebecca Lavoie

Additional editing help from Justine Paradis, Felix Poon, and Jessica Hunt. 

Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer

Special thanks to everybody who answered our question at the top of the show: Josemar Ochoa, m Carey Grant, Butter Wilson, Tim Blagden, Robert Baker, Sheila Rydel, and Bob Beaulac.

Music for this episode by Blue Dot Sessions, and Jules Gaia

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

The Ask Sam hotline has been blowing up lately! Not like the Galaxy 7, no. In a good way! So Sam, along with a couple of producers from the Outside/In team, took a moment to answer your questions about tree killing, grass eating and the sound in the woods that scared the colonists away. And that's just to name a few. Somebody even gets a trail name out of this one.

The Bicknell's Thrush is a bird that can only live in a few very very restricted places. It spends its summers in dense alpine forests in the Northeast of the US. In the winter, perhaps as many as 90 percent of the birds fly to the Dominican Republic. It's a bird without many options, and that makes it a poster child for what's to come. 

This is part one of our series about how a company, with all of the force of a colonial culture behind it, tried to use its power to push original occupants—its indigenous people—to one side. It’s also the story of how that effort led to something that has become its own kind of revolution in Canada: native people pushing to regain power over their own lives and culture. And it’s a story about the environmental benefits and human costs of clean energy.

The Crees of Quebec signed a landmark agreement with their province and country. The Pessamit Innus now look to that playbook for help in their present-day fight against the provincial utility, but is it too late? On episode two of Powerline, we bring you the story of how one indigenous community got a seat at the table... and how another still struggles to be heard.

When Nora Saks learned that a "toxic, self-cloning worm that poops out of its mouth was invading Maine", she started sounding the alarm about the impending eco-doom. Until, that is, state experts clued her into the "real threat"; a different creepy crawly wriggling towards The Pine Tree State's gardens and precious forests, and fast.

In an attempt to find out more about this real threat, Ben Brock Johnson and Nora tunnel down a wormhole, encountering a long history of xenophobic rhetoric about so-called invasive species, and some hard truths about the field of invasion biology itself. 

This week we’re featuring a story from our friend at WBUR’s Endless Thread, a podcast that digs into the internet's vast and curious ecosystem of online communities to find untold histories, unsolved mysteries, and other jaw-dropping stories online and IRL.

Featuring: Banu Subramaniam, Dov Sax, Bob McNally,  Gary Fish, and Regina Smith

SUPPORT

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LINKS

Endless Thread (WBUR)

"A toxic, self-cloning worm that poops out of its mouth is invading Maine" (Bangor Daily News)

Reddit post on r/oddlyterrifying about hammerhead worms

lindsaynikole's viral TikTok video on hammerhead worms

"The Aliens Have Landed! Reflections on the Rhetoric of Biological Invasions",  Banu Subramaniam

The Sax Research Lab at Brown University

Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry fact sheet on jumping worms

"Identify and Report Jumping Worms in Maine", UMaine Cooperative Forestry Research Unit informational video

Cornell University fact sheet on Asian Jumping Worms

UMass Extension Invasive Jumping Worm FAQ

"Cancel Earthworms" (The Atlantic)

"Invasive 'Jumping Worms' Threaten Trees in Maine and Elsewhere"  (NECN)

"Scientists Sound The Alarm About Invasive 'Crazy Worms' Found in Maine" (Maine Public)

"Maine Gardener: Invasion of the jumping worms" (Portland Press Herald)

CREDITS

This episode was produced by Nora Saks and Dean Russell of WBUR’s Endless Thread

Co-hosts: Nora Saks and Ben Brock Johnson. 

Mix and sound design: Matt Reed

Endless Thread’s team includes Amory Sivertson, Dean Russell, Quincy Walters, Grace Tatter, 

Amy Gorel, Paul Vaitkus, and Emily Jankowski

Outside/In is hosted by Nate Hegyi, and produced by Taylor Quimby, Justine Paradis, Felix Poon, and Jessica Hunt. 

In 1994, the world’s first oat milk company was born in Sweden. Three decades later, Oatly is on a high-stakes mission to defeat the dairy industry by becoming the biggest plant-based brand the world has ever seen. 

So…can a start-up from Malmö save us all through capitalism? And how much damage is our affection for dairy doing to the planet? This week, we’re featuring the first of a three-part series from the wonderful folks over at The Europeans podcast. 

SUPPORT

Listen to the rest of The Europeans series on Oatly here. 

Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. 

Subscribe to our newsletter (it’s free!).

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Submit a question to the “Outside/Inbox.” We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).

CREDITS

This episode was reported, written and produced by Katz Laszlo. 

It was edited by Katy Lee and Justine Paradis, with editorial support from Margot Gibbs, Dominic Kraemer and Wojciech Oleksiak.

Mastering, scoring and sound design by Wojciech. 

Artwork by RTiiiKA.

Outside/In’s staff includes Nate Hegyi, Taylor Quimby, Justine Paradis, and Felix Poon.

A century ago, coastal dunes threatened to overwhelm the city of Florence, Oregon. The sand swallowed roads, highways, and houses. When “Dune” author Frank Herbert visited the area in 1957, he was stunned by the awesome power of the sand. Eventually, it inspired his fictional desert planet, Arrakis.

But now, the dunes that inspired “Dune” are disappearing. 

To solve the sand problem, the US Forest Service planted dunes with non-native beachgrass, hoping its strong roots would keep the dunes in place. The strategy worked… too well. The grass spread, out-competing native species and transforming the dunes. At one popular spot, roughly 60% of what was once open sand is now gone.

Producer Justine Paradis traveled to the Oregon Coast to see the mountains of sand which inspired a sci-fi classic, and meet the people working to save them.

Featuring Dina Pavlis, Patty Whereat Phillips, and Jesse Beers.

SUPPORT

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LINKS

These aerial photos demonstrate the dramatic changes in the Oregon dunes since 1941.

Dina Pavlis’ Secrets of the Oregon Dunes Facebook page

The Oregon dunes are the setting of an episode of “Lassie” (1964), in which a little girl gets lost in a sand storm. New hires at the Forest Service in Florence are shown this film during orientation.

The Siuslaw Public Library in Florence is home to the eclectic Frank Herbert collection, as reported by Oregon Public Broadcasting. These are books donated by Herbert’s daughter which he was reading at the time he wrote ‘Dune,’ and are available to the public. Fans make the pilgrimage to browse the collection, which includes titles on the desert, politics in the Middle East, computation, Scottish folk singing, rug hooking, and much more.

Frank Herbert originally visited Florence to research a proposed magazine article on the Forest Service’s dune, as reported on the Siuslaw News. His (unsuccessful) proposal, “They Stopped the Moving Sands,” can be read in “The Road to Dune.”

An episode of Endless Thread about the time a six-year-old boy fell into a tree hole (he’s fine now) in Michigan City, Indiana.

CREDITS

Outside/In host: Nate Hegyi

Reported, produced, and mixed by Justine Paradis 

Edited by Taylor Quimby and Katie Colaneri

Our team also includes Felix Poon. 

NHPR’s Director of Podcasts is Rebecca Lavoie

Special thanks to Meg Spencer, Kegen Benson, Armand Rebischke, and Kevin Mittge. 

Music by Sarah the Illstrumentalist, Elm Lake, Chris Zabriskie, and Blue Dot Sessions.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.

GPS is essential these days. We use it for everything – from a hunter figuring out where the heck they are in the backcountry, to a delivery truck finding a grocery store, to keeping clocks in sync.

But our reliance on GPS may also be changing our brains. Old school navigation strengthens the hippocampus, and multiple studies suggest that our new reliance on satellite navigation may put us at higher risk for diseases like dementia. 

In this episode, we map out how GPS took over our world – from Sputnik’s doppler effect, to the airplane crash that led to its widespread adoption – and share everyday stories of getting lost and found again. 

Featuring: Dana Goward, M.R. O’Connor, Christina Phillips, Michelle Liu, Julia Furukawa, and Taylor Quimby

SUPPORT

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LINKS

In 2023, Google Maps rerouted dozens of drivers in Los Angeles down a dirt road to the middle of nowhere to avoid a dust storm. 

Maura O’Connor traveled from rural Alaska to the Australian bush to better understand how people navigate without GPS – and sometimes even maps. 

Here’s the peer-reviewed study, published in the journal Nature, that found that young people who relied on GPS for daily driving had poorer spatial memories. 

Another study, out of Japan, found that people who use smartphone apps like Google Maps to get around had a tougher time retracing their steps or remembering how they got to a place compared to people who use paper maps or landmarks. 

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by Nate Hegyi

Edited by Taylor Quimby and Katie Colaneri 

Our team includes Marina Henke, Justine Paradis, and Felix Poon

Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer

Music for this episode by Blue Dot Sessions

Outside/In  is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

It’s time again for our listener mail roundup, and this week, the theme is bugs, bugs, and more bugs. We discover what’s happening inside the chrysalis of a monarch butterfly, find out why fruit flies seem to spontaneously generate from over-ripe fruit, and ask if meat-eaters really are sweeter to mosquitoes. Plus, a cautionary tale about leaving the window screens open. 

1. What happens inside a chrysalis during metamorphosis?
2. How does bioluminescence work?
3. Are mosquitoes good for anything?

Featuring Karen Oberhauser, Deidre Gibson, and Lyric Bartholomay.

SUPPORT

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LINKS

Learn more about our mosquito expert, Lyric Bartholomay, in this video about her and her work.

This National Geographic article has a good overview of bioluminescence, plus some great photos.

Consumer Reports details how it tests bug spray and lists some high-performing products.

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported, produced, and mixed by Taylor Quimby, Justine Paradis, and Felix Poon.

Executive producer: Rebecca Lavoie

Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

Submit a question to the “Outside/Inbox.” We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).

In the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York, dozens of strangers gathered together in the woods for three straight days. Their mission? Teach people of color how to kill, gut, and butcher a deer for the first time.

Producer Felix Poon was there as a first-time hunter. He wanted to know: what does it feel like to take an animal's life to sustain your own? Given the opportunity… would he pull the trigger?

In this episode we follow Felix out of his depth and into the woods, to find out if one weekend can convert a longtime city-dweller into a dedicated deer hunter.

Featuring Dorothy Ren, Brandon Dale, and Brant MacDuff.

SUPPORT

Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. 

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LINKS

Lydia Parker, executive director of Hunters of Color, discusses how to make the outdoors more equitable. (The Nature Conservancy)

Melissa Harris-Perry talks to Brandon Dale, the New York ambassador for the Hunters of Color organization, on WNYC’s The Takeaway.

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported, produced, and mixed by Felix Poon

Edited by Taylor Quimby, with help from Rebecca Lavoie.

Our staff also includes Justine Paradis

Taylor Quimby is our Executive Producer

Rebecca Lavoie is NHPR’s Director of On-Demand Audio.

Music for this episode by Blue Dot Sessions, Hanna Lindgren, and Walt Adams.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

Submit a question to the “Outside/Inbox.” We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).

Editor's Note: This episode first aired in July, 2023

With 'Oppenheimer,' director Christopher Nolan turned the Manhattan Project into an Academy-Award-winning blockbuster. The film is set in Los Alamos, where the first atomic bomb was tested. But few people know the history of Carrizozo, a rural farming area downwind of the test.

Radioactive fallout from the bomb settled on everything: the soil, gardens, and drinking water. Cow’s milk became radioactive. Later, hundreds of people developed radiogenic cancers. 

The people of Carrizozo were among the first people in the world exposed to a nuclear blast. More than 75 years later, their families are still fighting for medical compensation from the federal government.

Host Nate Hegyi traveled to New Mexico to visit the Trinity Site, and to hear the stories of so-called ‘downwinders.'

Featuring: Paul Pino, Tina Cordova, Ben Ray Lujan

SUPPORT

Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. 

Subscribe to our newsletter (it’s free!).

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Submit a question to the “Outside/Inbox.” We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).

LINKS

Read more about RECA (the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act) which passed in the U.S. Senate this March.  (Idaho Capital Sun)

The federal government has produced a few studies on the fallout from Trinity. This one from Los Alamos found that there was still contamination in the area in 1985. 

Another, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, produced one of the most in-depth histories of the fallout from Trinity and the government’s reaction.

The National Cancer Institute found that hundreds of people likely developed cancer because of the fallout. 

The history of Trinity is full of strange little details, like the desert toads that were croaking all night. 

You can find affidavits and first-hand accounts of the fallout from Trinity at the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium website. 

This review by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists explains why it’s so hard to determine a definitive death toll for the USI bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during WWII. 

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by Nate Hegyi

Edited by Taylor Quimby

Editing help from Rebecca Lavoie, Justine Paradis, Felix Poon, and Jeongyoon Han

Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer

Music for this episode by Blue Dot Sessions

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

It’s high time to shine a light on an under-appreciated nocturnal visitor to America’s backyards and garbage cans: the opossum.

The opossum is the only marsupial in North America, and they’ve been snuffling around since before the dinosaurs died. It faints at the slightest threat, yet can be struck by a venomous snake and, unfazed, turn right around and eat it. 

Also, they have two vaginas, and an extra pseudo-vagina. What more do you need? The opossum’s superpower is its reproductive system, and the thing that’s really going to make you say “holy scat!” is what’s going on in that pouch. 

So…what’s it going to take to get some respect for the opossum?

Featuring: Jessica Anderson, Joseph Bruchac, Danielle Draback, and Frannie Greenberg 

Support Outside/In before February 5th, and your gift will be matched dollar-for-dollar! Donate $8 per month, and we’ll send you a pair of NH-made Merino wool socks from Minus33. 

For many, wild horses are a symbol of freedom, strength, and the American West. But to some they’re a symbol of colonialism and an ecological nuisance. 

Host Nate Hegyi visits a rancher on the Blackfeet Reservation, where free-ranging horses have become more plentiful than deer. They’re outcompeting cattle for forage and putting livelihoods at risk. One potential solution? Slaughter.

In this episode, we dive deep into the history of eating horses – or not eating horses – and find out why this symbol of the American West is more divisive than you probably realized. 

Featuring: Craig Iron Pipe, Tolani Francisco, Susanna Forrest

LINKS

Susanna Forrest has written all about the relationship between humans and horses – from riding them to eating them. 

The Virginia Range wild horse herd has seen a substantial drop in population because of a fertility control campaign financed by a wild horse advocacy group. 

There’s some great research from the University of New Mexico that shows how the domesticated horse made its way north from tribe to tribe in the 1500s. 

You can learn all about how folks can adopt wild horses from the federal government here. 

SUPPORT

Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. 

Subscribe to our newsletter (it’s free!).

Follow Outside/In on Instagram or join our private discussion group on Facebook.

Submit a question to the “Outside/Inbox.” We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported, produced, and mixed by Nate Hegyi

Edited by Taylor Quimby

The Outside/In team includes Felix Poon and Justine Paradise. 

Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer

Music for this episode by Blue Dot Sessions

Outside/In  is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

The Underdogs Ep1: Honey and vinegar

Outside/In host Nate Hegyi gets a surprising tip that leads him into the frozen and tight-knit world of competitive sled dog racing in Alaska.

More about Outside/In presents The Underdogs: 

A few months ago, Outside/In host Nate Hegyi got a tip from the highest levels of the dog sledding community. It was about the first team from New Zealand to complete the Iditarod, a 1,000-mile race across some of Alaska’s harshest terrain. Over the past decade, Curt and Fleur Perano have transformed their success on the trail into a flourishing mushing tourism business in their home country’s south island. Some of their dogs have even appeared in a Marvel movie and a Taylor Swift music video. 

But behind the scenes, in the usually-guarded world of competitive dog sledding, the Peranos have burned bridges, destroyed friendships, and left a trail of debt totaling tens of thousands of dollars. 

In this special Outside/In mini-series, Nate investigates a story one musher describes as “one dead body away from Tiger King,” and exposes the singular culture within the world of elite mushing.

Featuring: Jodi Bailey, Austin Sorem, Dan Kaduce, Jamie Nelson, and Marine Kuhn.
 

SUPPORT

Outside/In presents The Underdogs is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. 

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LINKS

Check out the results from the 2023 Iditarod

Read the actual Iditarod rule (Rule 34) that states wild game animals killed in self-defense must be gutted and reported to a race official at the next checkpoint. 

To learn more about the physiology of Alaskan huskies, check out this TEDx talk from Michael Davis: “Canines in Combat and Competition”

Read a review of Blair Braverman’s memoir, “Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube”. 

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by Nate Hegyi

Edited and mixed by Taylor Quimby

Editing help from Rebecca Lavoie, Jack Rodolico, Justine Paradis, Felix Poon, and Jessica Hunt

Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer

Music for this episode by Blue Dot Sessions, Dylan Sitts, Rand Aldo, and Amaranth Cove. 

Outside/In presents The Underdogs is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

For more than two hundred years Americans have tried to tame the Mississippi River. And, for that entire time, the river has fought back. 

Journalist and author Boyce Upholt has spent dozens of nights camping along the Lower Mississippi and knows the river for what it is: both a water-moving machine and a supremely wild place. His recent book, “The Great River: The Making and Unmaking of the Mississippi River” tells the story of how engineers have made the Mississippi into one of the most engineered waterways in the world, and in turn have transformed it into a bit of a cyborg — half mechanical, half natural. 

In this episode, host Nate Hegyi and Upholt take us from the flood ravaged town of Greenville, Mississippi, to the small office of a group of army engineers, in a tale of faulty science, big egos and a river that will ultimately do what it wants. 

Featuring Boyce Upholt.

SUPPORT

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LINKS

You can find Boyce’s new book The Great River, at your local bookstore or online. 

The 2018 study which attributed increased engineering of the Mississippi as a greater influence to worsening floods on the river than climate change. 

Check out Harold Fisk's 1944 now famous maps of a meandering and ever-changing Mississippi watershed.

The Mississippi Department of Archives & History has a remarkable collection of digitized photos from the 1927 flood.

To get a sense of the type of work being done on the Mississippi in modern day, a US Army Corps of Engineers video detailing concrete revetment on the Lower Mississippi. 

Curious about recent controversy on the Mississippi? Read up on the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion – a $3 billion coastal restoration project that will divert portions of the Mississippi’s flow in hopes of rebuilding lost land via sediment deposition.
 

CREDITS

Our host is Nate Hegyi.

Written and mixed by Marina Henke.

Editing by Taylor Quimby and Nate Hegyi. 

Our staff also includes Felix Poon and Justine Paradis. Our executive producer is Taylor Quimby. Rebecca Lavoie is NHPR’s Director of On-Demand Audio.

Music in this episode from Blue Dot Sessions, Martin Landstrom, and Chris Zabriskie. Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

Submit a question to the “Outside/Inbox.” We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).

Right now, we’re investing billions of dollars into charging infrastructure in order to speed up the transition to electric cars and decarbonize transportation. 

But there are all sorts of problems that EVs won’t solve: bumper-to-bumper traffic, extractive metal mining, and car collisions that kill tens of thousands of drivers, passengers, cyclists, and pedestrians every year in the US. 

That’s why transit activists say we need to rethink the way we get around. Because learning to drive less isn’t just about safer streets and better quality of life – it’s also key to winning the race to net zero. 

Featuring: Effie Kong, Jascha Franklin-Hodge, LaShea Johnson, Alex Hudson, Edwin Lindo, Thea Riofrancos.

SUPPORT

Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. 

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LINKS

Read more about Boston’s 3-year plan to expand the city’s biking infrastructure, make crosswalks safer for pedestrians, and offer biking classes to women and gender-diverse adults.

The Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) is in the middle of getting feedback on the Seattle Transportation Plan on how to build a safer and more efficient transportation system.

Read about Cul De Sac Tempe, a new car-free community in Arizona, where residents are contractually forbidden from parking within a quarter-mile radius of the site. (Bloomberg)

According to studies in Cambridge, MA and Toronto, Canada, bike lanes have a neutral or even positive impact on local businesses, even if some parking spaces are taken away.

A paper in the journal Energy Research & Social Science describes the EV transition  as “a wolf in sheep’s clothing” and argues that private vehicle electrification is neither effective, nor equitable.

This LA Times Op-ed argues that switching  to electric cars isn’t enough to solve climate change.

Studies say pedestrians and bikers are more likely to be hit by EVs and cause more damage because they’re quieter and heavier than gas cars.

Archival audio in this episode come from the 1953 film The American Road funded by Ford Motor Company, and Futurama at the 1939 NY World’s Fair.

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by Felix Poon

Mixed by Felix Poon and Taylor Quimby

Edited by Taylor Quimby

Editing help from Rebecca lavoie, Justine Paradis, Jessica Hunt, and Mara Haplamazian

Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer

Music for this episode by Blue Dot Sessions, and Roy Edwin Williams

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

A magician spins a black top hat to show their audience it’s empty. Then, with the wave of a wand and a few magic words, PRESTO: a snow white rabbit pokes its ears over the brim. 

Compared to sawing a person in half, pulling a rabbit out of a hat is a joyful bit of magic that entertainers have been doing for more than 200 years. But after the applause dies down, one is left wondering: where did the rabbit come from? And where did it go? 

Today, in honor of the Easter Bunny (who doesn’t actually appear in this episode), we’re pulling a handful of rabbit stories out of our proverbial hat. But be warned: these are dark tales of disappearing pets, occult eugenicists, and animal sacrifice. The secrets behind some magic tricks are more shocking than others. 

Featuring Nicole Cardoza, Gwyne Henke, Suzanne Loui, Sally Master, Ana DiMaria, Tanya Singer, and Meg Crane. 

Produced by Nate Hegyi, Marina Henke, Kate Dario, and Justine Paradis. For full credits, photos, and transcript, visit outsideinradio.org.

SUPPORT

To share your questions and feedback with Outside/In, call the show’s hotline and leave us a voicemail. The number is 1-844-GO-OTTER. No question is too serious or too silly.

Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. 

Follow Outside/In on Instagram or join our private discussion group on Facebook.

LINKS

Join us for NHPR’s 3rd Annual Climate Summit! The theme is “Healthy Connections,” and we’ve got a great lineup of speakers and breakout sessions PLUS a trivia night. And the best part? It’s all FREE. Learn more and register here. 

Check out this video of magician and storyteller Nicole Cardoza performing for a group in Chicago in 2024. 

You can check out Gwyne Henke’s childhood rabbit poetry on our website. 

Tanya Singer reported on the history of Project Angora for Tablet. You can also learn more about Helena Weinrauch and her blue sweater here. 

Read more about the history of pregnancy testing in this paper on Egyptian grain method, rabbit tests, and more, and in A Woman’s Right to Know by Jesse Olszynko-Gryn, available as a free ebook from MIT Press.

The story of Meg Crane’s Predictor test can also be found in the excellent Designing Motherhood, a book and exhibit on human reproduction through the lens of design.

Pagan Kennedy’s New York Times article, which prompted Meg Crane to start sharing her story—and Pagan’s follow-up, which does include Meg.

Just a few weeks after we released the What Remains series, news broke that the Penn Museum discovered additional remains of 1985 MOVE bombing victims in the museum.

How did this happen? And what's next for the thousands of other human remains still in their possession?

Producer Felix Poon knew just the person to talk to for answers.

Featuring Rachel Watkins. 

MORE ABOUT “WHAT REMAINS”

Across the country, the remains of tens of thousands of human beings are held by museums and institutions. Scientists say they’ve helped lay the foundations of forensic science and unlocked the secrets of humanity’s shared past. 

But these bones were also collected before informed consent was the gold standard for ethical study. 19th and 20th-century physicians and anthropologists took unclaimed bodies from poorhouses and hospitals, robbed graves, and looted Indigenous bones from sacred sites.

Now, under pressure from activists and an evolving scientific community, these institutions are rethinking what to do with their unethically collected human remains. 

In this series from Outside/In, producer Felix Poon takes us to Philadelphia, where the prestigious Penn Museum has promised to “respectfully repatriate” hundreds of skulls collected by 19th century physician Samuel George Morton, who used them to pursue pseudo-scientific theories of white supremacy. Those efforts have been met with support by some, and anger and distrust by others. 

Along the way, Felix explores the long legacy of scientific racism, lingering questions over the 1985 MOVE bombing, and evolving ethics in the field of biological anthropology.

Can the institutions that have long benefited from these remains be trusted to give them up? And if so, who decides what happens next?

LINKS

Read the Penn Museum’s statement about the latest discovery of additional MOVE remains at the museum.

Listen to WHYY’s news report, Penn Museum discovers another set of human remains from the MOVE bombing.

You can find our full episode credits, listen to our back catalog, and support Outside/In at our website: outsideinradio.org. 

Editor's note: This episode was first published in July, 2022.

Humans have had an impressive run thus far; we’ve explored most of the planet (the parts that aren’t underwater anyway), landed on the moon, created art and music, and made some pretty entertaining Tik Toks. 

But we’ve survived on the planet for just a fraction of the time horseshoe crabs and alligators have. And we’re vastly outnumbered by many species of bacteria and insects. 

So what is the most successful species on Earth? And how do you measure that, anyway? 

From longevity and happiness, to sheer numbers, we put a handful of different organisms under the microscope in hopes of better understanding what exactly it means to succeed at life on a collective and individual scale.   

Featuring: Stephen Giovannoni, Rashidah Farid, and Steward Pickett

SUPPORT

Check out Stephen Giovannoni’s paper: “SAR11 Bacteria: The Most Abundant Plankton in the Oceans”

An interesting treatise on adaptability: “Why crocodiles still look the same as they did 200 million years ago”

From the NSF: “The most common organism in the oceans harbors a virus in its DNA”

More food for thought: “The non-human living inside you"

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by: Taylor Quimby

Editing by: Nate Hegyi, Rebecca Lavoie

Additional editing help from Justine Paradis, Felix Poon, and Jessica Hunt. 

Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer

Special thanks to everybody who answered our question at the top of the show: Josemar Ochoa, m Carey Grant, Butter Wilson, Tim Blagden, Robert Baker, Sheila Rydel, and Bob Beaulac.

Music for this episode by Blue Dot Sessions, and Jules Gaia

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

The Colorado River – and the people that rely on it – are in a state of crisis. Climate change and overuse are taking a significant toll. Seven states must compromise and reach a solution to prevent the river from collapsing.

In late 2023, tensions were running high between the major players in the water world as they convened at the annual Colorado River conference in Las Vegas. LAist Correspondent Emily Guerin was there, seeking to learn as much as she can about the people with the most power on the river, including a sharply-dressed 28-year-old from California. 

This episode comes to us from the podcast Imperfect Paradise, which is releasing a whole series on the Colorado River water crisis. 

SUPPORT

Donate $10 per month and get our new “I axolotl questions” mug!

Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. 

Subscribe to our newsletter (it’s free!).

Follow Outside/In on Instagram or join our private discussion group on Facebook.

LINKS

Agriculture uses a lot of the Colorado River - what if we replaced that farmland with solar panels? 

Speaking of farms, most of the crops raised with Colorado River water don’t go to people. They go to cows.

CREDITS

This episode was written and reported by Emily Guerin

Imperfect Paradise host: Antonia Cereijido

Fact-checking by Gabriel Dunatov. 

Mixing and Imperfect Paradise theme music by E. Scott Kelly with additional music by Andrew Eapen.

Outside/In Host: Nate Hegyi

Outside/In Executive producer: Taylor Quimby

Our staff includes Justine Paradis and Felix Poon

Rebecca Lavoie is NHPR’s Director of On-Demand Audio

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

Submit a question to the “Outside/Inbox.” We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).

At the beginning of the pandemic, we published an episode about “how to be a backyard birder.”  Everybody was understandably freaking out, and we wanted to put something sweet, calming, and hopeful into the world.

In that episode, we heard from ornithologist Dr. J. Drew Lanham, who shared some great tips for beginners, like what to watch and listen for, and how to make binoculars from toilet paper tubes. 

But what we didn’t get into was Dr. Lanham’s own remarkable story, including the moment when the humble chicken pulled him away from a life in the military and onto the path to ornithological stardom. 

This episode comes from our friends at Going Wild, with Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant, a podcast from PBS that’s more about the people that study wild animals than it is about the animals themselves.  

Their latest season also includes the story of a shark researcher struggling with the whiteness of academia, a herpetologist who pushed to change the language of the field, and Dr. Rae-Wynn’s own journey as a field researcher slash newly single mom.

Featuring Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant and Dr. J. Drew Lanham.

SUPPORT

Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. 

Subscribe to our FREE newsletter.

Follow Outside/In on Instagram or Twitter, or join our private discussion group on Facebook

LINKS

Read “9 Rules for the Black Birdwatcher”, Dr. J. Drew Lanham’s breakthrough piece for Orion Magazine. 

Listen to a South Carolina Public Radio interview with Dr. J. Drew Lanham after he won a MacArthur Fellowship. 

CREDITS 

Outside/In is hosted by Nate Hegyi and produced by Taylor Quimby, Justine Paradis, Felix Poon, and Jessica Hunt. 

Going Wild is hosted by Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant. Production by Caroline Hadilaksono, Danielle Broza, Nathan Tobey, and Great Feeling Studios. Editing by Rachel Aronoff and Jakob Lewis. Sound design by Cariad Harmon.

In each essay in their debut collection, How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures, science writer Sabrina Imbler shares the story of an undersea organism and a story of their own journey as someone who, as they put it, came out twice in adulthood. 

In one essay, they reflect on how a shape-shifting cephalopod helped them navigate their own questions about gender. In another, they celebrate queer dance clubs through the lens of the Yeti crab, a creature who “dances to live” in the crushing conditions around deep-sea hydrothermal vents.

“I really wanted to sort of take these creatures very seriously… to think about both of us as organisms,” said Sabrina. 

“The creature’s existence in the world, and also the ways in which I am just, at the end of the day, another organism moving through the world, trying to eat and mate and survive.”

Outside/In host Nate Hegyi and producer Justine Paradis sat down with Sabrina Imbler to talk about their blend of science and personal writing, and about what we might be able to learn by looking closely at the lives—perhaps very different, very strange-to-us lives—of creatures in the sea.

Donate to support the show, and to get your hands on a limited edition Outside/In opossum camp mug! Here's the link: https://bit.ly/3PvIzWy

MORE OUTSIDE/IN

Subscribe to our (free) newsletter.

Follow Outside/In on Instagram or Twitter, or join our private discussion group on Facebook

LINKS

Find How Far the Light Reaches at your local bookstore

Sabrina Imbler’s articles on Defector Media

Read “We Swarm” on The Rumpus

“It’s always ourselves we find in the sea” is a line from this poem by E.E. Cummings.

CREDITS

Hosted by Nate Hegyi

Reported, produced, and mixed by Justine Paradis 

Edited by Taylor Quimby with help from Felix Poon

Executive producer: Rebecca Lavoie

Music in this episode by Loving Caliber, Autohacker, Valante, Silver Maple, Moon Crater, and So Vea.

Theme music: Breakmaster Cylinder

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.

It seems like every morning, another arm of the federal government is being reformed, eliminated, or downsized. That might wind up including an agency that a lot of Americans rely on when disaster strikes: FEMA.

President Trump has called FEMA a “disaster.” His new head of homeland security, Kristi Noem, has signaled it’s time to “get rid of FEMA the way it exists today.” FEMA is a big agency, and understanding its role can be difficult in the abstract. So this week, we’re playing an episode from one of our favorite public radio podcasts: Sea Change.  

It’s all about something called the “50% Rule.” Host Carlyle Calhoun travels to two towns to discover how this obscure federal policy designed to stop the cycle of flood damage is leading to opposite destinies.

For full credits and transcript, visit outsideinradio.org.

SUPPORT

Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In.  

Follow Outside/In on Instagram or join our private discussion group on Facebook.

Even though you can explore its entirety from the comfort of a living room beanbag, the world of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (commonly just referred to as 'Skyrim') is vast. The video game contains cities, villages, high waterfalls that cascade into deep pools, and packs of wolves that roam the edges of misty alpine forests. Skyrim is celebrated for the intricacy of its environment and is one of the top-selling video games of all time.

But if you spend enough time in a fantasy, it might change how you relate to the real world.

In this favorite Outside/In episode, first released at the start of the pandemic, producer Justine Paradis speaks with the environmental artist tasked with creating one of the video game world’s most iconic landscapes, the limits of environmental design, and how Skyrim shaped his view of the actual outdoors. 

Featuring Megan Sawyer, Ana Diaz, and Noah Berry.

SUPPORT

Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. 

Subscribe to our newsletter (it’s free!).

Follow Outside/In on Instagram or join our private discussion group on Facebook.

Submit a question to the “Outside/Inbox.” We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported, produced, and mixed by Justine Paradis

Editing help from Taylor Quimby, Erika Janik, Sam Evans-Brown, and Felix Poon

NHPR’s Director of On-Demand Audio is Rebecca Lavoie

Music by Blue Dot Sessions

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

A 1,500 year old skeleton is diagnosed with tuberculosis. A visit to a modern-day bone library. A fight over the future of ethical science. 

MORE ABOUT "WHAT REMAINS"

Across the country, the remains of tens of thousands of human beings are held by museums and institutions. Scientists say they’ve helped lay the foundations of forensic science and unlocked the secrets of humanity’s shared past. 

But these bones were also collected before informed consent was the gold standard for ethical study. 19th and 20th-century physicians and anthropologists took unclaimed bodies from poorhouses and hospitals, robbed graves, and looted Indigenous bones from sacred sites.

Now, under pressure from activists and an evolving scientific community, these institutions are rethinking what to do with their unethically collected human remains. 

Outside/In producer Felix Poon has informally gained a reputation as the podcast’s “death beat” correspondent. He’s visited a human decomposition facility (aka, “body farm”), reported on the growing trend of “green burial,” and explored the use of psychedelic mushrooms to help terminal cancer patients confront death.

In this three-episode series from Outside/In, Felix takes us to Philadelphia, where the prestigious Penn Museum has promised to “respectfully repatriate” hundreds of skulls collected by 19th century physician Samuel George Morton, who used them to pursue pseudo-scientific theories of white supremacy. Those efforts have been met with support by some, and anger and distrust by others. 

Along the way, Felix explores the long legacy of scientific racism, lingering questions over the 1985 MOVE bombing, and evolving ethics in the field of biological anthropology.

Can the institutions that have long benefited from these remains be trusted to give them up? And if so, who decides what happens next? 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL

The Smithsonian’s ‘Bone Doctor’ scavenged thousands of body parts (Washington Post)

Medical, scientific racism revealed in century-old plaque from Black man’s teeth (Science)

America’s Biggest Museums Fail to Return Native American Human Remains (ProPublica)

Read about Maria Pearson, the “Rosa Parks of NAGPRA” and how she sparked a movement. (Library of Congress Blogs)

Read Olga Spekker’s paper on SPF15, “The first probable case with tuberculous meningitis from the Hun period of the Carpathian Basin.”

Listen to our episode about so-called body farms, “Life and Death at a Human Decomposition Facility.”

You can find our full episode credits, listen to our back catalogue, and support Outside/In at our website: outsideinradio.org.