Allergies have been documented in historical records dating as far back as 2,400 years ago, when Hippocrates wrote about ?hostile humors? in some people who suffered badly after eating cheese. But why do we experience them to begin with? What even is an allergy? Are allergies on the rise? And why are some mere nuisances, while others are deadly?

This episode is a roundup of allergy stories?from the mundane to the frightful?and a round up of allergy questions we?re asking Dr. Theresa MacPhail, author of Allergic: Our Irritated Bodies in a Changing World, to answer for us.

Featuring Beni Osei Duker, Theresa MacPhail, Dwayne Smith, and Lily Ko.

Produced by Felix Poon. For a transcript and full list of credits, go to outsideinradio.org.

 

SUPPORT

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LINKS

Check out Theresa MacPhail?s book, Allergic: Our Irritated Bodies in a Changing World.

Read up on the different hypotheses on why we get allergies in the first place:

The parasite hypothesisThe toxin hypothesisThe hygiene hypothesisThe old friends hypothesis

Learn about the history of the EpiPen.

Venom is full of dualities. According to the UN?s World Health Organization, snakebite envenoming causes somewhere between 81,000 and 138,000 deaths per year, and even that is likely an undercount. Yet research into venom has yielded treatments for diabetes, cancer, erectile dysfunction, and even the celebrity favorite diabetes slash diet drug, Ozempic. 

In this episode, we explore the world of venom, where fear and fascination go hand-in-hand, and the potential for healing comes with deadly stakes. 

This is part II of our ?Things That Can Kill You? miniseries, which also explores poison and allergies.

Featuring Sakthi Vaiyapuri. Thanks to Iva Tati? for her question.

Produced by Justine Paradis. 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 of Outside/In. 

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LINKS

Here?s more on Sakthi Vaiyapuri?s community awareness programs in India and his team?s research on the socioeconomic impacts on rural populations in Tamil Nadu

The UN?s World Health Organization?s fact sheet on snake envenoming as a high-priority neglected tropical disease

A great breakdown on why snakebite deaths are undercounted and the problem of missing data, written by global health researcher Saloni Dattani on Substack

A Nature article on potential advances in antivenom

Check out this Science Friday film on the cool research on cone snails and the non-opoiod painkillers derived from their venom. 

More on Ozempic and lots of other innovations with roots in venom research (New York Times) 

A few months ago we got an email from a listener who tried a bit of a very poisonous apple and lived to tell the tale. Ultimately, he was fine, but the incident left him full of questions. 

We figured, why not run with that curiosity? We put a call out for all of your poison related queries and you delivered: How much should you worry about those green potatoes in your pantry? Could our car tires be poisoning the environment? It?s another Outside/Inbox roundup on the show this week. Buckle up. 

This is the first part of a ?Things That Can Kill You? mini-series. Up next we tackle venom and allergies.

Featuring Hussein Elgridly, Deborah Blum, Andy Robinson, Angela Mech, Kyle Lombard and Heejung Jung.

Are green potatoes toxic?Are invasive browntail moths expanding their range?Is hydroxyapatite an effective substitute for fluoride?How much toxic airborne pollution is contributed by vehicle tires?

For our next Outside/Inbox roundup, we?re looking for questions about sound! Dream big here: we?re talking animal sounds, traffic noise, the sounds of space? Send us your questions by recording yourself on a voice memo, and emailing that to us at outsidein@nhpr.org.  Or you can call our hotline: 844-GO-OTTER.

For full credits and transcript, visit outsideinradio.org. 

Sgt. Tibbs, a fluffy, 19-year-old Maine Coon with tiger stripes, soft eyes, and a chipped tooth, is missing on the streets of Manchester, New Hampshire. His owner, Rose, fears the worst. But when she finds out her cat was never missing at all ? the truth turns out to be worse than she feared.

From our friends over at the Document team at New Hampshire Public Radio, this is the first in a four-part series about what we owe our pets ? and what we owe our neighbors.

For full credits and transcript, visit outsideinradio.org.

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After the Irish fought for and won their independence from the British in 1921, they had a problem. Centuries of exploitation had left the island one of the least forested nations in Europe, with less than 2% tree cover. 

So, they started planting a non-native American tree: fast-growing Sitka spruce capable of rebuilding their timber resources in record time. And it worked. Today, about 12% of the island is forested. But in the rural areas where iconic rolling hills have been replaced by rows and rows of conifers, farmers are not happy. 

Outside/In host Nate Hegyi takes us to County Leitrim, an area of Ireland hit hard by the Troubles and the Great Famine, to meet the townspeople who are fighting what they say is a new wave of colonialism: Sitka spruce plantations. 

Produced by Nate Hegyi. For a transcript and full list of credits, go to outsideinradio.org. 

Featuring: Justin Warnock, Brian Smyth, Donal Magner, Liam Byrne and Jodie Asselin

 

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.

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Subscribe to our (free) newsletter.

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LINKS

Donal Magner wrote a book covering the history of Ireland?s forests and timber industry. 

Sitka spruce plantations are controversial in other parts of Ireland as well, including Cork. 

There are also efforts to rewild parts of Ireland with entirely native trees and to protect and restore carbon-sequestering bogs. 

It can be really tough to figure out exactly what was growing in Ireland thousands of years ago ? but these scientists used ancient pollen counts to figure it out. 

Researchers at University College Dublin produced  a detailed socio-economic impact report on sitka spruce plantations and County Leitrim in 2019.

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.

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

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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 New Hampshire, the most beloved swath of public land is the White Mountain National Forest. People interact with it as they would a national park ? hiking, swimming, camping, and more. But a national forest is NOT a national park. 

The difference comes down to a fundamental concept: the ?multiple-use? land mandate. In the WMNF, you?ll find parts of the forest preserved for wildlife conservation, recreation, climate resilience, and, most controversially, logging. 

This episode looks at one patch of forest from three different perspectives: a conservationist who would like to see cutting halted in the WMNF, loggers who would like to see it ramped up, and the US Forest Service that has to somehow appease them both. 

Featuring Zack Porter, Jeremy Turner, Charlie Niebling, Jasen Stock, Jim Innes, and Luke Sawyer.

SUPPORT

To share 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. 

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LINKS

Zack Porter references this study that shows the potential carbon storage in Eastern forests by 2100. 

Conservation groups and logging advocates filed an amicus brief together against Standing Tree?s lawsuits. 

In 2024, the Southern Environmental Law Center sued the Forest Service over its timber targets. 

NHPR has been covering the legal fight in the White Mountain National Forest over the past year. You can read some of our previous coverage here and here. 

CREDITS

Produced by Kate Dario. Full credits and transcript available on outsideinradio.org.

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

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In the early 1980s, an animal rights group airlifted nearly 600 wild burros out of Grand Canyon National Park. 

The media ate it up ? magazines sold full-page ads advertising the cause and families from the East Coast clamored to adopt the rescued animals.

But conflict around wild burros in the West still exists today. What does one of the flashiest rescue stories of the last century tell us about the power of animal activism to make enduring change? 

Featuring Rebbel Clayton, Abbie Harlow, John MacPete, Dave Sharrow, Travis Ericsson, and Eric Claman. 

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

LINKS

You can read Abbie Harlow?s paper, ?The Burro Evil? here. 

If you?re interested in learning more about the burro adoption process, Cynthia Brannigan outlined her experience as an employee of the Fund for Animals in her book, ?The Last Diving Horse in America.?  Research for this episode was also sourced from Julie Hoffman Marshall?s Making Burros Fly and Cleveland Amory?s Ranch of Dreams. 

Black Beauty Ranch currently houses more than 600 animals. You can read more about their work here. 

Check out dozens of archival shots from the rescue, via Northern Arizona University?s Cline Library.  

And yes, you can watch Brighty of the Grand Canyon on Youtube. 

SUPPORT

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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)

Ever since fluoridation became widespread in the 1950s, cavities in kids have fallen drastically. The effort is considered one of the ten greatest public health achievements of the 20th century. But it?s also one of the most controversial. 

At really high doses, fluoride is toxic ? it can calcify your ligaments and joints and even fuse your spine. It also potentially has impacts on our brains. There?s a small but growing body of research suggesting that fluoride can inhibit intelligence in children. 

This is still unsettled and hotly debated science but, as host Nate Hegyi finds out, in our polarized and increasingly digital world? unsettled science can quickly become doctrine. 

Featuring Rene Najera, Philippe Grandjean and Mark Hartzler

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

SUPPORT

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LINKS

The CDC has a website that tells you how much fluoride is in your drinking water. 

Here?s the reasoning behind the U.S. Public Health Service?s recommended limit for artificially fluoridating water. 

The National Toxicology Program suggests that a child?s IQ could be impacted if they or their pregnant mother ingests more than 1.5 ppm of fluoride in their water. 

Philippe Grandjean?s peer-reviewed study suggests that the safe level of fluoride in water for pregnant women is much lower than what the U.S. Public Health Service recommends.

The American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Dental Association have cast doubt on the National Toxicology Program?s conclusions and say that the fluoride levels in U.S. waters are safe. 

A U.S. district court judge ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to take a second look at its limits for fluoride in the water, citing the National Toxicology Program?s monograph. 

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

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

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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

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

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).

The next blue moon isn?t until May 2026, but luckily for you, you won?t have to wait that long to hear the Outside/In team answering listeners? questions. This time, we?re exploring why blue moons are cool (or even what the heck a blue moon even is) and other seasonably appropriate curiosities.

What?s all the fuss about a blue moon?Should we leave the leaves?Which is a more sustainable choice: real or fake Christmas trees?What happens to Christmas tree stumps?What does all that road salt do to the environment?

Featuring Asmeret Asefaw Berhe, Tim Gaudreau, Victoria Meert, and Sujay Kaushal.

Thanks to Outside/In listeners Zoe, Janet, Gio, Alexi, Prudence, Wendy, Mo, and Devon for their questions and contributions. 

 

SUPPORT

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

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LINKS

Check out this study on the long-term impacts of leaf litter removal in suburban yards.

Looking for a creative and cute way to keep leaves in your lawn or garden? Consider building a ?bug snug.?

Read about the mad dash for salt that rescued the 2014 Sochi Olympics? ski events (NYT).

Learn more about the turn to beet juice and beer-based de-icers to reduce the harm of excess salt to the environment (AP News)

 

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported, produced, and mixed by Felix Poon, Justine Paradis, and Marina Henke.

Edited by Taylor Quimby, Rebecca Lavoie, and Justine Paradis.

Our staff includes Kate Dario.

Executive producer: Taylor Quimby

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

Music by Blue Dot Sessions, Jules Gaia, and Jharee.

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).

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

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 Twitter, or join our private discussion group on Facebook.

 

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.

Coyotes are a sort of goldilocks animal. They can be active during the day, and at night. They can hunt in groups, or survive solo. They?re wolfish enough to survive in the wild, dog-like enough to blossom in the big city.  

That adaptability has arguably made coyotes one of the most successful mammalian predators on the planet. It?s also given them a reputation as opportunistic villains that prey on neighborhood garbage, livestock,  and (occasionally) household pets. 

So what makes these animals so special? And if coyotes are so good at living amongst us, how do we get better at living amongst them? 

Featuring: Daniel Proux, Dan Flores, Christine Wilkinson, Stan Gehrt, and Kieon Halona

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

If you enjoyed learning about coyote vocalizations, check out Janet Kessler?s blog about San Francisco coyotes, or her YouTube page, where you can find dozens of videos showing the diversity of coyote yips, yowls, barks, grows, and more .

Read about coyotes in the Massachusetts town of Nahant, where municipal officials asked the federal government to help kill them in 2022. (New York Times) 

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by Kate Dario

Mixed by Kate Dario and Taylor Quimby

Editing by Taylor Quimby

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

Executive producer: Taylor Quimby

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

Music 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).

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. 

Hear ye, hear ye! Winter is fast approaching, and it is time for our fifth annual ?surthrival? special, in which the Outside/In team reframes the endurance sport that is winter. We?ve got suggestions for thriving during the cold-season, which we hope will help you positively look forward to dirty snow banks and single-digit temperatures.

This year, though, there?s a twist. A listener asked us for advice on what to do before the snow starts to fall, when it?s gray and bleak. This is that dingy in-between period, known in New England as ?stick season.? 

Host Nate Hegyi is joined by Kate Dario, Taylor Quimby, and special guest Zoey Knox, offering suggestions for indoors and out, on-screen and off, and both serious and silly. 

Featuring Eric Diven and special guest Zoey Knox. You can find our Outside/In 'Stick Season' Spotify playlist here. For a full list of this year?s recommendations visit our website.

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Produced and mixed by Taylor Quimby. 

Additional panelists: Kate Dario and Zoey Knox. 

Edited by Rebecca Lavoie

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

Executive producer: Taylor Quimby

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

Music 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).

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.

This episode originally aired  in July, 2023.

 

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by Jeongyoon Han

Mixed by Jeongyoon Han and Taylor Quimby

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

Executive producer: Rebecca Lavoie

Special thanks to

Music by Blue Dot Sessions, Edvard Grieg, and Mike Franklyn.

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

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

If you?ve got a question for the Outside/Inbox hotline, give us a call! We?re always looking for rabbit holes to dive down into. Leave us a voicemail at: 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837). Don?t forget to leave a number so we can call you back.

In Appalachia, Hurricane Helene was a thousand-year-flood. It flattened towns and forests, washed roads away, and killed hundreds.

But this story is not about the flood. It?s about what happened after.

A month after Hurricane Helene, our producer Justine Paradis visited Marshall, a tiny town in the Black Mountains of western North Carolina, a region renowned for its biodiversity, music, and art.

She went to see what it really looks like on the ground in the wake of a disaster, and how people create systems to help each other. But what she found there wasn?t just a model of mutual aid: it was a glimpse of another way to live with one another.

Featuring Josh Copus, Becca Nicholson, Rachel Bennett, Steve Matlack, Keith Majeroni, and Ian Montgomery.

Appearances by Meredith Silver, Anna Thompson, Kenneth Satterfield, Reid Creswell, Jim Purkerson, Jazz Maltz, Melanie Risch, and Alexandra Barao.

Songs performed by Sheila Kay Adams, Analo Phillips, Leah Song and Chloe Smith of Rising Appalachia, and William Ritter.

 

LINKS

An excerpt of ?A Paradise Built in Hell? by Rebecca Solnit (quoted in this episode) is available on Lithub.

?You know our systems are broke when 5 gay DJs can bring 10k of supplies back before the national guard does.? (Them)

The folks behind the Instagram account @photosfromhelene find, clean, and share lost hurricane photos, aiming to reunite the hurricane survivors with their photo memories. 

A great essay on mutual aid by Jia Tolentino (The New Yorker)
 

CREDITS

Outside/In host: Nate Hegyi

Reported, written, produced, and mixed by Justine Paradis 

Edited by Taylor Quimby

Our team also includes Felix Poon, Marina Henke, and Kate Dario.

NHPR?s Director of Podcasts is Rebecca Lavoie

Special thanks to  Poder Emma and Collaborativa La Milpa in Asheville. Thanks also to Rural Organizing and Resilience (ROAR).

Music by  Doctor Turtle, Guustavv, Blue Dot Sessions, Cody High, and Silver Maple.

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

A few months ago, producer Marina Henke saw two skunks sprint under her porch. Since then, she can?t stop wondering what?s really going on beneath her feet.

And as it turns out, she?s not the only one. Every day across the country, homeowners are waging wars with the animals who stake out our porches, decks and crawl spaces. Have we as humans inadvertently designed luxury apartments for ?unwelcome? wildlife? And is that necessarily a bad thing? 

In a new edition of our (long-retired!) 10x10 series we?re going under the porch. So, grab your headlamps, put on a different pair of pants and watch out for skunks. 

Featuring Christopher Schell, Kieran Lindsey, Josh Sparks and Maynard Stanley.

LINKS

Want more 10x10s? We?ve got ?em! Listen here for traffic circles, gutters, sand beaches, kettle bogs and vernal pools. 

You can read more about the ?biological deserts fallacy? here. 

The Schell Lab at UC Berkeley is up to all kinds of urban ecology research.  

 

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported, produced and mixed by Marina Henke

Editing by Taylor Quimby

Our staff includes Justine Paradis, Felix Poon and Kate Dario

Executive producer: Taylor Quimby

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

Music by Blue Dot Sessions, El Flaco Collective and Spring Gang

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

We want to hear from you! Hate what?s under your porch? Love what?s under your porch? You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).

For over ten years, biologist Mark Higley has been stalking the forests of the Hoopa Valley Reservation with a shotgun. His mission? To save the northern spotted owl. The threat? The more aggressive barred owl, which has spread from eastern forests into the Pacific Northwest.

The federal government plans to scale up these efforts and kill hundreds of thousands of barred owls across multiple states. But can the plan really save the northern spotted owl? And is the barred owl really ?invasive?? or just expanding its range? 

In this episode, Nate Hegyi dons a headlamp and heads into the forest with Mark Higley to catch a glimpse of these two rivals, and find out what it takes to kill these charismatic raptors, night after night, in the name of conservation.

Featuring Mark Higley, Tom Wheeler, and Wayne Pacelle. 

 

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

The federal government?s barred owl management plan is very long but they have a helpful list of frequently asked questions.

Check out some beautiful photos of Mark Higley?s work in this Audubon magazine story from a few years ago. 

Curious about the timber wars? Oregon Public Broadcasting has an excellent podcast miniseries you should listen to. 

 

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by Nate Hegyi

Mixed by Nate Hegyi

Editing by Taylor Quimby

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

Executive producer: Taylor Quimby

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

Music 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).

For the past few weeks, we?ve been exploring the issue of human remains collections for our miniseries, ?What Remains.? Today, we want to share another excellent series that has covered some similar, but also, very different ground.

Introducing ?Postmortem: The Stolen Bodies of Harvard,? the latest season of Last Seen from WBUR. 

In this first episode, the police find buckets of body parts in a basement in Pennsylvania. Throughout the series, WBUR reporter Ally Jarmanning tells us what happened at Harvard, and how an elite university became a stop on a nationwide network of human remains trading.

It?s an excellent series, and a perfect follow-up to What Remains. If you want to hear the rest of the episodes afterwards, listen and follow Last Seen wherever you get your podcasts.

This episode of Last Seen: Postmortem was hosted and reported by Ally Jarmanning. It was edited by Dave Shaw and Beth Healy, with additional editing from Katelyn Harrop and Frannie Monahan Mixing and sound design. Paul Vaitkus. Last Seen?s Managing Producer is Samati Joshi. Executive Producer is Ben Brock Johnson. 

Also, we have something new from NHPR?s award-winning Document team.  Listen to ?Emilia?s Thing,? a story of survival and resilience in the wake of January 6th. To listen, click here. 

A scholar and an activist make an uncompromising ultimatum. A forgotten burial ground is discovered under the streets of New York City. In Philadelphia, two groups fight over the definition of ?descendant community.? 

Featuring Michael Blakey, Lyra Monteiro, Chris Woods, aAliy Muhammad, Wendell Mapson, Sacharja Cunningham, Jazmin Benton, Amrah Salomon, and Aja Lans. 

 

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? 

 

LINKS

Archival tape of protests for the African Burial Ground came from the documentary The African Burial Ground: An American Discovery (1994).Learn more about the African Burial Ground National Monument.A recently published report, co-authored by bioarchaeologist Michael Blakey for the American Anthropological Association, recommends that research involving the handling of ancestral remains must include collaboration with descendant communities.Learn more about Finding Ceremony, the repatriation organization started by aAliy Muhammad and Lyra Monteiro.Read the Penn Museum?s statement about the Morton Cranial Collection and the 19 Black Philadelphians they interred at Eden Cemetery in early 2024.

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

A classroom display of human skulls sparks a reckoning at the Penn Museum in Philadelphia. A movement grows to ?abolish the collection.? The Penn Museum relents to pressure. More skeletons in the closet.

This episode contains swears.

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. 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 three-episode 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? 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL

The Morton Cranial Collection

The Penn & Slavery Project Symposium in 2019 included a presentation on the Morton Cranial Collection.aAliy Muhammad?s 2019 opinion piece: ?As reparations debate continues, the University of Pennsylvania has a role to play? (The Philadelphia Inquirer)Mar Portillo Alvarado?s 2020 opinion piece: ?The Penn Museum must end abuse of the Morton collection? (The Daily Pennsylvanian)Paul Wolff Mitchell?s 2021 report: ?Black Philadelphians in the Samuel George Morton Cranial Collection?The Penn Museum?s 2021 press release: ?Museum Announces the Repatriation of the Morton Cranial Collection?

The MOVE bombing and MOVE remains controversy

Archival tape of the MOVE bombing came from the documentary Let the Fire Burn, and Democracy Now!She Was Killed by the Police. Why Were Her Bones in a Museum? (NY Times)In 2021-2022 three independent investigations reported on the MOVE remains controversy: one commissioned by the Penn Museum, one by the City of Philadelphia, and one by Princeton University.Lyra Monteiro's piece on Medium, "What the photos from 2014 reveal about Penn Museum's possession of the remains of multiple victims of the 1985 MOVE bombing."

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

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. 

 

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).

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.

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).

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

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 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).

Helium is full of contradictions. It?s the second most abundant element in the universe, but is relatively rare on Earth. It?s non-reactive, totally inert?yet the most valuable helium isotope is sourced from thermonuclear warheads. 

And even though we treat it as a disposable gas, often for making funny voices and single-use party balloons, our global supply of helium will eventually run out. That?s because, at a rate of about 50 grams per second, this non-renewable resource is escaping the atmosphere for good. 

In this edition of The Element of Surprise, our occasional series about the hidden histories behind the periodic table?s most unassuming atoms, we examine the incredible properties and baffling economics of our most notable noble gas. 

Featuring Anjali Tripathi and William Halperin.

 

SUPPORT

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

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

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

 

LINKS

Read John Paul Merkle?s petition arguing to change the name of helium to ?helion.?

Despite being about a quarter century old, this passage from ?The Impact of Selling the Federal Helium Reserve? has a pretty comprehensive list of the uses and properties of helium.

More on the recent sale of the Federal Helium Reserve (NBC News)

Physicist William Halperin said the idea of mining helium-3 on the moon was? unlikely? but that hasn?t stopped this startup company from trying it. (Wired)

Want to learn more about the weird history of American airships? Check out this film produced by the U.S. government in 1937, when they were still hoping to keep our airship program afloat. 

 

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported, produced, and mixed by Taylor Quimby

Editing by Rebecca Lavoie, with help from Marina Henke and Justine Paradis

Our staff includes  Felix Poon

Executive producer: Taylor Quimby

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

Music by Blue Dot Sessions and Ryan James Carr.

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).

Jack Rodolico knows exactly what scares him. Sharks. 

But here?s what he doesn?t get: if he?s so freaked out, why can?t he stop incessantly watching online videos of bloody shark attacks? 

Why would he deliberately seek out the very thing that spooks him?

To figure it out, Jack enlists the help of other scaredy-cats: our listeners, who shared their fears about nature with us. Together, Jack and the gang consider the spectrum of fear, from phobia to terror, and what it might mean when we don?t look away.

Featuring Lauren Passell, Arash Javanbakht, Nile Carrethers, and Sushmitha Madaboosi.

This episode originally aired in October 2022.

 

SUPPORT

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

Subscribe to our (free) newsletter for occasional merch drops and updates.

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

 

LINKS

Lauren Passell?s Podcast the Newsletter.

Related: why people love horror movies.

The ubiquity of smartphones means plenty of hair-raising amateur videos of shark attacks to get you started on your doomscrolling (warning: a couple of these are bloody).

If this image of an octopus freaks you out, you might share Lauren?s ?fear of holes,? or trypophobia.

Learn more about augmented reality technology and other projects at Arash Javanbakht?s clinic.

 

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by Jack Rodolico

Mixed by Taylor Quimby

Edited by Taylor Quimby, with help from Justine Paradis, Felix Poon, Nate Hegy, and Jessica Hunt.

Executive producer: Rebecca Lavoie 

Music for this episode by Silver Maple, Matt Large, Luella Gren, John Abbot and Blue Dot Sessions.

Thanks to everyone who sent in voicemails and memos, even the ones we didn?t play: Erin Partridge, Lauren Passell, Nile Carrethers, Michelle MacKay, Alec from Nashville, and Hillary from Washington. 

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Once again, it?s that wonderful time when scientists everywhere hold their breath as the team opens the Outside/Inbox to answer listener questions about the natural world. Today?s theme is smell: how it works in the nose, the mind, and how much is still unknown about the fifth sense.

Question 1: Does it gross you out to know that every time you smell something, a little bit of that thing? is in your nose? What happens to the molecules we smell?

Question 2: Why do smells have such a powerful connection to memory?

Question 3: How do pheromones work in humans? Do ?ideal mates? really ?smell better? to us?

Question 4: Why does the smell of florals sometimes precede a migraine?

Question 5: What?s anosmia?

Featuring Rachel Herz, Bob Datta, Katie Boetang, and Tristram Wyatt, with thanks to Stephanie Hunter.  

 

Outside/In seeks your questions for an upcoming Outside/Inbox.  

What questions should the Outside/In team explore about the U.S. presidential election? What do you want to know about what this election means for climate change or environmental regulation? Maybe you?ve got questions about Project 2025, or maybe you?re curious about presidential transitions more generally.

You can send your questions to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a voicemail on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER.

 

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

Rachel Herz is the author of several books, including ?Why You Eat What You Eat? and ?The Scent of Desire.?

Tristram Wyatt is the author of ?Pheromones and Animal Behavior.?

Katie Boetang hosts The Smell Podcast.

More on the connections between smell, memory, emotion, and health, featuring Bob Datta and Herz.

In the 1990s, one company claimed to have found human sex pheromones and tried to market them for use in perfumes.

Research on the connection between olfactory loss and depression, smell triggers for migraines, and an explanation of how COVID-19 causes loss of smell.

 

CREDITS

Outside/In host: Nate Hegyi

Reported, produced, and mixed by Justine Paradis, Catherine Hurley, and Felix Poon, with help from Marina Henke.

Edited by Taylor Quimby

NHPR?s Director of Podcasts is Rebecca Lavoie

Music by Daniel Fridell, Caro Luna, Lofive, bomull, Jahzarr, Mindme, and John B. Lund. 

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).

Will Simone Biles live up to her moniker as greatest gymnast of all time? Will Lebron James and Team USA continue to dominate men's  basketball? And will the Paris 2024 Games be the most sustainable in modern Olympic history?

While billions of viewers tune in for the drama of athletes competing on a global stage, climate scientists are tuning in to Paris's climate promises ? from the locally sourced catering and carbon neutral Olympic cauldron, to head-scratching ?solutions? like a sidewalk made of seashells, and not installing air conditioning in athletes? housing.

Are these solutions making a difference? Or is it plain and simple greenwashing? We put these questions to the test in this episode on the XXXIII Olympiad. Let the games begin!

Featuring Martin Müller.

 

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

Read Martin Muller?s paper evaluating the sustainability of summer and winter Olympic games from the past 3 decades.

Listen to Civics 101?s episode on the politics of the Olympic Games.

Check out scenes from Olympic opening ceremonies from London 1908 to Rio 2016.

Watch a timelapse video of construction of the temporary beach volleyball venue in front of the Eiffel Tower.

Read up on fun Olympics trivia, like what the most common surname of athletes is, and about the time two athletes who tied for second place cut their silver and bronze medals and fused them together to make two ?friendship medals.?

 

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported, produced, and mixed by Felix Poon

Editing by Taylor Quimby.

Our staff includes Justine Paradis and Marina Henke.

Our intern is Catherine Hurley.

Our Executive producer is Taylor Quimby.

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

Music by Blue Dot Sessions, Joe E. Lee, Jay Varton, Arthur Benson, Philip Ayers, Kikoru, Trabant 33, and Phoenix Tail.

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).

You might not think much about the sticky bottle of vanilla sitting in the back of your pantry. But that flavor ? one of the most common in the world ? has a fascinating history, involving a fickle orchid and a 12-year-old enslaved boy who made the discovery of a lifetime. 

That?s the sort of tale that attracts poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil. From peacock feathers to the sounds of garden insects, her work is known for magnifying the wonders of the natural world. Her latest book of essays, ?Bite by Bite: Nourishments and Jamborees,? explores the unexpected connections between food, memory, and community.

So take a seat and pour yourself an aperitif, as Aimee Nezhukumatathil shares a few of these miniature morsels with Outside/In host Nate Hegyi: a three-course meal of grape jelly, sweet nostalgia, and just a hint of vanilla bean.  

Featuring Aimee Nezhukumatathil
 

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.
 

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported, produced, and mixed by Nate Hegyi

Editing by Taylor Quimby

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

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).

Introducing the newest series from NHPR?s award-winning Document team: ?The Youth Development Center.? New Hampshire has sent its most troubled kids to the same juvenile detention center for more than a century. It's a place that was supposed to nurture them, that instead hurt them ? in some of the worst ways imaginable. It's now at the center of one of the biggest youth detention scandals in American history. How did this happen ? and how did it finally come to light?

The rest of the series is available now: listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Play, iHeart Radio, or wherever you get your podcasts. 

This episode includes content that may not be suitable for young listeners. If you have suffered abuse and need someone to talk to, you can call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673. If you?re in a mental health crisis, call the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 9-8-8. 

Maybe you?ve looked at the sky on a clear night and spotted the International Space Station, a tiny white dot gliding through the stars. Maybe it felt special, a rare glimpse of a human-made satellite in space. 

But what if you were to look up at the sky and see more visible satellites than stars? What if the Big Dipper and Orion were drowned out by  a satellite traffic jam, criss-crossing through space? 

A growing number of astronomers are sounding the alarm about such a possibility, even within the next decade. A new space race is already well underway. Commercial satellite traffic in low Earth orbit has skyrocketed in recent years, with more satellites launched into space than ever before. The majority of these satellites are owned and operated by a single company: Starlink. 

Featuring Samantha Lawler, Jonathan McDowell, Aaron Boley, and Roohi Dalal, with thanks to Edward Oughton.

 

 SUPPORT

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

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

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LINKS

Here?s a link to the most popular proceedings in the FCC docket, and a step-by-step guide for submitting your own comments (this guide was compiled for a previous filing by an advocacy group which includes Samantha Lawler).

COMPASSE, or the Committee for the Protection of Astronomy and the Space Environment, also stays up-to-date on FCC procedures.

In this episode, Nate and Justine looked at this 3D rendering of satellite constellations around the globe, including GPS and Starlink. 

Space Data Navigator has nice visualizations of the number of launches, satellites, and debris over time, which relies in part on Jonathan McDowell?s data. 

Aaron Boley?s article in Nature, ?Satellite mega-constellations create risks in Low Earth Orbit, the atmosphere and on Earth.?

A talk by Samantha Lawler about Kuiper belt objects and the challenges to astronomy posed by sharp increase in satellites. 

An open-access paper which found that internet from satellite mega-constellations could be up to 12-14 times more emission-intensive than terrestrial broadband.

For more from Outside/In on the ?earth-space environmental system,? check out our episode on property rights in airspace and space-space, this one on the element of aluminum, and an oldie-but-a-goodie on geoengineering.

A piece on the cutting room floor: the risk that you?ll get hit by satellite debris falling back to Earth is quite low? but the risk that someone will get hit is rising. 

Here?s a global map of light pollution, and a tool to find dark sky sites near you.

On the issue of orbital crowding, there have been a couple notable traffic jams in space. Last month, a decommissioned Russian satellite disintegrated in low Earth orbit, posing potential risks to astronauts on board the ISS. In 2019, an important weather-monitoring satellite had to dodge a Starlink satellite, a fuel-expensive maneuver. In 2021, Starlink and OneWeb debated what really happened when their satellites passed within 190 feet of each other in orbit. 

A note on space regulation

Our episode did not cover all the groups regulating space. At a global level, this includes the UN?s International Telecommunication Union and the UN Office of Outer Space Affairs. Within the United States, the Office of Space Commerce also plays a role, in addition to the Federal Aviation Administration and the Federal Communications Commission

 

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 in this episode came from Victor Lundberg, Lofive, Harbours & Oceans, Spiegelstadt, Curved Mirror, Silver Maple, Wave Saver, Cobby Costa, and From Now On.

The blue whale calls were recorded by NOAA?s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory.

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. 

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

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.

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. 

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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).

During their twelve seasons as winter rangers in Yosemite National Park, Rob and Laura Pilewski have learned a thing or two about what it means to love a place ? and a person.

This episode comes to us from the wonderful folks at The Dirtbag Diaries, another podcast that features stories about conservation, epic adventures, and more. 

Featuring Rob and Laura Pilewski

 

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.

 

CREDITS

Host of The Dirtbag Diaries: Fitz Cahall

This episode was reported, produced and edited by Lauren DeLaunay Miller

Mixing by Evan Phillips

The Dirtbag Diaries Executive Producer: Becca Cahall

Music from Jacob Bain & Nis Kotto, Brian Bombadil, Joya, Roma 49, Garland, and Brendan O?Connell

Outside/In Host: Nate Hegyi

Executive producer: Taylor Quimby

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

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

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).

What do wolves, waste-water treatment plants, and the Gulf Stream have in common? This episode, that?s what! It?s that wonderful time when we comb through all your wonderful questions and call up some scientists to help us answer them. Some of the more unlikely things that get brought up include dinosaur pee, abandoned shopping carts, and wolves preying on cheese curds. 

Here?s what?s on the docket:

Why is dog saliva slimier than human saliva? Why do wolves get relocated in the middle of winter?What if the Gulf Stream ?shut down??How do wastewater treatment plants work?
 

Featuring Eric Odell, Alice Ren, and Sri Vedachalam.

 

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.

 

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

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

Editing by Taylor Quimby.

Executive producer: Taylor Quimby

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

Music by Blue Dot Sessions, Baegul, Hatamitsunami, and King Sis.

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).

Every December, during the Christmas Bird Count, tens of thousands of volunteers look to the skies for an international census of wild birds. 

But during migration season, a much smaller squad of New York City volunteers take on a more sobering experience: counting dead birds that have collided with glass buildings and fallen back to Earth. 

In this episode, we find out what kind of people volunteer for this grisly job, visit the New York City rehab center that takes in injured pigeons, and find out how to stop glass from killing an estimated one billion birds nationwide every year. 

Featuring Melissa Breyer, Linda LaBella, Gitanjali Bhattacharjee, Katherine Chen, and Tristan Higginbotham

 

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

Want to see the migration forecast? Check out Birdcast. 

Want to be a citizen scientist and report dead birds? Check out dBird. 

Want to see volunteer Melissa Breyer?s photos of dead birds? Check out Sad Birding.

More about Project Safe Flight.

 

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported, produced, and mixed by Taylor Quimby

Editing by Rebecca Lavoie and Nate Hegyi.

Our staff includes Justine Paradis and Felix Poon 

Executive producer: Taylor Quimby

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

Music 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).

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).

While digging a well in 1750, a group of workers accidentally discovered an ancient Roman villa containing over a thousand papyrus scrolls. This was a stunning discovery: the only library from antiquity ever found in situ. But the scrolls were blackened and fragile, turned almost to ash by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

Over the centuries, scholars? many attempts to unroll the fragile scrolls have mostly been catastrophic. But now, scientists are trying again, this time with the help of Silicon Valley and some of the most advanced technology we?ve got: particle accelerators, CT scanners, and AI.

After two thousand years, will we finally be able to read the scrolls?

Featuring Federica Nicolardi, Brent Seales, Youssef Nader, Arefeh Sherafati, and Julian Schilliger. 

 

SUPPORT

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LINKS

The Vesuvius Challenge is not over. Find out more here. 

Check out more pictures of the scrolls and the process of ?virtual unwrapping? at the Digital Restoration Initiative website, or watch Brent Seales lecture about his technique.

A 60 Minutes story (2018) focusing on the conflict between Seales and scholars Vito Mocella and Graziano Ranocchia.

A replica of the marble floor discovered by Italian farmworkers in 1750. 

A video illustrating the process of ?virtual unwrapping? with a jelly roll.

Contestant Casey Handmer?s blog post detailing his identification of the ?crackle signal? to the ink.
 

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 in this episode came from Silver Maple, Xavy Rusan, bomull, Young Community, Bio Unit, Konrad OldMoney, Chris Zabriski, and Blue Dot Sessions.

Volcano recordings came from daveincamas on Freesound.org, License Attribution 4.0 and  felix.blume on freesound.org, Creative Commons 0.

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).

You might associate it with the foil that wraps leftover pizza and the shiny craft beer cans sold in breweries, but aluminum is literally everywhere. Scoop up a handful of soil or gravel anywhere on Earth, and you?ll find atoms of bonded aluminum hidden inside. Over the past 150 years, that abundance has led production of the silvery metal to skyrocket (pun intended) and created an industry responsible for 2-3% of global greenhouse gas emissions. 

But even before it was used in everything from airplanes to deodorant, the trade of aluminum minerals helped color the world, finance the Vatican, and led to the mass collection of human urine.

In this episode, we?re piloting a new segment called ?The Element of Surprise.? It?s all about the hidden histories behind the periodic table?s most unassuming atoms, isotopes, and molecules. And we?re kicking things off with aluminum.

Editor's note: A previous version of this episode misstated the number of  Allied casualties during a 1943 bombing campaign against a German cryolite factory, claiming all but one of 180 bombers were destroyed. In actuality, all but one of 180 bombers returned home safely.  The episode has been corrected. 

SUPPORT

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

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LINKS

The World Economic Forum has published a number of studies and articles on the need to decarbonize the aluminum industry and the promising technologies that might help us get there. 

A few years ago, Alcoa announced plans to build a new aluminum smelting plant in Maniitsoq, Greenland. PBS?s POV released a documentary about how people there reckoned with the island?s colonial past as the project progressed, stalled, and eventually collapsed. 

The National Park Service has a fun little read about the Washington Monument?s aluminum tip. 

Sean Adams, at the University of Florida, wrote an excellent recap of the U.S. government?s antitrust case against aluminum giant Alcoa. 

Here?s another one from Foreign Policy about how industrial cartels and monopolies helped Hitler gain power. 

Check out Charlie Halloran?s ?The Alcoa Sessions,? to imagine what kind of music might have been played during Alcoa?s cruise voyages between New Orleans and Jamaica between 1949 and 1959. 

 

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported, mixed, and produced by Taylor Quimby

Mixed by Taylor Quimby

Editing by Rebecca Lavoie, with help from Nate Hegyi and Felix Poon

Our staff includes Justine Paradis 

Executive producer: Taylor Quimby

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

Music by Blue Dot Sessions, Ryan James Carr, and L.M. Styles

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).