As a candidate, Joe Biden called himself a climate change pioneer. He promised a green energy revolution. More renewables, way less fossil fuels, and a carbon-neutral economy by 2050. So two years in, how’s he doing?

Outside/In host Nate Hegyi speaks with a political scientist and an environmental activist to figure out where Biden has pushed his climate agenda, where he hasn’t, and whether he’s an octopus or a bighorn sheep. 

Featuring: Aseem Prakash, Jean Su

SUPPORT

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

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

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by Nate Hegyi

Mixed by Nate Hegyi and Taylor Quimby

Edited by Taylor Quimby

The Outside/In team also includes Justine Paradis, Felix Poon, and Jessica Hunt

Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer

Music for this episode by Blue Dot Sessions

Outside/In  is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

There are few physical challenges more uncomfortable than holding your breath underwater as long as you can. 

But if your duty is to pull downed military personnel from waters all over the world, you need to prove your ability to perform in the most hostile and unforgiving conditions. That’s why the Air Force has long made breath holds part of its training programs for parajumpers, or parachute rescue specialists. 

This week, we’re featuring an episode from our friends at the Outside Podcast (not to be confused with Outside/In) about a parajumper candidate who finds himself facing elimination from training for the most surprising reason: he can hold his breath way too long.

Featuring Travis Morgan and Alex Hutchinson

Listen to more from the Outside Podcast here. 

SUPPORT

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CREDITS

This episode of the Outside Podcast was produced and hosted by Peter Frick-Wright. Editing and music by Robbie Carver. 

Outside/In Host: Nate Hegyi

Outside/In Executive producer: Rebecca Lavoie

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

While the taps are running dry and reservoirs are disappearing in Arizona, a corporate farm from Saudi Arabia is pumping massive amounts of groundwater to grow alfalfa  for cows back in the Middle East. Now, after years of inaction, Arizonans are pointing the finger at what they see  as a foreign invader slurping up the last gulps of a diminishing water supply.

But the truth is more complicated. 

In this episode, we dig deep into the history of Arizona’s water crisis and uncover a tale of dates, camels and dairy cows, and try to find out who’s really to blame for the West’s water crisis.

Featuring: Natalie Koch.

SUPPORT

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

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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), or email us at outsidein@nhpr.org.

LINKS

Read Arid Empire: The Entangled Fates of Arizona and Arabia, by Natalie Koch.

Listen to the six-part podcast series Thirst Gap: Learning to live with less on the Colorado River, by KUNC.

Listen to Parched, a podcast about people who rely on the river that shaped the West, and have ideas to save it, by Colorado Public Radio.

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Produced by Felix Poon and Nate Hegyi

Mixed by Felix Poon

Edited by Taylor Quimby

Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer

Music for this episode by Blue Dot Sessions.

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

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

The team peers into the Outside/Inbox to answer listener questions on the theme of “green,” a prompt which sends us exploring the hanging gardens of Babylon, xeriscaping, and the evolution of the human eye.

1: What’s the benefit of being evergreen?

2: How water-friendly is my lawn?

3: How many city buildings have green roofs?

4: Why did we evolve to see so many different shades of green?

Featuring Georgia Silvera Seamans, Rubab Saher, Kate England, Abraham Wu, and Adriana Briscoe.

Special thanks to Steven Peck. 

How to submit a question to the Outside/Inbox

Call our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER, and leave a voicemail. Send a voice recording to outsidein@nhpr.org. We also post regular call-outs for questions in our stories on Instagram.

We’re seeking questions on a new theme for an upcoming episode: “the deeps.” Think caves, life underground, geothermal energy, and deep existential questions about our life on earth. 

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 the Washington Square Park Eco Projects, which includes a map of city trees, a seasonal change monitoring project, and bird surveys.

Project Drawdown on green roofs as a key climate solution

Abraham Wu’s research on mapping green roofs

Exploring the relationship between turfgrass and city heat

Our own reporting on the American love of lawns, and the impact on the desert

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by Justine Paradis, Jeongyoon Han, Felix Poon, and Jessica Hunt.

Edited by Taylor Quimby and Justine Paradis.

Executive producer: Rebecca Lavoie

Music by spring gang, Molife, Apollo, Autohacker, Diamond Ortiz, and Chris Zabriskie. 

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

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

In the late 1950s, engineer Herb Ueda Sr. traveled to a remote Arctic military base. His mission? To drill through nearly a mile of ice, and extract the world’s first complete ice core.

To finish the job, he and his team would endure sub-zero weather, toxic chemicals, and life inside a military base… which was slowly being crushed by the glacier from which it was carved. 

Producer Daniel Ackerman takes us inside Camp Century, and explains how a foundational moment in climate science is inextricably linked with the story of the United States military. 

Featuring Curt La Bombard, Julie Brigham-Grette, Herb Ueda Jr., Don Garfield, and Aleqa Hammond.

SUPPORT

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

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

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

LINKS

If you want to see footage from inside Camp Century, check out this Department of Defense archival film, “Research and Development Progress Report No. 6.”

For a little Cold War context, watch this 1951 Civil Defense Film called “Duck and Cover”, featuring Bert the Turtle. 

Here's a book about the history of Camp Century, which includes a chapter on the ice core drilling project.

To see some amazing photos, and read about how scientists are still learning new things from the Camp Century core after rediscovering sediment samples in 2017, check out this blog post from the European Geosciences Union.

Learn more about the NSF Ice Core Facility in Colorado, where sections of the Camp Century ice core are currently stored. 

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by Daniel Ackerman

Mixed and edited by Taylor Quimby

Editing help from Justine Paradis and Felix Poon

Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer

Special thanks today to Carrie Harris, Holly Ueda, Chester Langway, Nancy Langway, Laura Kissel, and the Polar Archives at The Ohio State University Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center

Music by Amaranth Cove and Blue Dot Sessions

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

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

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

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

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

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LINKS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by Felix Poon

Mixed by Felix Poon and Taylor Quimby

Edited by Taylor Quimby

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

Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer

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

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

Transitioning to electric vehicles is essential to meeting our climate goals. But there are so many barriers to overcome – from expanding EV charging infrastructure, to updating the power grid, to mining the metals that make batteries go.

In the first of a two-part series on decarbonizing transportation, we try to answer the critical question: is it all happening fast enough to avoid the worst climate impacts?

Featuring: Craig Bentley, Nora Naughton, Sara Baldwin, Thea Riofrancos

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), or email us at outsidein@nhpr.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

EV transition predictive models

• The 2035 report (Goldman School of Public Policy, UC Berkeley)
• The long road to electric cars (Reuters)

Consumer education and survey findings

• EV charging levels explained (US DOT)
• GM EV Live
• In a Consumer Report's survey and a Reuters/Ipsos survey, more than a third of Americans say they'd consider buying an EV for their next car.

Charging infrastructure

• The Electric Vehicle Road Test (Wall Street Journal)
• Federal money is now headed to states for building up fast EV chargers on highways (NPR)

The grid

• Why Electric Vehicles Won’t Break the Grid (Scientific American
• An explosion in proposed clean energy ventures has overwhelmed the system for connecting new power sources to homes and businesses (NY Times)

Metal extraction

• Listen to our episode The lithium gold rush, an in-depth look at where lithium comes from, and who’s being affected by mining it.
• Read the Achieving Zero Emissions with More Mobility and Less Mining report by Thea Riofrancos.

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by Felix Poon

Mixed by Felix Poon and Taylor Quimby

Edited by Taylor Quimby

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

Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer

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

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

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

The Underdogs Ep3: You sell your soul

What caused the Peranos to abandon their dogs and screw so many people over? Nate enlists the help of a New Zealand journalist to find out. 

More about Outside/In presents The Underdogs: 

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

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

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

Featuring: Amanda Hasenauer, Jodi Bailey, Jenn Fisher, Jeff Fisher, Tony Turner, Gemma Nave, Tim Brown

SUPPORT

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

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LINKS

Check out the history of working dogs here. 

More than a dozen tourists have written bad reviews about Underdog sled dog tours on Tripadvisor and Google. 

That bicycle ride Nate mentioned? It was part of an award-winning reporting project about the 2020 election. 

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by Nate Hegyi

Edited and mixed by Taylor Quimby

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

Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer

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

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

The Underdogs Ep2: It has to be earned

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

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

More about Outside/In presents The Underdogs: 

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

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

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

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

SUPPORT

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

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LINKS

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

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

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

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by Nate Hegyi

Edited and mixed by Taylor Quimby

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

Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer

Graphics by Sara Plourde

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

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

The Underdogs Ep1: Honey and vinegar

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

More about Outside/In presents The Underdogs: 

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

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

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

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

SUPPORT

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

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LINKS

Check out the results from the 2023 Iditarod

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

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

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

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by Nate Hegyi

Edited and mixed by Taylor Quimby

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

Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer

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

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

A few months ago, Outside/In host Nate Hegyi got a tip from the highest levels of the dog sledding community. It was about the first team from New Zealand to complete the Iditarod, a 1,000-mile race across some of Alaska’s harshest terrain; a pair of mushers that have transformed their success on the trail into a flourishing tourism business in their home country’s south island. 

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

In this trailer, get a first look at our upcoming three-part series: Outside/In presents The Underdogs. Look for the first episode in your feeds next week, March 16th.

SUPPORT

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

Subscribe to our newsletter. 

Once upon a time, potpourri was a popular way to freshen up a space. Now, for some, it feels a bit like the lava lamp of fragrance: an outdated fad from a bygone decade.

So, why was potpourri so popular in the 1980’s, and what happened to it? Did the trend dry up… or just evolve?

We explore the transformation of potpourri, from the fermented mush of the Victorian era to the perfumed and colorful bag of pine cones of the eighties, and talk to a few of the people still making potpourri today.

This episode was originally published in September 2021.

Featuring Yvette Weaver, Carly Still, Laure Moutet, Autumn Anderson, Paulus, and Ednita Tingle.

SUPPORT

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LINKS

An 1895 recipe from Sweet from Sweet Scented Flowers and Fragrant Leaves for 50-year moist potpourri (the recipe begins on page 42).

From Death Scents: more fascinating info on the history of medieval trends that predate potpourri and the rise of “rotten pot” potpourri.

Fragrant Potpourri Preserves the Floral Scents of Summer: A 1975 NYT article that bridges the gap between moist and dried potpourri recipes.

A 1988 Glade Potpourri Spray commercial

CREDITS

Hosted by Justine Paradis

Reported and produced by Taylor Quimby

Edited by Justine Paradis

Executive Producer: Rebecca Lavoie

Mixed by Taylor Quimby

Additional editing by Felix Poon and Jessica Hunt

Special thanks to Rosalyn LaPier, Mark Nesbit, and to NHPR’s voices from the ‘80s: Nick Capodice, Josh Rogers, Emily Quirk, Patricia McLaughlin, Rick Ganley, and Rebecca Lavoie.

Theme music by Breakmaster Cylinder

Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions and Ben Nestor

If you own land in the United States, do you also own the airspace above it? In other words, who owns the sky?

The answer begins with a medieval Roman principle of property rights, which made it all the way to American courts: “Whoever owns the soil, it is theirs up to Heaven and down to Hell." 

We asked our friends Nick Capodice and Hannah McCarthy, cohosts of Civics 101, to join us to explore the uniquely American philosophy of property, to the moon and back.

Featuring Colin Jerolmack, Michael Heller, George Anthony Long, and Deondre Smiles, with special guests Nick Capodice and Hannah McCarthy.

SUPPORT

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Subscribe to our newsletter (it’s free!) for extras from the cutting room floor and behind-the-scenes dispatches from our reporters.

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

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

LINKS

This article by Laura Donohue poses the same question we ask – “who owns the skies?” – in the context of property rights, state rights, and drones.

Deondre Smiles’ essay on how manifest destiny is showing up as we explore beyond this planet, “The Settler Logics of (Outer) Space”

The Civics 101 episodes mentioned were “Is Santa a Criminal?” and “What’s Up With the US Space Force?” Also relevant: their two-part series on “The Government and Housing.”

A great podcast episode on diamonds and De Beers via Articles of Interest + 99% Invisible

More on United States v. Causby (1946)

By the way, the 2015 U.S. law about commercialization of space only refers to abiotic resources like minerals. If someone discovers alien life (even microbial), this law doesn’t cover it. Japan, Luxembourg, and the UAE have passed similar laws. 

To learn about the fascinating question of who owns the space beyond your airplane seat, check out Mine!: How the Hidden Rules of Ownership Control Our Lives by Michael Heller and coauthor James Salzman

Read more about the uniquely American interpretation of “ad coelum” in the introduction to Colin Jerolmack’s book, Up to Heaven and Down to Hell: Fracking, Freedom, and Community in an American Town.

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported, produced, and mixed by Justine Paradis 

Edited by Taylor Quimby and Rebecca Lavoie with help from Nick Capodice and Hannah McCarthy

Executive producer: Rebecca Lavoie

Music by Lobo Loco, ProleteR, Triple Bacon, Larry Poppinz, Gabriel Lewis, Ben Elson, Bonkers Beat Club, bomull, Anthony Earls, David Szesztay, and Chris Zabriskie.

Outside/In and Civics 101  are productions of New Hampshire Public Radio.

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

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

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

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

SUPPORT

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LINKS

Endless Thread (WBUR)

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

Reddit post on r/oddlyterrifying about hammerhead worms

lindsaynikole's viral TikTok video on hammerhead worms

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

The Sax Research Lab at Brown University

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

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

Cornell University fact sheet on Asian Jumping Worms

UMass Extension Invasive Jumping Worm FAQ

"Cancel Earthworms" (The Atlantic)

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

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

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

CREDITS

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

Co-hosts: Nora Saks and Ben Brock Johnson. 

Mix and sound design: Matt Reed

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

Amy Gorel, Paul Vaitkus, and Emily Jankowski

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

Despite being the only rodent with a holiday to its name, groundhogs are often considered pests.

However, these natural-born diggers have unearthed rare artifacts, play a pivotal role in shaping ecosystems, and are tied to important breakthroughs in hepatitis B treatments. Plus they’re pretty cute. 

So in this episode, a special Groundhog Day edition of our Holy Scat series, we’re digging up as many amazing factoids about these creatures as we possibly can. 

Featuring: David Scofield, Amanda Gillen, Eric D’Aleo, Joe Bruchac, and Sandra Sexton

SUPPORT

Donate to support the show and get your hands on a limited edition Outside/In opossum camp mug!

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LINKS

Youtube video of a whistling groundhog

NBC News video of Groundhog Day 2022 prediction

Read more about the Meadowcroft Rockshelter – the oldest known site of human habitation in North America, discovered by a groundhog.

Read this 1996 article about hepatitis B research using the woodchuck animal model at Cornell University.

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by Felix Poon

Edited by Taylor Quimby

Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer

Music for this episode by Blue Dot Sessions. 

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SUPPORT

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

Subscribe to our FREE newsletter.

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

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

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

Editing by Taylor Quimby with help from Justine Paradis

Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer

Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

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

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

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

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

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

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

MORE OUTSIDE/IN

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LINKS

Find How Far the Light Reaches at your local bookstore

Sabrina Imbler’s articles on Defector Media

Read “We Swarm” on The Rumpus

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

CREDITS

Hosted by Nate Hegyi

Reported, produced, and mixed by Justine Paradis 

Edited by Taylor Quimby with help from Felix Poon

Executive producer: Rebecca Lavoie

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

Theme music: Breakmaster Cylinder

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

Some folks promote local food. Others swear by veganism. But what is the most environmentally-friendly diet? And does it really matter what we eat? Or are there bigger fish to fry when it comes to climate activism?

Outside/In is trying out a new segment called This, That, Or The Other Thing. It’s all about the little decisions we make to try and build a more sustainable world—whether they have any effect, and what we can do instead if they don’t. 

For our inaugural edition, we’re focusing on food. From Brazilian beef and tofu tacos to food waste and composting, host Nate Hegyi talks with experts to understand how our choices impact the planet… and how we can make a difference in our communities. 

Featuring Umair Irfan, Tamar Haspel, and Ben Halpern.

SUPPORT

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

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LINKS

Give a listen to Tamar Haspel’s podcast, Climavores.

Vox reporter Umair Irfan wrote about how individual action actually does matter in the fight against climate change. 

Scientists at the University of California, Santa Barbara put together a big study on the cumulative environmental pressures of different foods. 

Want to tackle food waste? The Environmental Protection Agency has a great, down-to-earth guide on what you can do. 

CREDITS

Hosted, reported, produced, and mixed by Nate Hegyi

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

Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer

Music by Blue Dot Sessions, Sven Lindvall, El Flaco Collective, Future Joust, Spring Gang, Eight Bits, and Awlee.

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

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

But cold water dipping is different.

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

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

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

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

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

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

A word on the risks of cold water immersion

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

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

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

A few basic safety tips: 

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

SUPPORT

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LINKS

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

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

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

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

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

CREDITS

Reported, produced, and mixed by Justine Paradis 

Edited by Taylor Quimby

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

Executive producer: Rebecca Lavoie

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

Theme music: Breakmaster Cylinder

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

There’s an unfortunate paradox for environmental podcasts; data shows a lot of people skip segments about the climate. But also… it’s the CLIMATE! We can’t NOT talk about it, right? 

So how do we break through the malaise and make climate news feel less overwhelming? More surprising? Less depressing? In this episode, we round-up a handful of stories that we hope break the mold and make climate a more approachable topic for everyday discussion. 

We’ll look at a third-rail of environmental activism, hear about an unlikely, middle-of-the-night climate deal at COP27, and learn about one place where producing less renewable energy might just be the best thing for the environment.

Featuring Cara Buckley, Naveena Sadasivam, and Gillian Flaccus

SUPPORT

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

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LINKS

Earth Now Has 8 Billion Humans. This Man Wishes There Were None. By Cara Buckley for The New York Times.
(For more on population, you can read Are 8 billion people too many — or too few? and Should you not have kids because of climate change? It’s complicated. And you should also listen to our two-parter on this very subject: So Over Population [Part 1] and So Over Population [Part 2])

Inside the COP27 fight to get wealthy nations to pay climate reparations, by Naveena Sadasivam for Grist

‘Momentous:’ US advances largest dam demolition in history, by Gillian Flaccus for the Associated Press

News Roundup:

• U.S. reaches a fusion power milestone. Will it be enough to save the planet? (NPR)
• The surprising player in the rail strike fight: Fossil fuel companies (Grist)
• Why knowing your neighbors could save you in the next climate disaster (The Guardian)

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported, produced, and mixed by Felix Poon

Edited by Taylor Quimby, with help from Nate Hegyi, Justine Paradis, and Jessica Hunt. 

Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer

Music for this episode by Blue Dot Sessions, Jharee, and Blackout Memories. 

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

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

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

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

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

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

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

SUPPORT

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

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LINKS

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

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

CREDITS 

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

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

It’s Outside/In’s annual winter show, in which the team gathers around the proverbial fire to share our best ideas towards becoming better friends with winter. The dream is to not just survive, but thrive – dare we say, to “surthrive” – and embrace the season, both the cold and the cozy.

This year, we’re joined by the wonderful Mara Hoplamazian, climate and environment reporter at New Hampshire Public Radio. 

You can read our list here. We’d also love to hear your recommendations! We might even play them on the podcast or share your tips in our (free) newsletter. 

Send your suggestions, ideally as a voice recording, to outsidein@nhpr.org or call our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER.

Featuring a few of the cold-water dippers of Maine, including Betsy Lou Dawkins, Cholla Foot, Juliet Cox, Anne Buckwalter, and the crowd at a Two Maine Mermaids full moon dip.

A word on cold water immersion

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

Physiologist Michael Tipton told us a couple things to be aware of: 1) cold water shock, which prompts an involuntary gasp – bad news if you’re underwater 2) cold water exposure can send competing signals to your heart, potentially causing cardiac arrhythmia.  But he also said,  "I'm not sitting here as the fun police stopping people doing what they want to do. It's just we would encourage them to do it safely."

Here’s another overview of benefits and risks of cold-water swimming. 

Support the show

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

Subscribe to our (free) newsletter.

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

Credits

Host: Nate Hegyi

Produced and mixed by Justine Paradis

Edited by Taylor Quimby

Executive producer: Rebecca Lavoie 

Music for this episode by Autohacker, Nul Tiel Records, John Runefelt, Blue Dot Sessions, Smartface, Xavy Rasan, Iso Indie, and Vaain.

Special thanks to Michael Tipton, Kelsy Hartley, Caitlin Hopkins, and Judith Greene-Janse.

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The premise of History’s reality TV show Alone is about as straightforward as it gets. Ten people are dropped into the remote wilderness with nothing but a handful of tools, a supply of GoPro cameras, and instructions to document their entire experience. 

As contestants put their wilderness skills to the test, they face some of reality television’s most intense physical and emotional stakes; struggling with isolation, cold, wild animals, and even starvation. The last person standing wins the grand prize: half a million dollars. 

But while the contestants must leave the comforts of home behind, the show still carries societal baggage. 

In this episode, two critics explore the subtext of History’s Alone, and the messages it might be sending about class, gender, entertainment, and human relationships with the natural world. 

Featuring Eric Martin and Tracy Clark-Flory.

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 our Eric Martin’s article: ALONE — What is this reality tv show really about?

And Tracy Clark-Flory’s piece for Jezebel: A Woman Alone: On History’s Survival Show, There’s No Escaping Gender, Not Even In The Woods. 

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by Taylor Quimby and Nate Hegyi

Mixed by Taylor Quimby

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

Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer

Music for this episode by Blue Dot Sessions, The New Fools, Guy Trevino and Friends, Ambientalism, 91 nova, and Sarah the Illstrumentalist. 

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

It’s time to open our mailbag and answer your questions about fall – and not just the season. We’ve interpreted the theme to include everything from dreams about falling to fallout shelters and, um, tornadoes. 

Plus, we reveal the long-anticipated winner of our poll on best alternatives for replacing the term “leaf-peeping.”

Question 1: Why do so many have recurring dreams about falling?

Question 2: How do tornadoes figure in myths around the world? 

Question 3: How deep does a fallout shelter need to be? 

Question 4: Are berries ripening earlier because of climate change?

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

Featuring: Abhinav Singh, Nani Pybus, David Monteyne, Shaheen Dewji, Richard Primack, Nicole Herman-Mercer, Katie Spellman.

SUPPORT

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

Subscribe to our (free) newsletter.

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LINKS

On dreams

• German chemist August Kekulé claimed to have pictured the ring structure of benzene, after dreaming of a snake eating its own tail
• A study on the threat simulation theory of dreaming

On Fallout Shelters

• Fallout Shelter: Designing for Civil Defense in the Cold War by David Monteyne
• A calculator to estimate your personal annual radiation dose
• Fallout Five Zero, a photographic chronicle of the Boston area’s now defunct shelters

On Berries

• Walden Warming: Climate Change Comes to Thoreau’s Woods by Richard Primack
• A study on Indigenous knowledge on climate-related changes to berry production in Alaska

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

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

Edited by Taylor Quimby and Justine Paradis.

Executive producer: Rebecca Lavoie 

Music for this episode by Jharee, Thea Tyler, and Blue Dot Sessions.

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

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

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.

SUPPORT

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

Subscribe to our (free) newsletter.

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LINKS

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.

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

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

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

Well, yeah. Maybe.

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

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

SUPPORT

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

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LINKS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by: Taylor Quimby

Mixer: Taylor Quimby

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

Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer

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

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

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

If you've been having trouble getting in with a veterinarian, you're not imagining it. Across the country, pet care is increasingly hard to come by, and more vets are leaving the job.

Alaska’s capital city, Juneau, has lost roughly half of its veterinarians since the pandemic began. Pet owners often have to wait several weeks for an appointment, surgery is scarce, and 24/7 emergency care doesn’t exist. Now, a local animal shelter is stepping up to try and fill the gap for desperate pet owners, who often have nowhere else to turn. 

In an industry rife with burnout, turnover, and high suicide rates, veterinarians and vet technicians are being forced to choose between taking care of animals and taking care of themselves.

Featuring: Tracy Ward, Jocelyn Andrea, Krista Miller, Sam Smith, Sam Blankenship

If you or someone you know is struggling with depression, reach out to the folks at the Crisis Text Line, a texting service for emotional crisis support. To speak with a trained listener, text HELLO to 741741. It is free, available 24/7, and confidential.

LINKS

A professor at Auburn University looked into the role pentobarbital plays in suicides among veterinarians and vet techs. 

The American Veterinary Medical Association broke down the reasons why it’s tough to find veterinary care these days. 

The USDA has a cool map of places that are experiencing a shortage in veterinary care. 

SUPPORT

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

Subscribe to our FREE newsletter.

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

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by Nate Hegyi

Editing by Taylor Quimby

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

Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer

Music for this episode by Blue Dot Sessions. 

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

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

This episode originally aired in October of 2020. 

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

SUPPORT

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

Subscribe to our FREE newsletter.

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

LINKS & BIBLIOGRAPHY

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

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by: Justine Paradis

Mixer: Justine Paradis

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

Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer

Music for this episode by Blue Dot Sessions. 

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

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

It’s that time again when we open our mailbag to answer your (oh-so-delightful) questions. This time, we deliberate over what seagulls are doing so far from the sea, the reason that staring at fire is so compelling, why dogs kick up dirt after they poo, and other timeless inquiries.

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

Question 1: Would ice age humans still think of ice as ‘cold?’

Question 2: Why do we like to stare at fire?

Question 3: Why do dogs scratch the ground after pooping?

Question 4: Shouldn’t seagulls be at sea? 

Question 5: Do animals get seasonal allergies? 

SUPPORT

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

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CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by: Taylor Quimby & Felix Poon

Mixers: Taylor Quimby & Felix Poon

Editing by Taylor Quimby, Justine Paradis, and Rebecca Lavoie

Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer

Music for this episode by Blue Dot Sessions, Felix Johansson Carne, Stationary Sign, Jules Gaia, Yomoti, and Flouw. 

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

Ever have an unexpected animal encounter that leaves you filled with adrenaline? Or awed by the natural world? Or filled with fear? 

On this episode, we hand over the reins to the folks at Every Little Thing, a Spotify-exclusive podcast hosted by Flora Lichtman.

They asked their listeners for stories about extreme animal run-ins, and boy did folks deliver…. From a tangled antlers conundrum, to a life-altering encounter with jellyfish, these are animal stories that will make you laugh, sweat, and want to stay on the boat. 

Thanks to Cory, Sara, Geoff and everyone who called in to Every Little Thing with a wild animal tale.

Every Little Thing is made by Flora Lichtman, Annette Heist, Phoebe Flanigan, Hadley Robinson, Stephanie Werner and Carla Javier.

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

AFRAID OF NATURE? SEND US YOUR STORIES!

Halloween is coming up, and we want to know what natural thing scares the bejeezus out of you. Is there a particular animal, insect, or encounter that just absolutely creeps you out? Or maybe it’s just an idea: like you’re afraid of the dark, or the ocean, or thunderstorms? 

Submit your fear, and we may feature it on a future episode of the show - or call you up to talk about whatever it is that freaks you out.  Here are some prompts:

What scares you? 

How does that fear manifest in your life? Where do you think that fear stems from? 

Tell us a specific anecdote or story related to your fear.

Submit your story by sending a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org. Or by calling our hotline: 1-844-GO-OTTER. 

MORE ABOUT EVERY LITTLE THING

Why do news anchors all sound the same? Do wolves really howl at the moon? How did Elvis imitators take over Las Vegas wedding chapels? On ELT, you call with a question, they find you an answer. 

Their helpline is open 24-7. Call 833-RING-ELT or send an audio message to elt@gimletmedia.com.

SUPPORT

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

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Some people see something special happening at the Berkeley Community Garden in Boston’s South End: a multicultural garden community built from the rubble of a demolished city block; a green oasis of Chinese plants like bitter melon, cultivated here for over half a century.

But others… well, all they see is a trash pile.

In the final installment of Yardwork, the story of how a predominantly immigrant community garden is shaping the built environment, even as gentrification threatened its existence.

Featuring: Arlene Ng, Kim Szeto, Chun Lee, Sue Fong Lee, Helen Ng, Fanny, Ada, Sarah Hutt, Jeremy Liu, Betsy Johnson, Ann McQueen, Valerie Burns

SUPPORT

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LINKS

Official Berkeley Community Garden Website

Adversity Can Help A Garden To Grow (NYTimes)

Berkeley Community Gardeners Master Growing...Up (WBUR)

The Trustees of Reservations now owns and manages the Berkeley Community Garden. But many organizations have supported the garden through the decades, including:

• Boston Natural Areas Network (Wikipedia)
• South End Lower Roxbury Open Space Land Trust (Wikipedia)
• Boston Urban Gardeners

Mel King was instrumental in making community gardens in Boston possible. In 1974 he sponsored the MA Gardening and Farm Act, which passed into law and allowed people to farm and garden on vacant public land. He was honored in 2021 by then acting mayor of Boston, Kim Janey.

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by Felix Poon

Editing by Taylor Quimby and Nate Hegyi

Additional editing help from Jessica Hunt and Justine Paradis. 
Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer

Special thanks to Michelle Slater, Julie Stone, Zach Nowak, Mark Gardner, Michelle de Lima, Vidya Tikku, Peter Bowne, Jessica Holden, Lauren Chooljian Nick Capodice, Jason Moon, Christina Phillips, and Eileen Poon.

Music for this episode by Walt Adams, Blue Dot Sessions, and Airae

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

Welcome to Yardwork, a summer yard and garden miniseries from Outside/In. We’re sharing three stories about our relationships with the land around us: the front yard, the backyard, and down the block. This is part two.

Sometimes, when Maureen McMurray is digging in her backyard garden, she encounters something she didn’t expect: a lump of coal. She’s planted vegetables in the same soil for a few years now. But as she prepared for an upcoming growing season, she wondered: is her homegrown produce poisoning her family?

The answer is nicer than you might think.

Featuring Maureen McMurray, Nate Bernitz, and Ganga Hettiarachchi. 

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LINKS

Find your state’s cooperative extension and soil testing service in this directory.

Cornell Small Farms Program offers a guide to soil contamination, including ranges of safe levels, with the caveat that toxicity depends on factors like soil texture, pH, and organic matter. 

The EPA’s primer to lead in soil.

More information on managing the health risks of lead in New Hampshire soils from the UNH Cooperative Extension. 

This open source paper goes even deeper on issues of urban gardening, soil contamination, and public awareness.

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by Justine Paradis

Edited by Taylor Quimby

Additional editing help from Nate Hegyi, Felix Poon, Rebecca Lavoie and Jessica Hunt. 

Executive producer: Rebecca Lavoie

Title art and photo: Justine Paradis

Special thanks to Tom Lemien, Anna Paltseva, and Jim Garvin.

Music by Walt Adams, Nul Tiel Records, Alexandra Woodward, Martin Gauffin, Blue Dot Sessions, and Arthur Benson.

Outside/In theme by Breakmaster Cylinder

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

Welcome to Yardwork, a summer yard and garden miniseries from Outside/In. We’re sharing three stories about our relationships with the land around us: the front yard, the backyard, and down the block. This is part one.

Americans love a lawn. Green grass grows everywhere: on baseball fields, in backyards, in front of strip malls. Collectively, we spend billions of dollars every year keeping them fertilized and watered.

But lawns cost more than money in Western states like Utah. Despite a severe drought, residents of Utah’s towns and cities use more water per capita than any other place in the nation, and a majority of that water goes right into lawns. That’s helping fuel an environmental disaster that could wipe out one of America’s largest inland seas.

In part one of Yardwork, we trace the 600-year history of lawns, explore how they became a symbol of power, wealth, and Whiteness in America, and share tips on how to make a yard more environmentally responsible.

Featuring: Malin Curry, Ira Curry, Kelly Kopp, Zach Frankel, Karen Stenehjel

SUPPORT

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LINKS

Check out Malin Curry’s essay on the history of Black Americans and yard work. 

To read more about how agriculture and outdoor watering is contributing to the disappearance of the Great Salt Lake, take a look at these two studies. 
 

ProPublica published an excellent investigation into why one of the West’s driest states often rejects aggressive water conservation efforts. 

For some great history on lawns, read Paul Robbins’ Lawn People and Virginia Scott Jenkins’ The Lawn: A History of an American Obsession

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by Nate Hegyi

Editing by Taylor Quimby

Additional editing help from Justine Paradis, Felix Poon, Rebecca Lavoie and Jessica Hunt. 
Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer

Special thanks to Sherry Lund, Zach Renstrom, Karry Rathje and Ken Fox. 

Music for this episode by Walt Adams, Sture Zetterberg, OTE, Headlund, Roy Edwin Williams, El Flaco Collective, Pulsed, Jimmy Wahlsteen, Both Are Infinite, Airae, and Alfie-Jay Winters.

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

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

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

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

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

Featuring: Stephen Giovannoni, Rashidah Farid, and Steward Pickett

SUPPORT

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

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

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

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

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by: Taylor Quimby

Editing by: Nate Hegyi, Rebecca Lavoie

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

Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer

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

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

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

The National Park Service has changed immensely since its days of keeping poachers out of Yellowstone. So has its approach to telling the story of America. 

Kirsten Talken-Spaulding of the NPS and Will Shafroth of the National Parks Foundation help us understand how this colossal system actually works and what it's doing to tell the true story of the United States.

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

LINKS

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

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

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

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

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

CREDITS

Hosted by Hannah McCarthy and Nick Capodice

Produced by Hannah McCarthy with help from Nick Capodice

Senior Producer: Christina Phillips

Executive Producer: Rebecca Lavoie

Civics 101 staff includes Jacqui Fulton.

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

Music (National Park Service): Nul Tiel Records, Evan Schaefer, Kesha, Walt Adams, Site of Wonders, Dusty Decks, HoliznaRAPS and Margareta.

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

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

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

LINKS

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

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

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

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

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

CREDITS

Hosted by Hannah McCarthy and Nick Capodice

Produced by Hannah McCarthy with help from Nick Capodice

Senior Producer: Christina Phillips

Executive Producer: Rebecca Lavoie

Civics 101 staff includes Jacqui Fulton.

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

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

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

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

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

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

SUPPORT

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LINKS

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

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

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

Julia Pyper’s podcast Political Climate

Post Script Media, Stephen Lacey’s podcast company

How cable TV covered climate change in 2021.

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

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

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

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

CREDITS

Special thanks to Nate Johnson and Peter Howe

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported, produced, and mixed by Justine Paradis

Editing and additional mixing by Taylor Quimby

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

Executive Producer: Rebecca Lavoie

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

Theme Music: Breakmaster Cylinder

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

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

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

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

LINKS

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

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

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

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

SUPPORT

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

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CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by: Felix Poon

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

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

Music for this episode by Blue Dot Sessions.

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

Anybody who supports the show RIGHT NOW, during our June 2020 Fund Drive, will be entered to win a $500 Airbnb gift card, and will receive an adorable limited-edition Outside/In axolotl sticker.

Click here to donate to Outside/In right now. 

A few weeks ago, we teamed up with the Civics 101 podcast to bring you the story of Happy, an Asian elephant living in the Bronx Zoo.

Lawyers had petitioned the New York State Court of Appeals for a writ of Habeas Corpus; a legal maneuver that could have freed Happy and set a new precedent for animal rights. But in a ruling out this week, the court has decided: Happy isn’t going anywhere. 

In this quick update to our previous episode (listen here if you haven’t already)  Nate and Hannah debrief on the 5-2 split decision, and what it means for the future of animal rights. 

Featuring: Maneesha Deckha

SUPPORT

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LINKS

Read more about this week’s ruling, and what it may mean for animal rights, in this article  from Slate.

CREDITS

Hosts: Nate Hegyi and Hannah McCarthy

Reported and produced by: Nate Hegyi

Mixer: Taylor Quimby

Editing by Taylor Quimby

Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer

Music for this episode by Fabien Tell, Bill Ferngren, Sarah the Illstrumentalist, and Alexandra Woodward

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

Anybody who supports the show RIGHT NOW, during our June 2020 Fund Drive, will be entered to win a $500 Airbnb gift card, and will receive an adorable limited-edition Outside/In axolotl sticker.

Click here to donate to Outside/In right now. 

When the smash-success Jurassic Park first hit theaters in 1993, it inspired a generation of dinophiliacs and helped to usher in a new “golden age of paleontology.” 

But it also froze the public’s perception of dinosaurs in time, and popularized inaccuracies that people still believe are true today. 

So what happens when the biggest source of information on a scientific field comes from a fictional monster movie? In this episode, three Jurassic Park super-fans (one paleontologist, and two podcasters) try to sort it all out. 

Featuring: Gabriel-Philip Santos

SUPPORT

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LINKS

Want to learn more about dinosaurs? Check the publish date before you check it out from the library!  And here are some good options:

Smithsonian’s The Dinosaur Book (pretty much all of the Smithsonian books are good for younger readers)

Want to get a more global perspective of where dinosaurs have been discovered? Check out a dinosaur atlas book. 

For older readers, or anybody who loves a good coffee table book, check out this entry featuring a number of excellent paleoartists: Dinosaur Art II (Taylor has the first one and loves to show it off). 

Also: A truly disheartening read about people who think feathered dinosaurs are an attack on masculinity. 

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by Taylor Quimby

Mixer: Taylor Quimby

Editing by Rebecca Lavoie, with help from Nate Hegyi and Justine Paradis

Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer

Music for this episode by Sarah the Illstrumentalist, Pandaraps, Matt Large, Ballpoint, and Valante.

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

Anybody who supports the show RIGHT NOW, during our June 2020 Fund Drive, will be entered to win a $500 Airbnb gift card, AND will receive an adorable limited-edition Outside/In axolotl sticker.

Click here to donate to Outside/In right now. 

Happy has lived in New York City’s Bronx Zoo for years. To visitors, she’s a lone Asian elephant. But to a team of animal rights lawyers, she’s a prisoner. 

They’ve petitioned state courts for a writ of Habeas Corpus; a legal maneuver that, if granted, would declare Happy a legal person who deserves to be freed. It’s the latest case in an ongoing fight to extend basic human rights to animals – one that could have big repercussions in the natural world. 

Because this is a case that deals with animals AND the law, two podcasts from New Hampshire Public Radio have teamed up to take it on: Outside/In and Civics 101. We always hear about the animal rights movement… but what rights do animals actually have? 

Featuring: Maneesha Deckha, Kevin Schneider

SUPPORT

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

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LINKS

Listen and subscribe to Civics 101!

Check out which animals don’t get covered by the country’s biggest anti-cruelty law, the Animal Welfare Act, here.

Nonhuman Rights Project founder, Steven Wise, explained why he compares the plight of nonhuman animals to the plight of enslaved people in a wide-ranging interview with University of Toronto law professor Angela Fernandez in 2018. 

The New Yorker wrote about Happy the elephant’s legal case earlier this year. 

You can rent the HBO Documentary about Tommy the chimpanzee, Unlocking the Cage, on Apple TV.

We weren’t able to dive into it in this episode, but Maneesha has made a compelling case for not fighting for personhood for animals – instead, there should be a distinct third classification known as “legal beings.” Check out her lecture on it here. 

CREDITS

Hosts: Nate Hegyi, Hannah McCarthy, Nick Capodice

Reported and produced by: Nate Hegyi

Editing by Taylor Quimby, with help and feedback from Nick Capodice, Hannah McCarthy, Rebecca Lavoie, and Nate Hegyi

Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer

Music for this episode by El Flaco Collective, The Fly Guy Five, Jules Gaia, and Peerless. 

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

It’s that time again, when scientists everywhere hold their breath as we open our listener mailbag. It’s spring in the northern hemisphere, so the theme of the questions in this episode is “growth” — with the exception of the last question, which is… kind of the opposite.

Question 1: Um, what are those frogs doing? (go to our website to see the picture)

Question 2: What’s that white foam that forms on trees when it rains?

Question 3: Does moss get damaged when you walk on it?

Question 4: What’s the best filling for raised beds in the garden?

Question 5: How long does it take for a dead squirrel to decompose?

[insert image]

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

Featuring: Nat Cleavitt, Rebecca Roy, Yolanda Burrell, and Sibyl Bucheli

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 one of many salacious articles about frog sex, or read the somewhat less sensational study about underwater breeding chambers. 

And here’s one more study about frog sex; specifically simultaneous polyandry. 

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

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

Mixed by Taylor Quimby, Justine Paradis, and Felix Poon 

Editing by Taylor Quimby, with help from Rebecca Lavoie and Justine Paradis 

Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer

Music for this episode by Blue Dot Sessions

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

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

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

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

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

SUPPORT

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

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LINKS

Read the Mount Washington Avalanche Center’s final report on Nick Benedix’s death.

Learn more about avalanche safety here.

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

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by: Jessica Hunt

Mixer: Taylor Quimby

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

Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer

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

Music for this episode by Blue Dot Sessions.

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

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

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

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

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

Featuring: Jennifer Hames, Stephen Hunt

ELECTRIC VEHICLE SURVEY

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

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

SUPPORT

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

Subscribe to our FREE newsletter.

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

LINKS

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

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

The Imp of the Perverse, by Edgar Allen Poe

Marconi Union, “Weightless”

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

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by: Nate Hegyi.

Mixer: Nate Hegyi and Taylor Quimby

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

Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer

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

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

Three hundred years ago on Easter Sunday, 1722, European explorers landed on a South Pacific island that they called “Easter Island.” And they were shocked to see nearly one-thousand giant statues of stoic faces, called “moai”, placed all over the island.

Who moved them? And how did they do it?

The most popular theory was that this remote civilization destroyed itself – cutting down all the trees to make contraptions for moving statues.

But according to the Indigenous people of Rapa Nui, their ancestors didn’t need to cut down any trees to transport the statues. In fact, their oral history has always been clear about how the moai were transported. The real mystery is, why hasn’t anyone been listening?

This story originally ran in  October 2021, and was updated for the 300th anniversary of first contact between Rapanui and European peoples.

Featuring: Sergio Rapu Haoa, Carl Lipo, Terry Hunt, Sergio Mata’u Rapu, and Gina Pakarati

SUPPORT

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

Subscribe to our newsletter.

LINKS

A profile of Sergio Rapu Haoa for the 2002 Rotary World Peace Scholars program at Berkeley

Eating Up Easter -- a documentary film produced by Sergio Mata’u Rapu, about how the people of Rapa Nui are grappling with environmental and social changes brought on by tourism and economic development.

The NOVA-National Geographic Documentary

• A team of 18 volunteers move a 10-foot 5-ton statue for the NOVA-National Geographic documentary, Mystery of Easter Island
• A figurine animation demonstrating five different theories of moai-transport through the years.
• Mystery of Easter Island -- The NOVA-National Geographic Documentary in its entirety

Lectures by Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo

• National Geographic Live Lecture -- Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo: The Statues That Walked
• Long Now Foundation Lecture: The Statues Walked -- What Really Happened on Easter Island | Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo

CREDITS

Reported and produced by Felix Poon

Edited by Taylor Quimby

Executive Producer: Rebecca Lavoie

Mixed by Felix Poon

Additional Editing: Justine Paradis, Jessica Hunt, Rebecca Lavoie, and Erika Janik

Special thanks to Effie Kong, and Daniela Allee for her Spanish and Rapanui voiceovers.

Theme: Breakmaster Cylinder

Additional Music by Blue Dot Sessions

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

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

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

Featuring Kris De Decker.

ELECTRIC VEHICLE SURVEY

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

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

SUPPORT

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LINKS

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

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

HTTP Archive tracks the history of web performance.

Re: that time it rained inside the data center.

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

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

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

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

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Producer: Justine Paradis

Editor: Taylor Quimby

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

Executive Producer: Rebecca Lavoie

Special thanks to Melanie Risch.

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

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

Lake trout are on life support in Lake Michigan. They rely on intense breeding and stocking by federal fisheries. There was a breakthrough last summer, though, that could help bolster the lake trout’s recovery. A geneticist successfully mapped the lake trout genome: an outline of the fish’s genetic makeup. The genome will help biologists understand why some “strains” of trout have a higher survival rate. 

But could it also be used to create a sort of super-trout? And is that a good thing? Or is conservation-based gene editing a step too far? 

Featuring: Mark Walton, Roger Gordon, Chuck Madenjian, Seth Smith, Marty Kardos and Kim Scribner.

ELECTRIC VEHICLE SURVEY

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

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

SUPPORT

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LINKS

Check out more episodes of Points North, and their special series: [Un]Natural Selection 

Listen to our previous episode “The Particular Sadness of Trout Fishing in America”

CREDITS

This episode of Points North was written and produced by Patrick Shea

Hosts: Dan wanschura and Morgan Springer

Editor: Morgan Springer 

Consulting editor: Peter Payette 

Music for this episode by Max Dragoo, Marlin Ledin, Santah, and Blue Dot Sessions 

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

In this episode, the final frontier of the outdoors: space! From rocket particles, to ominous theories about what might happen if we ever make contact with aliens, we’re launching into uncharted territory to answer your questions about outer space. 

And speaking of uncharted territory, we’re kicking this episode off with a very important introduction: our new host Nate Hegyi is picking up the mic for the first time. 

Question 1: How do I become a backyard astronomer? Here are seven Tips for getting started. 

Question 2: How sustainable is space travel? 

Question 3: What is the ‘Dark Forest’ theory?

Question 4: Would the hare-brained scheme from 'Don't Look Up' actually work?

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

Featuring: Susan Rolke, Jennifer Willis, Martin Ross, Jonathan Yaney, and Amy Mainzer

ELECTRIC VEHICLE SURVEY

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

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

SUPPORT

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LINKS

Find an astronomy club near you

Want some digital stargazing help? Try an app like Star Walk 2 or Stellarium.

Check out the sounds of space. 

Learn more about the company Spinlaunch, which is trying to use centrifugal force to launch rockets into space, and watch their Orbital Accelerator concept video.

Does more efficient sometimes mean more emissions? Read up on Jevon’s Paradox. 

Are we alone? Like, really alone? Learn about the Drake Equation to find out. 

Go down a wikipedia wormhole on The Three Body Problem, by Liu Cixin.

Don’t Look Up seems like it’s about a comet, but it’s actually about climate change. 

Simulate a world ending comet collision with the Earth Impact Effects Program.

CREDITS

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

Host: Nate Hegyi

Edited by Taylor Quimby

Additional editing by Justine Paradis and Cori Princell

Executive producer: Rebecca Lavoie

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

Theme: Breakmaster Cylinder

Additional music by Howard Harper-Barnes, Jerry Lacey, Jules Gaia, and Blue Dot Sessions.

Antler tissue is the fastest growing animal tissue on the planet. It grows faster than a human embryo, faster even than a cluster of cancer cells. On a hot summer day, some antlers can grow as much as one inch per day! And buried inside them is a cocktail of nutrients that both animals and humans are itching to get their paws on.

In summary: Antlers are freaking amazing. So in this episode of Outside/In, we’ve invented a new segment just to highlight them. We’re calling it Holy Scat! and it’s our way of exploring all the things about the natural world that make us totally geek out. 

For our inaugural adventure, we learn about how antlers grow so fast, meet a collector who covers hundreds of miles searching for them, AND find out why scientists hope antlers could unlock new treatments for osteoporosis. Plus, we’ll tell you a whole herd of awesome deer factoids, and answer the eternal question: are Santa’s reindeer males or females? 

Featuring Henry Ahern, Will Staats, Brendan Lee, and Tomas Landete-Castillejos. Special thanks to Chris Martin and Dave Anderson of Something Wild, who inspired this episode!

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LINKS

Check out the episode of the NHPR podcast Something Wild that inspired this story!

Stanford scientists identified genes behind rapid antler growth. Read more here. 

Watch a video describing the research on glioblastoma cells.

Good footage of an antler shoving match. 

Graphic Video Warning! If you want to see what an emergency velvet antler amputation looks like, here you go. 

Reporting on MMA Fighter George Sullivan’s one year suspension for the use of Velvet Antler supplements

Is the Coronavirus in Your Backyard? A New York Times report on coronavirus in animal populations (and especially, in deer)

An article from Smithsonian detailing what may be the first case of coronavirus to spread from a deer to a human

CREDITS

Produced and researched by Jessica Hunt and Taylor Quimby

Executive producer: Rebecca Lavoie

Edited by Taylor Quimby and Rebecca Lavoie

Mixed by Taylor Quimby

Additional editing: Felix Poon and Nate Hegyi

Special Thanks to Cindy Downing and David Hewitt

Theme: Breakmaster Cylinder

Additional music by Arthur Benson and Claude Signet

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

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

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

Featuring Soham Bhatt and Susan Sleeper-Smith.

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

LINKS

How to Make Hard Cider

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

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

SUPPORT

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CREDITS

Produced and mixed by Felix Poon

Edited by: Taylor Quimby

Executive producer: Rebecca Lavoie

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

Theme: Breakmaster Cylinder

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

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

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

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

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

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

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LINKS

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

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

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

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

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

CREDITS

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

When Jocelyn Smith was growing up, she told her friends and family she didn’t want to go to college. Instead, her goal was to hike all 2,190 miles of the Appalachian Trail, a rugged journey spanning from northern Georgia to central Maine. Last year, she finally realized that dream in a seven-month long, life-changing adventure.

But as soon as she started her descent from the last mountain summit, she started to wonder… what now? What did all of this mean? For the thousands of people who “thru-hike” the world’s longest trails, this is actually a well-known phenomenon. They call it “the post-trail blues.'' 

If getting out into nature is supposed to be restorative, why do so many long-distance hikers report feeling depressed after they finish? In this episode, we explore how an epic hike turns into a new identity, and ask why some of the biggest achievements of our lives can leave us feeling strangely empty. 

Featuring Jocelyn Smith, Shalin Desai, Joseph Robinson, and Anne Baker.

If you or someone you know is struggling with depression, reach out to the folks at the Crisis Text Line, a texting service for emotional crisis support. To speak with a trained listener, text HELLO to 741741. It is free, available 24/7, and confidential.

SUPPORT

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LINKS

Jocelyn Smith’s blog for The Trek

Shalin Desai’s piece about diversity on the trail, originally published in A.T. Journeys, the Appalachian Trail Conservancy magazine. 

More information about the life and music of Earl Shaffer, the first known person to have thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail from end-to-end. 

Anne Baker’s article for The Trek, titled Post-Trail Depression: It’s Not What You Think

Our previous episode on Baxter State Park, featuring ultramarathoner Scott Jurek: “Champagne on The Rocks”
 

CREDITS

Produced and mixed by Taylor Quimby

Executive producer: Rebecca Lavoie

Edited by Rebecca Lavoie

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

Theme: Breakmaster Cylinder

Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions, River Foxcroft, Dew of Light, Golden Age Radio, Matt Large, and Earl Shaffer.

When writer Elizabeth Rush visited neighborhoods already transformed by rising seas, she noticed that many people did not use terms like “climate change.” They still talked about it – it’s just that they talked about it in terms of their own experiences: the dolphins, swimming in tidal creeks further inland than ever before… how the last big flood wasn’t gradual, but fast and sudden.

In this episode, we’re looking for new ways to discuss climate change with Elizabeth Rush, author of Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore. While some books about climate change are heavy on politics and UN reports, Rising is not that. Instead, Elizabeth focuses on the people, species, and communities on the leading edge of sea level rise, from New York to California, Louisiana and even to the mountains of Oregon.  

“A good friend of mine… was like, ‘This is the first climate book I've also read that has zero quotes from politicians.’ That wasn't purposeful, but I looked back and was sort of proud of that,” Elizabeth said.

SUPPORT

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LINKS

Elizabeth Rush's website

Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore

CREDITS

Hosted by Justine Paradis and Felix Poon
Reported, produced, and mixed by Justine Paradis
Edited by Rebecca Lavoie
Additional editing: Taylor Quimby, Felix Poon, and Jessica Hunt
Executive producer: Rebecca Lavoie
Theme: Breakmaster Cylinder
Additional music by Chris Zabriskie and Blue Dot Sessions

Decades before the first international permaculture conference or certified organic tomato, a farmer on an island in southern Japan turned his back on industrial agriculture and devoted his life to finding a different way of farming.

Masanobu Fukuoka was working as a plant pathologist when he experienced a revelation – and promptly quit his job and returned home to his family farm. Eventually, he wrote The One-Straw Revolution, a manifesto on his method, shizen noho, and the philosophy of “do-nothing farming.” 

Published in 1978, the book has been described by writer Michael Pollan as “one of the founding documents of the alternative food movement.” But its reach goes far beyond farming: The One Straw Revolution has been translated into 25 languages and is admired by artists, writers, and philosophers. 

Fukuoka passed away in 2008, but his grandson, Hiroki Fukuoka, is still living and farming there today. In the second part of the story of Fukuoka and “do-nothing” farming, writer Hannah Kirshner journeys to the place where he lived and farmed, to see shizen noho, as it is today. 

Featuring Hiroki Fukuoka, with appearances by Akiko Fukuoka, Taro Nakamura, and Atsushi Tada.

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LINKS + FURTHER READING 

Masanobu Fukuoka Natural Farm

Hannah Kirshner, author of Water, Wood, and Wild Things: Learning Craft and Cultivation in a Japanese Mountain Town

Fukuoka in discussion with Bill Mollison and Wes Jackson for Mother Earth News, which took place at the Second International Permaculture Conference in Washington state.

Many of those practicing natural farming in Japan learned about it from Yoshikazu Kawaguchi, who adapted Fukuoka’s practice and started a natural farming school called Akame Shizennou Jyuku.

The 1978 review of The One Straw Revolution in Akwesasne Notes, a newspaper published by the Mohawk Nation

For more on the story behind the book’s publication and Fukuoka’s travels in the United States: The One Straw Revolutionary: The Philosophy and Work of Masanobu Fukuoka by Larry Korn

CREDITS

Special thanks to Tim Crews and the Land Institute, ethnobotanist Justin Robinson, Jeffrey Gray of Fenlake Farm, Paul Quirk of Ishiharaya farm, Bill Vitek, and Atsushi Tada and Taro Nakamura, who work with the Masanobu Fukuoka Natural Farm. 

Reported and written by Justine Paradis and Hannah Kirshner

Produced and mixed by Justine Paradis

Executive producer: Rebecca Lavoie

Edited by Taylor Quimby

Additional editing: Rebecca Lavoie and Felix Poon

Translation help from Michael Thornton

Theme: Breakmaster Cylinder

Additional music by Patrick Patrikios and Blue Dot Sessions

Decades before the first international permaculture conference or certified organic tomato, a farmer on an island in southern Japan turned his back on industrial agriculture and devoted his life to finding a different way of farming.

Masanobu Fukuoka was working as a plant pathologist when he experienced a revelation – and promptly quit his job and returned home to his family farm. Eventually, he wrote The One-Straw Revolution, a manifesto on his method, shizen noho, and the philosophy of “do-nothing farming.” 

Published in 1978, the book has been described by writer Michael Pollan as “one of the founding documents of the alternative food movement.” But its reach goes far beyond farming: The One Straw Revolution has been translated into 25 languages and is admired by artists, writers, and philosophers. 

What is it about this slim green book that has touched so many people? 

Part I tells the “origin story” of Masanobu Fukuoka, and how his ideas spread far beyond his home on the Japanese island of Shikoku. 

In Part II, we journey to that corner of southern Japan, and the mountain where Masanobu Fukuoka once lived and farmed, to see shizen noho in action today.

Featuring Takeshi Watanabe, Robin Calderon, and Hiroki Fukuoka.

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LINKS + FURTHER READING 

Masanobu Fukuoka Natural Farm

Fukuoka’s discussion with Bill Mollison and Wes Jackson for Mother Earth News, which took place in 1986 at the Second  International Permaculture Conference in Washington state.

Many of those practicing natural farming in Japan learned about it from Yoshikazu Kawaguchi, who adapted Fukuoka’s practice and started a natural farming school called Akame Shizennou Jyuku.

The 1978 review of The One Straw Revolution in Akwesasne Notes, a newspaper published by the Mohawk Nation

For more on the story behind the book’s publication and Fukuoka’s travels in the United States: The One Straw Revolutionary: The Philosophy and Work of Masanobu Fukuoka by Larry Korn

CREDITS

Special thanks to Tim Crews and the Land Institute, ethnobotanist Justin Robinson, Jeffrey Gray of Fenlake Farm, Paul Quirk of Ishiharaya farm, Bill Vitek, and Atsushi Tada and Taro Nakamura, who work with the Masanobu Fukuoka Natural Farm. 

Reported and written by Justine Paradis and Hannah Kirshner

Produced and mixed by Justine Paradis

Executive producer: Rebecca Lavoie

Edited by Taylor Quimby

Additional editing: Rebecca Lavoie and Felix Poon

Translation help from Michael Thornton

Theme: Breakmaster Cylinder

Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions and Patrick Patrikios

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

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

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

Featuring: Haritima Bahuguna

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LINKS

On The Fence: Chipko Movement Re-visited

The Axing of the Himalayas

Appiko (To Embrace)

CREDITS

Reported and produced by Felix Poon

Host: Justine Paradis

Edited by Taylor Quimby

Additional editing by Justine Paradis, and Erika Janik

Executive producer: Rebecca Lavoie

Mixed by Felix Poon

Theme: Breakmaster Cylinder

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

We all know that a key part of addressing climate change involves getting off fossil fuels. But renewable energies, such as solar energy, are not without costs. One key cost? It uses a lot of land. The team at How to Save a Planet takes a look at one creative solution to this problem – mixing solar panels with agriculture. And they are not at all sheepish about the role of one very adorable four legged animal.

Featuring How to Save a Planet.

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CREDITS

How to Save a Planet is a Spotify original podcast and Gimlet production.
Host: Alex Blumberg
Episode producer: Kendra Pierre-Louis
Show producers: Anna Ladd, Rachel Waldholz and Hannah Chinn 
Intern: Nicole Welch
Supervising producers: Lauren Silverman and Kaitlyn Bogucki
Editor: Caitlin Kenney.
Sound design and mixing by Peter Leonard
Original music by Peter Leonard, Catherine Anderson and Emma Munger
Fact-checking: James Gaines
Special thanks to Alex DePillis at the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, and Tonje Waxman and Brooks Mixon at Sun Raised Farms. 

Outside/In team: Justine Paradis, Taylor Quimby, Felix Poon, and Jessica Hunt.
Executive producer: Rebecca Lavoie
Theme: Breakmaster Cylinder

Gasp! Once again, the Outside/In team find themselves plunged into (a very predictable) darkness as winter descends on the Northern Hemisphere. In this episode, our second annual friluftsliv special, we turn to Norwegian culture for inspiration on how best to approach the coldest quarter of the year.  

The team offers our 2021/22 tips on how to enjoy the outdoors in inclement weather, and cozy (and not so cozy) indoor recommendations for those days when the wind is howling, the digits are single, and you simply can’t even. 

Featuring Jim Staples.

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'FRILUFTSLIV' GEAR TIPS

Interested in microspikes? Check out this review of various winter traction devices. 

How to sell a parka: Fast Company calls the Canada Goose “cold room” the best retail experience of the year. 

Everything old is new again: The LA Times on how the disposable camera is making a comeback among millennials and Gen Z. 

'KOSELIG' TV RECOMMENDATIONS

Jessica: 100 Foot Wave. A seminal big-wave surfing documentary, complete with staggering visuals, intense score, and larger-than-life personality. Follows extreme surfer Garrett McNamara’s journey as he pioneers new methods for taking on the world’s biggest waves. HBO Max.

Rebecca: Dark. At first, this cerebral time-travel story feels like a German take on Stranger Things - but Dark, frankly, is much weirder than that. Get hooked by the surprising twists, stay for the stellar performances from its ensemble cast. Perfect for a February binge-session. Netflix.

Taylor: Alone. Most reality TV relies on human interaction in order to create drama  - this one is just the opposite. Contestants film themselves as they try to survive the longest in harsh wilderness conditions without friends, family, or even producers around to see them do it. Hulu and Netflix.

Justine: The Great. An “occasionally true” look back at the reign of Catherine the Great, the devotee of enlightenment ideals who oversaw Russia during one of its most prosperous eras. Visually, it’s a great period piece - but what sets it apart is the raunchy, smart, laugh-out-loud humor. Hulu.

NON-SCREEN 'KOSELIG' IDEAS

Taylor: Put together a puzzle unlike any other. 

Rebecca: Keep yourself cozy with a rubber hot water bottle. 

Jessica: Make yourself some glogg.

Justine: Throw a fantastic winter banquet, with the help of How to Eat a Peach by Diana Henry. 

[Note: Please be cautious of CDC safety guidelines when planning any social gatherings during the pandemic - a good winter banquet need not be held indoors or have a large guest list to be a splendid time!]

Justine’s bonus recommendation (excellent on its own or paired with The Great): The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow, a book about freedom, the Indigenous influence on the Enlightenment, and what on Earth our ancient human ancestors were up to for hundreds of thousands of years. 

CREDITS

Produced and mixed by Taylor Quimby

Executive producer: Rebecca Lavoie

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

Theme: Breakmaster Cylinder

Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions

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

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

Question 2: Is wildfire smoke impacting bird migration?

Question 3: Do bears hoot?

Question 4: Are farmers practicing agroforestry in New England?

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

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

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CREDITS

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

Host: Justine Paradis

Edited by Taylor Quimby

Additional editing by Cori Princell

Executive producer: Rebecca Lavoie

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

Theme: Breakmaster Cylinder

Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions

Animal agriculture is one of the biggest contributors to global climate emissions. But what about hunting? Does shooting and eating wild game skirt the complicated ethics and emissions connected with eating factory farmed animals? 

In this episode, a vegetarian-turned-hunter brings two reporters into a forest in Germany, in search of sustainable  meat. Not only is it an interesting conversation from a climate perspective, it’s also a fascinating glimpse into the differences between hunting culture in the United States and Germany. 

This story comes from our friends at On The Green Fence, a podcast about environmental issues. It’s produced by Deutsche Welle and hosted by Neil King and Gabriel Borrud. This episode was part of their season on the ethics and sustainability of eating meat, which recently won a 2021 Lovie Award for Best Limited Series.

Featuring Alena Steinbach.

Follow On The Green Fence on Twitter: @dw_environment

Follow On The Green Fence on Instagram: @dw_globalideas

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LINKS

For more on the “meat paradox” that Neil and Gabriel mention in this episode, check out our previous episode The Meat Matrix. 

CREDITS

On The Green Fence is hosted by Neil King and Gabriel Borrud. Their executive producer is Vanessa Fischer. Their sound engineer is Jürgen Kuhn and they’re produced by Natalie Muller.

The Outside/In team is Justine Paradis, Taylor Quimby, Felix Poon and Jessica Hunt

Executive Producer: Rebecca Lavoie

Theme music by Breakmaster Cylinder

In Aspen, Colorado, bears descend from the mountains to gorge on unlocked restaurant dumpsters. In India, drunk elephants crash into bodegas searching for food. And behind these human-wildlife conflicts are the researchers and scientists who are trying to prevent us from killing each other. 

Author Mary Roach is no stranger to squirmy subjects: she’s written about the science of decomposition, digestion, and sex. By comparison, her latest book sounds almost cute: It’s called Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law. But don’t be fooled, because this book is “wilder” than anything else she’s ever written.

Reminder: you don’t need to read the book to enjoy Outside/In Book Club! The conversation is open to all. In this episode, we speak with Mary about humanity’s drive to keep wild animals out of our kitchens, communities, and crops, and the absurd -- and sometimes disturbing -- lengths we’ll go to do it. 

Our next pick for the Outside/In Book Club is Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore, by Elizabeth Rush. Again, you don’t have to read it to enjoy the show, but if you do,  don’t forget to tag us @OutsideInRadio on Twitter and Instagram, and use the hashtag #ReadingOutsideIn to share your thoughts and questions.

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LINKS

More about Mary Roach

CREDITS

Produced by Taylor Quimby and Jessica Hunt

Edited by Justine Paradis

Executive Producer: Rebecca Lavoie

Mixed by Taylor Quimby

Additional Editing: Jessica Hunt, and Felix Poon

Theme: Breakmaster Cylinder

Additional Music by Blue Dot Sessions

Who moved the giant monolithic statues of Rapa Nui, a remote island in the South Pacific? And how did they do it? These questions have been at the center of much speculation and debate since Europeans first arrived there on Easter Sunday, 1722, and called it “Easter Island”. The most popular theory was that this remote civilization destroyed itself -- cutting down all the trees to make contraptions for moving statues.

But according to the indigenous people of Rapa Nui, their ancestors didn’t need to cut down any trees to transport the statues. In fact, their oral history has always been clear about how the moai were transported.

This is a story about storytelling: what happens when your community becomes the subject of a global mystery? A parable of human failure and ecological collapse? What’s the true story? And who gets to tell it?

Featuring: Sergio Rapu Haoa, Carl Lipo, Terry Hunt, Sergio Mata’u Rapu, and Gina Pakarati

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LINKS

A profile of Sergio Rapu Haoa for the 2002 Rotary World Peace Scholars program at Berkeley

Eating Up Easter -- a documentary film produced by Sergio Mata’u Rapu, about how the people of Rapa Nui are grappling with environmental and social changes brought on by tourism and economic development.

The NOVA-National Geographic Documentary

• A team of 18 volunteers move a 10-foot 5-ton statue for the NOVA-National Geographic documentary, Mystery of Easter Island
• A figurine animation demonstrating five different theories of moai-transport through the years.
• Mystery of Easter Island -- The NOVA-National Geographic Documentary in its entirety

Lectures by Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo

• National Geographic Live Lecture -- Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo: The Statues That Walked
• Long Now Foundation Lecture: The Statues Walked -- What Really Happened on Easter Island | Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo

CREDITS

Reported and produced by Felix Poon

Edited by Taylor Quimby

Executive Producer: Rebecca Lavoie

Mixed by Felix Poon

Additional Editing: Justine Paradis, Jessica Hunt, Rebecca Lavoie, and Erika Janik

Special thanks to Effie Kong, and Daniela Allee for her Spanish and Rapanui voiceovers.

Theme: Breakmaster Cylinder

Additional Music by Blue Dot Sessions

There’s a type of travel industry which defines itself as different: ecologically minded, even “responsible.” It’s a type of travel meant to support the conservation of threatened ecosystems. This is not just tourism, but “ecotourism.”

This specific brand of tourism is a crucial part of the plan to conserve the Great Himalayan National Park in northern India, a gorgeous patchwork of forests, glaciers, mountains, and rare wildlife.

From one perspective, the strategy is working: tourism is on the rise, which provides jobs to locals and incentivizes conservation.

But from another perspective, the very thing meant to help conserve the area might also be one of its biggest threats.

In our last episode, journalist Yardain Amron reported on the conservation strategy -- and the controversy -- around the creation of the GHNP in the 1980’s and ‘90s.

Here, Yardain turns to 21st century ecotourism, and explores just how much the Tirthan Valley of India is changing. Who profits from tourism based on exploring wilderness? And just how eco-friendly is ecotourism?

Featuring Raju Bharti, Karan Bharti, Dimple Kamra, Upi Kamra, Rosaleen Duffy, Stephan Marchal, Robert Fletcher, Narottam Singh, and a traveler named Nishant.

Translation by Vibha Kumar.

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LINKS

To learn more about this approach to conservation, check out our episode on the origins of Yellowstone National Park, “Fortress Conservation.” 

Dorceta Taylor, “The Rise of the American Conservation Movement.”

Bram Buscher and Robert Fletcher, “The Conservation Revolution.”

CREDITS

Host: Justine Paradis

Reported and produced by Yardain Amron

Edited by Taylor Quimby with help from Justine Paradis

Executive Producer: Rebecca Lavoie

Mixed by Yardain Amron and Taylor Quimby

Additional Editing: Felix Poon and Jessica Hunt

Special thanks to: Guman Singh, Tony Gaston, and Hema Marchal.

Theme: Breakmaster Cylinder

Additional Music by Blue Dot Sessions

The Great Himalayan National Park in India is among the most dramatic landscapes on Earth. Count the layers in a single panoramic photo of the park and you might see mountains, glaciers, old-growth forests, and alpine meadows.

But National Parks are defined by two things: first, an abundance of wildlife and majestic landscapes; and second, no permanent human presence.

So, before anybody was ever invited to visit the park, authorities first told about 15,000 local people to stay out.

This episode is the first of two stories reported by freelance journalist Yardain Amron.  In this tale, he explores the strategies of conservation at work in India’s Tirthan Valley, and what it took to create The Great Himalayan National Park over the course of two decades. What does it mean to “protect” the natural world? Who is doing the protecting, and who should it be protected from?

SUPPORT

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

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LINKS

To learn more about this approach to conservation, check out our episode on the origins of Yellowstone National Park, “Fortress Conservation.”

Dorceta Taylor, “The Rise of the American Conservation Movement.”

Bram Buscher and Robert Fletcher, “The Conservation Revolution.”

CREDITS

Host: Justine Paradis

Reported and produced by Yardain Amron

Edited by Taylor Quimby, with help from Justine Paradis

Executive Producer: Rebecca Lavoie

Mixed by Yardain Amron and Taylor Quimby

Additional Editing: Felix Poon and Jessica Hunt

Translation: Vibha Kumar

Special thanks to Guman Singh and Tony Gaston.

Theme: Breakmaster Cylinder

Additional Music by Blue Dot Sessions

We introduce our new mailbag segment: the Outside/Inbox, where we answer your questions about the natural world.

This time: 

Question 1: What are those blue boxes sticking out of East Coast salt marshes?

Question 2: A bunch of wasps swarmed into my friend’s bowl of ramen and died. What poisoned the wasps? 

Question 3: Did life begin on Earth just once? Or could it have happened multiple times during the same period?

Question 4: If you ironed out all the mountains in a place like New Hampshire - how much bigger would the surface area of the state be?

Do you have a question about the natural world? Submit it to the Outside/Inbox! Send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or call our hotline: 1-844-GO-OTTER.

Featuring: Gabrielle Sakolsky, Luke Steller, Jared Dyer, Debbie Maciecki, Larry Garland, and Russell Congalton

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CREDITS

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

Host: Justine Paradis

Edited by Taylor Quimby

Additional Editing: Cori Princell and Rebecca Lavoie

Executive Producer: Rebecca Lavoie

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

Theme: Breakmaster Cylinder

Additional Music by Blue Dot Sessions

Once upon a time, potpourri was a popular way to freshen up a space. Now, for some, it feels a bit like the lava lamp of fragrance: an outdated fad from a bygone decade.

So, why was potpourri so popular in the 1980’s, and what happened to it? Did the trend dry up… or just evolve?

We explore the transformation of potpourri, from the fermented mush of the Victorian era to the perfumed and colorful bag of pine cones of the eighties, and talk to a few of the people still making potpourri today.

Featuring: Yvette Weaver, Carly Still, Laure Moutet, Autumn Anderson, Paulus, and Ednita Tingle.

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LINKS

An 1895 recipe from Sweet from Sweet Scented Flowers and Fragrant Leaves for 50-year moist potpourri (the recipe begins on page 42).

From Death Scents: more fascinating info on the history of medieval trends that predate potpourri and the rise of “rotten pot” potpourri.

Fragrant Potpourri Preserves the Floral Scents of Summer: A 1975 NYT article that bridges the gap between moist and dried potpourri recipes.

A 1988 Glade Potpourri Spray commercial

CREDITS

Hosted by Justine Paradis

Reported and produced by Taylor Quimby

Edited by Justine Paradis

Executive Producer: Rebecca Lavoie

Mixed by Taylor Quimby

Additional Editing: Felix Poon and Jessica Hunt

Special thanks to Rosalyn LaPier, Mark Nesbit, and to NHPR’s voices from the ‘80s: Nick Capodice, Josh Rogers, Emily Quirk, Patricia McLaughlin, Rick Ganley, and Rebecca Lavoie.

Theme music by Breakmaster Cylinder

Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions and Ben Nestor

Science journalist and sci-fi novelist Annalee Newitz thinks and writes a lot about the future. But in their latest book, Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age, Annalee looks at the distant past in four ancient cities: Pompeii (of the Roman Empire), Angkor (of the Khmer empire in modern day Cambodia), Catalhoyuk (the first known city in the world in today’s Turkey), and Cahokia (an indigenous city near what’s now St. Louis, Missouri).

Through these four cities, Annalee explores the past to understand our future. And, in the face of the existential threat of climate change, we talk about what the stories of these cities can tell us about humanity’s possible future.

The next Outside/In book club pick is Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach. It comes out on September 14, 2021.

Don’t forget to tag us @OutsideInRadio on Twitter and Instagram, and use the hashtag #ReadingOutsideIn to share your thoughts and questions about Four Lost Cities or Fuzz!

SUPPORT

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LINKS

Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age

CREDITS

Host: Justine Paradise
Written and reported by Felix Poon
Edited by Justine Paradise, Erika Janik, and Taylor Quimby
Executive Producer: Erika Janik
Mixed by Felix Poon
Music by Breakmaster Cylinder

This week, we’re sharing an episode from The Experiment, a podcast from The Atlantic and WNYC that tells “stories from an unfinished country.”

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Each episode explores elements of the experiment that is the United States, from the evangelical influence on American politics to alcohol use in the United States… and to “America’s best idea:” its national parks.

In an essay for The Atlantic, David Treuer, an Ojibwe author and historian, says we can make that idea even better—by giving national parks back to Native Americans.

“By virtue of the parks returning to Native control, I would like people, when they’re standing at the foot of El Capitan, to look up knowing they’re on Native lands, to look up knowing that they’re standing on the graves of Native people,” says Treuer, who grew up on the Leech Lake Reservation in northern Minnesota as the nearby Voyageurs National Park was being established. “I would like, when people look up at vistas, like at Yosemite or at Yellowstone, that they’d look up as a way to look back at the history of this country.”

Outside/In is a member-supported production of New Hampshire Public Radio. You can donate at outsideinradio.org/donate.

As we wave off our erstwhile host as he moves on to new adventures, we recall a drive through the mountains and assemble (what else?) a riotous montage.

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If you’ve got a question for the Outside/In[box] hotline, give us a call! We’re always looking for rabbit holes to explore. 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.

One more throw-back of Sam, one of our more “creative” fundraising ideas from a few years back.

Outside/In is a member-supported production of New Hampshire Public Radio. You can donate at outsideinradio.org/donate.

To be profitable, the offshore wind industry requires vast sums of money only accessible to some of the world’s biggest companies. But is the environmental movement ready to welcome oil majors and devoted capitalists into their ranks? Ready or not, here they come.

Windfall is the story of a promising renewable technology and the potential of wind power in a changing climate. It’s a story about who has the power to reshape our energy future.

Featuring: Henrik Stiesdal, Nat Bullard, Jason Jarvis, and Mijin Cha.

Part 5 of 5.

SUPPORT

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

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LINKS

A note about our reporting process

CREDITS

Co-hosts: Sam Evans-Brown and Annie Ropeik

Written and reported by Sam Evans-Brown

Senior Producer: Jack Rodolico

Executive Producer: Erika Janik

Mixing: Justine Paradis

Fact-checking: Sara Sneath

Editors: Erika Janik, Annie Ropeik, Justine Paradis, Felix Poon, and Hannah McCarthy

Special thanks to Sandeep Pai, Bo Quinn, Sammy Roth and Kim Delfino.

Music: Ben Cosgrove, Blue Dot Sessions, and Breakmaster Cylinder

Windfall Graphic Design: Sara Plourde

Billions of dollars in investment will rain down on the cities that are best positioned to launch America’s offshore wind industry. But not every city can become the “wind capital of America.” Where is it gonna drizzle, and where is it gonna pour?

Windfall is the story of a promising renewable technology and the potential of wind power in a changing climate. It’s a story about who has the power to reshape our energy future.

Featuring: Ziven Drake, Dana Rebeiro, Jesper Bank, and Lars Pederson.

Part 4 of 5.

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

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LINKS

A note about our reporting process

Time-lapse of a (European) jack-up barge in action

CREDITS

Co-hosts: Sam Evans-Brown and Annie Ropeik

Written and reported by Sam Evans-Brown and Jack Rodolico

Senior Producer: Jack Rodolico

Executive Producer: Erika Janik

Mixing: Taylor Quimby

Fact-checking: Sara Sneath

Editors: Erika Janik, Annie Ropeik, Justine Paradis, Taylor Quimby, Felix Poon, and Hannah McCarthy

Special thanks to

Music: Ben Cosgrove, Blue Dot Sessions, and Breakmaster Cylinder

Windfall Graphic Design: Sara Plourde

The promise of the nascent American offshore wind industry meets an unlikely foe: squid fishermen in Rhode Island. Forces collide — like the enduring symbol of the American blue-collar worker, the big money of global energy interests, and the volatility of American politics. We ask: what is the nature of power?

Windfall is the story of a promising renewable technology and the potential of wind power in a changing climate. It’s a story about who has the power to reshape our energy future.

Featuring: Joe McNamara, Norbert Stamps, Josiah Dodge, Kevin Sullivan, Jason Jarvis, Meghan Lapp, Lars Pederson, Nicola Groom, Ben Storrow, Kevin Stokesbury, David Monti, David Bernhardt, and Gina Raimondo.

Part 3 of 5.

SUPPORT

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

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LINKS

A note about our reporting process

CREDITS

Co-hosts: Sam Evans-Brown and Annie Ropeik

Reported by Sam Evans Brown
Written by Sam Evans-Brown, Jack Rodolico, and Annie Ropeik

Senior Producer: Jack Rodolico

Executive Producer: Erika Janik

Mixing: Justine Paradis 

Fact-checking: Sara Sneath

Editors: Erika Janik, Annie Ropeik, Justine Paradis, Felix Poon, and Hannah McCarthy

Special thanks to Miriam Wasser of WBUR and Craig Lemoult for audio of Lars Pederson and David Bernhardt in this episode. Thanks also to Christa Bank, Jean Flemma, Andrew Gill, David Bidwell, Henrik Lund, John Mitchell, Callie Tansill-Suddath, and the Maritime Institute of Technology and Graduate Studies.

Music: Ben Cosgrove, Blue Dot Sessions, and Breakmaster Cylinder

Windfall Graphic Design: Sara Plourde

Ten years ago, a Kennedy and a Koch shared the same goal: stop Cape Wind, America’s would-be first offshore wind farm.

Despite nearly two decades of effort, Cape Wind was never built, and its failure had huge consequences for the offshore wind industry. But it also laid the groundwork for the next wave of offshore wind and the explosive growth to come.

Windfall is the story of a promising renewable technology and the potential of wind power in a changing climate. It’s a story about who has the power to reshape our energy future.

Featuring: Cheryl Andrews-Maltais, Jim Gordon, Sean Corcoran, Beth Daley, and Audra Parker.

Beth Daley is now the editor-in-chief of The Conversation. Sean Corcoran is currently the managing editor at WGBH.

Part 2 of 5.

SUPPORT

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LINKS

A note about our reporting process

A pro-Cape Wind PSA (from Greenpeace) circa 2007

CREDITS

Co-hosts: Sam Evans-Brown and Annie Ropeik

Writing and reporting: Jack Rodolico

Senior Producer: Jack Rodolico

Executive Producer: Erika Janik

Mixing: Taylor Quimby

Fact-checking: Sara Sneath

Editors: Erika Janik, Annie Ropeik, Justine Paradis, Taylor Quimby, Felix Poon, and Hannah McCarthy

Special thanks to Beth Daley, Sean Corcoran, Bettina Washington, and Richard Andre

Music: Ben Cosgrove, Blue Dot Sessions, and Breakmaster Cylinder

Windfall Graphic Design: Sara Plourde

Picture this: thousands of wind turbines off the Atlantic coast, each one taller than the Washington Monument. Offshore wind is seen as an essential solution to climate change, and it’s poised for explosive growth in the United States. How did we get to a moment of such dramatic change?

Windfall is the story of a promising renewable technology and the potential of wind power in a changing climate. It’s a story about who has the power to reshape our energy future.

Featuring: Henrik Stiesdal, Bryan Wilson, and Bob Grace.

Part 1 of 5. Listen to the rest of the series here.

SUPPORT

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

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LINKS

A note about our reporting

A video from the power company, Orsted, detailing the decommissioning of Vindeby, the world’s first offshore wind farm. 

How a turbine works

CREDITS

Co-hosts: Sam Evans-Brown and Annie Ropeik

Written and reported by Sam Evans-Brown

Senior Producer: Jack Rodolico

Executive Producer: Erika Janik

Mixed by Taylor Quimby

Fact-checker: Sara Sneath

Editors: Erika Janik, Annie Ropeik, Justine Paradis, Taylor Quimby, Felix Poon, and Hannah McCarthy

Special thanks to Sarah Mizes-Tan and WCAI for the audio of the Block Island Wind Farm Tour, and to Vincent Schellings, Walter Musial, Michael Taylor and Dan Shreve

Music: Ben Cosgrove, Blue Dot Sessions, and Breakmaster Cylinder

Windfall Graphic Design: Sara Plourde

A new series and an announcement.

After 20 years of politicization and red tape, the U.S. is moving full speed ahead on plans to install thousands of wind turbines off the Atlantic coast.

Today, we’re proud to announce the launch of a special five-part series exploring this story. It’s called Windfall, and it follows the birth of a brand new industry in the U.S., one that will invest billions of dollars in our economy and reshape our coastal communities.  

Giant corporations are retooling their business models, setting their sights on the climate problem and hoping to capitalize on offshore wind. But some of these corporations — including BP and Shell — are the same companies arguably responsible for climate change in the first place.

Windfall is the story of a promising green technology and the potential of wind power in a changing climate. And it’s a story about power… and who has the power to reshape our energy future.

The first episode will debut on the Outside/In feed on June 24th, with new episodes weekly through July 22nd.  Learn more at windfallpodcast.org

Also, we share a big announcement about the staffing of Outside/In – a change that not only informs our reporting and transparency for the upcoming Windfall series, but impacts the future of the show as a whole.

Sign up for our biweekly newsletter here.

We’re exposed to plenty of invisible risks in our daily life: toxic compounds in the fabric of our couches, contaminants in the water, and pollutants in the air. A lot of the time, we don’t think too much about them.

But sometimes, the invisible becomes suddenly, acutely visible.

A story about the air we breathe, the risks we can live with, and what it means to become a citizen of a place.

Featuring Susan Scott Peterson, Stella Peleato, Dr. Deborah Gentile, Rashmi Baliga, and Linda Wigington.

Links and Resources

To learn ways to improve your indoor air quality wherever you are, here’s a link to the ROCIS guide.

For open-source air quality data in your location, visit the Purple Air monitoring network map.

For more on air quality in the Pittsburgh region, start with Breathe Project and the Smell PGH and Plume PGH apps by Carnegie Mellon’s CREATE Lab.

To learn more about air quality activism in Pittsburgh, visit the Group Against Smog and Pollution and Breathe Project.

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Outside/In is a member-supported production of New Hampshire Public Radio. To support work like this, please consider a donation to the show.

Geologist and writer Lauret Savoy considers fossil hunting and historical inquiry to be versions of the same pursuit.

In Trace: Memory, History, Race, and the American Landscape, Lauret uses the search for her family story as a lens to better understand American history, and the landscape as a lens to better understand her past.

Her memoir is a winding journey from southern California to Puritan New England, from Lake Superior to the U.S.- Mexico Border, and finally to Washington, D.C., where she grew up. For Lauret, identifying the geologic story in the American landscape was often easier than finding  answers about her own family.

The next Outside/In book club pick is *Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age* by Annalee Newitz. Look for that episode in late summer.

We want to see you reading your books! Share a picture of yourself #ReadingOutsideIn, and don’t forget to tag us @OutsideInRadio on Twitter and Instagram. Plus, if you’ve got a thought about Trace or a question for Annalee Newitz, send ‘em our way! 

While sand beaches comprise just over 30% of the world’s ice-free shorelines, the collective idea of the sand beach can sometimes cast a much bigger shadow.

That imagined beach can even have an influence on other fields of science — like plastic pollution.

Featuring Dr. Max Liboiron.

Links

Liboiron’s essay, “Plastics in the Gut,” published in Orion Magazine.

Outside/In Book Club

The pick for the first book is Trace: Memory, History, Race, and the American Landscape by geologist and writer Lauret Savoy.

When composer and traveling musician Ben Cosgrove was just 7 years old, he wrote a song called “Waves”. Since then, he’s made a career out of music inspired by landscape, place, and wilderness.

But if an artist has an environmental brand... do they also represent an environmental ethic?

Over the years, Ben began to wrestle with what his music was really saying about the natural world.

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Read “The Trouble with Wilderness” by William Cronon.

More on Ben Cosgrove’s new album, also called “The Trouble with Wilderness”.

Even in the quietest of times, sand beaches are defined by movement and change.

“I think it's fair to say the beach is one of the most flexible or dynamic, if you will, habitats in the world. It’s super geologically unstable,” said coastal ecologist Dr. Bianca Charbonneau, also known as “the Dune Goon.”

Sign up for the Outside/In newsletter for biweekly reading lists, episode extras, and chances to get involved.

On this edition of 10x10, we explore how beaches move. Producer Justine Paradis examines the systems and feedback loops on and around the sand beach, the science taking place there, and how the way beaches are changing is itself changing in a changing world.

Support great storytelling by making a donation to Outside/In.

Links

Hawaii’s Beaches are Disappearing, a report from ProPublica and Honolulu Star-Advertiser
Rockaway: Surfing Headlong into a New Life by Diane Cardwell
United Nations report on the global sand shortage
“Peak Sand” from Planet Money
Beach profiling and community science with NH Sea Grant and UNH Cooperative Extension.

Announcing: the Outside/In Book Club

Heads-up! In May, we will be debuting the O/I Book Club. The pick for the first book, selected by our listeners, is Trace: Memory, History, Race, and the American Landscape by geologist and writer Lauret Savoy. It is so good: she tells hidden stories of American landscapes, sometimes starting from the bedrock, and explores the interplay between geography, history, and culture.

if you don’t get a chance to read the book we think you’ll still enjoy the conversation. But if you want to read along with us, here’s a link to buy the book from your local independent bookseller, or you can always check it out from the library. 

This week, we’re featuring an episode from How To Save A Planet, a podcast about climate change hosted by Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Alex Blumberg.

Heating and powering buildings takes a lot of energy, which is why a full thirty percent of U.S. greenhouse gasses can be traced back to the indoor environments in which we live and work. Lowering that number on a collective scale - by increasing their efficiency - is no easy feat.

In this episode, Ayana and Alex speak with Donnel Baird, founder of BlocPower, about his mission to tighten up one of the leakiest contributors to climate change: our buildings.

How To Save A Planet is produced and reported by Rachel Waldholz, Kendra Pierre-Louis, Anna Ladd and Felix Poon. Their senior producer is Lauren Silverman. Their editor is Caitlin Kenney. Sound design, mixing and original music by Emma Munger. Additional music by Catherine Anderson and Bobby Lord. This episode was fact-checked by Claudia Geib.

Outside/In theme music by Breakmaster Cylinder.

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Support Outside/In by making a donation in our year end fund drive

This special BONUS episode of Outside/In was sponsored and selected by our lovely donors. Thank you for your support!

Gutters can refer to the curbside drainage channels that lead into storm drains, to the metal or plastic troughs that line some rooftops, or really to any low area designed to move water from one place to another.

They are, by design, fairly ordinary examples of human engineering. But look closer, and you’ll find extraordinary objects and ecosystems hidden within.

Starting at the curb and working our way up, we spend this episode learning about which creatures take advantage of our waste-water systems; find evidence of extraterrestrial travel on our rooftops; and look at how gutters function…or don’t… for the very species that designed them.

Featuring Ken Belt, Carlos Goller, Menno Schilthuizen, Doug Hartman, Matthew Genge, Fushcia Hoover, and Joyce Hwang.

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Support Outside/In by making a donation!

Read more about the Parisian Gutter study. 

Check out Jon Larsen’s Facebook Group for urban micrometeorite hobbyists, Project Stardust.

See a United States map of cities with Combined Sewer Systems.

In the early 1900s, an Ohlone woman named Isabel Meadows was recorded describing her longing to eat acorn bread again. She detailed the bread’s flavor; the jelly-like texture; the crispy edges; the people who made it. And she talked about the bread’s place in the creation story of her tribe. A century later, a young Ohlone man named Louis Trevino came across the recordings and recognized Meadows as an ancestor from his community. Today, Trevino and his Ohlone partner, Vincent Medina, are on a journey to bring acorn bread, and the language and traditions connected to it, back to the Ohlone people.

The Acorn: An Ohlone Love Story is a documentary about Ohlone food, language, and history. But, ultimately, it is a story about Ohlone strength and homeland, the landscape that stretches from the Bay Area of California to Monterey and Big Sur. And at the heart of this story are acorns.

Links

Michelle Macklem

Zoe Tennant

Cafe Ohlone

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Support Outside/In by making a donation!

Another edition of Ask Sam, where Sam answers listener questions about the natural world. This time, questions about hugging trees, bumpy roads, objects stuck on power lines, and epic hummingbird battles.

Featuring special guests, Maddie Sofia, host of NPR's Short Wave, and Kendra Pierre-Louis, climate journalist with Gimlet's How to Save a Planet.

Also featuring Ferris Jabr, Stephen Morris, Greg Bruton, and Anusha Shankar.

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A lot of us may feel like our time and attention is not our own, and can easily disappear into the ether of work and the internet. But rather than merely suggesting a digital detox, Jenny Odell presents a third way.

In her book How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy, Jenny draws on ecology, art, labor history, and literature, seeking a deeper kind of attention: an attention that probes our sense of selfhood, our relationship to place, time, and other species. An attention that reminds us of our being animal on this planet.

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When producer/reporter Dan Taberski collected data about the long-running reality TV show Cops, he found that it depicts a distorted version of America: Where nearly all crime is associated with violence, drugs, or prostitution, and nearly every police encounter ends in arrest.

There’s another reality TV show about law enforcement called North Woods Law. It follows state conservation officers employed by New Hampshire’s Fish & Game Department. But on North Woods Law, you’re more likely to see an injured loon than an honest-to-goodness arrest.

If COPS presents a world more dangerous than reality, North Woods Law presents something else. But what?

Featuring Jamiles Lartey, William Browne, Erika Billerbeck, Colin Woodard, Colonel Kevin Jordan, Dan Taberski, and Scott Rouleau.

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For many of us during the pandemic, the dark and cold of winter brings a special sense of dread. But it’s not just this year: the seasonal darkness often collectively takes us by surprise. Like clockwork, we forget how dark and cold it gets - and it turns out, there are reasons for that.

But our perception of the seasonal darkness can also be influenced by our attitudes about it.

In Norway, cultural ideas around winter help shape attitudes and experiences of the cold.

The Outside/In winter fund drive is nearly over, and we’re almost to our goal of 100 donors! Visit outsideinradio.org/donate to support the show - and vote on the topic of a potential bonus episode if we reach our goal.

First, there’s the idea of getting cozy, or kosileg. Think candles, slippers, the glow of a fire in the window on a snowy night, eating wood-fired pizza under the stars, or “the smell of baked goods and the Christmas tree,” said Anders Folleras, college friend of Sam Evans-Brown and honorary Outside/In Norwegian cultural attaché.

Koselig is the Norwegian analogue of the Danish idea of hygge. But there’s another concept that goes hand-in-hand with koselig: friluftsliv.

“Being outdoorsy, I’d say,” said Folleras. “Outdoor lifestyle.”

Embracing friluftsliv means open-air living, or getting outside every day, and outdoor adventures for all ages.

So, we think if you really want to get koselig, you’ve gotta get a little friluftsliv too.

For a full list of the suggestions we mentioned in this episode, visit the episode post on outsideinradio.org.

This week, we’re featuring an episode from A Matter of Degrees, a podcast about climate change hosted by Dr. Leah Stokes and Dr. Katherine Wilkinson. This episode was reported by Julian Brave NoiseCat.

The energy transition isn’t going to be a one-size-fits-all process. In this episode, a broad lesson gleaned from a very specific story: the effort to move from coal to solar in the Navajo nation.

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In the coming decades, the scale of climate migration could be dizzying. In one projection, four million people in the United States could find themselves “living at the fringe,” outside ideal conditions for human life.

In collaboration with By Degrees, NHPR’s climate change reporting initiative, we’re devoting the entire episode to answering one question: if you’re worried about climate, where should you live? And how should places prepare for the wave of climate migrants just around the corner?

Featuring Bess Samuel, Jesse Jaime, Aurelia Jaime Ramirez, Kate McCarthy, Elena Mihaly, Jola Ajibade, Nadege Green, Suzi Patterson, Alex Whittemore, and Mike Hass.

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Links

“Locals Bristle As Out-of-Towners Fleeing Virus Hunker Down In New Hampshire Homes” by Annie Ropeik for New Hampshire Public Radio

Nadege Green’s reporting on climate gentrification in season 3 of There Goes the Neighborhood, a collaboration between WNYC and WLRN.

“Why climate migration is not managed retreat: Six justifications” (2020), coauthored by Idowu (Jola) Ajibade and published in Global Environmental Change.

ProPublica’s Climate Migration project

The EPA’s Climate Resiliency Screening Index (2017). Scroll to page 79 for their list of the top 150 most resilient counties in the United States.

Marty, Maine coon cat, 12-year resident of the Mount Washington Observatory, and the highest-altitude feline in the Northeastern United states, died after a sudden illness on November 9th, 2020.

In this Outside/In extra, producer Taylor Quimby remembers Marty, beloved companion and a dignified veteran of the Presidential Range.

Featuring Ryan Knapp.

This Outside/In extra was originally broadcast on New Hampshire Public Radio, our home station.

We often link to these special pieces in our biweekly newsletter, which also includes our reading list, peeks behind the scenes, and opportunities to vote on episode ideas and to shape the future of the show.

Sign up for our newsletter here.

A carbon offset is a simple premise: if you take a cross-country flight and are responsible for a half ton of carbon emissions, spend a few dollars to fund the growth of a half ton worth of carbon in the form of a forest. A fossil fuel company can do the same: buy offsets to write off emissions and call it green. But is this just another form of greenwashing?

Do carbon offsets bring us closer to carbon-neutrality?

Featuring Kaarsten Turner Dalby, Heather Furman, Charlie Stabolepszy, Barbara Haya, Jim Shallow, and Adeniyi Asiyanbi.

Sign up for the Outside/In newsletter. Every two weeks we’ll send you episode extras, occasional call-outs to participate in our episodes, and our reading list.

Throughout the 20th century, conservationists and environmentalists have looked to protect wildlife and biodiversity through the creation of parks and other forms of exclusionary wildlife zones. Zones that seek to preserve spaces devoid of human impact - or to create them, by displacing indigenous and poor people who already live there. Today, some academics call this strategy by a pejorative name: Fortress conservation.

In this episode, we look at medieval forest law, the early days of Yellowstone National Park, and spreading concern over how conservation efforts are enacted and enforced around the world.

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Featuring Karl Jacoby, Prakash Kashwan, Rosalyn LaPier, Hadrian Cook, and Vicky Tauli-Corpuz.

Find more Outside/In on our website

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

But maybe the problem with these big, out-of-control fires is actually *not enough* fire.

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Featuring Luke Romance, John Bailey, Mike Crawford, Jeff Lougee, Paul Gagnon, Tony Harwood, Steve Pyne and Adele Fenwick.

This episode originally aired in 2018.

Find more Outside/In on our website

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

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

Listeners submit their cases for the best fruit ever, and we explore the intersections of fruit, food, and colonialism.

Featuring Alicia Kennedy, Coral Lee, Lauren Baker, Grant Bosse, and Hallie Casey.

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Links

“On Luxury” by Alicia Kennedy

“C is for Colonialism’s Effect on How and What We Eat” by Coral Lee

Here’s the 2013 Scientific American article Taylor mentioned on America’s corn system.

In one version of a sustainable, carbon-neutral future, the world’s cars will transition from fossil fuels to electricity. Right now that vision absolutely depends on lithium, a primary component of the lithium-ion battery.

But there is no “Lithium Central Planning Committee” balancing supply and demand or making sure that lithium is mined in environmentally and socially responsible ways. In fact, there is almost no lithium mining in the United States at all. So where does it all come from? And who is being affected?

Featuring Emily Hersh, Chloe Holzinger, Mike Wise, Patrick Donnelly, Thea Riofrancos, Emiliano Gullo, Ramón M. Balcázar, and Julian Brave NoiseCat.

Check out NHPR’s new climate reporting project, By Degrees.

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Fred Tutman is a voice for Maryland’s Patuxent River. In 2004, he founded Patuxent Riverkeeper, an environmental advocacy organization. His mission is to protect and preserve all 110 miles of the Patuxent—a mission that takes him to the courtroom and to the riverbank. Fred is also the only African-American "Riverkeeper" in the Waterkeeper Alliance in the U.S., which he sees as an indicator of an environmental movement that is incomplete—one the planet will pay the price for.

“It’s very hard in these big conservation movements for people of color to be ourselves,” said Tutman.
“We need not only all hands on deck, but we actually need movements that are adaptable enough to embrace and serve all.”

This episode was produced by Sidedoor, a podcast from the Smithsonian.

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There are places on the map where roads end.

The Darién Gap, or el Tapon del Darién, is one of them. It’s a stretch of rainforest in southern Panama, right on the edge of Central and South America. From a globetrotter’s perspective, the Darién Gap might seem to exist mostly as an obstacle to tourists dreaming of a truly epic road trip from Alaska to Tierra Del Fuego.

But, while a road is a way movement, it’s not the only way to get somewhere. What happens, or does not happen, in a place without roads?

Featuring Jorge Ahumada, Roland Kays, Hector Huertas, Ustin Pascal Dubuisson, and Alicia Korten.

Are snow-making machines an example of climate adaptation, or an example of an emissions feedback loop? Does the fire risk posed by planting trees outweigh the benefits of their use as a carbon sink? Can the team talk big planet problems and still leave room for bad puns? We’ll answer these questions and more climate queries on this special edition of Ask Sam.

Check out NHPR’s new climate reporting project, By Degrees.

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The world of Skyrim is vast. The video game contains cities, villages, and rugged wilderness: high waterfalls cascading into deep pools, packs of wolves roaming the edges of misty alpine forests, echoes in the canyons. The game is celebrated for the intricacy of its environment, and is one of the top-selling video games of all time.

“The world itself was almost the main character of the game, in a way. To say that it's just the background I think is not quite enough,” said Noah Berry, Skyrim’s lead environment artist. “All the memories that you take away from playing a game…I think the world is sort of the larger encompassing vehicle that helps usher all that into you. We hope.”

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

Featuring Megan Sawyer, Ana Diaz, and Noah Berry.

In this update, we tally your votes and announce the winner of our fruit fight. What seed-bearing plant ovary will be crowned the GFOAT, or Greatest Fruit of All Time? The pepper? The coconut? The gourd? The vanilla bean?

Or… none of the above? One listener challenges our candidates with a fruit of his own. Listen to his full 5 minute argument for the grape on the episode page for Fruit Fight. And we welcome you to send you own fruit pitch voicemail to outsidein@nhpr.org.

In 2016, we produced an episode about the ginkgo tree titled "Ginkgo Stink." With its fan-shaped leaves and golden fall foliage, the Ginkgo biloba is a beautiful tree with an incredible history dating back millions of years. It’s also a popular street tree among urban foresters, despite the fact that some ginkgoes produce malodorous cones. The episode was meant to be a celebration of the incredible ginkgo.

But the episode contained an offensive phrase and failed to consider a nonwhite perspective of this amazing species.

In this episode, we’re correcting our mistake, and adding some context about what exactly we got so wrong. First, Felix Poon shares his personal relationship with the ginkgo tree and explores the history of food-related racism in the United States. Then, a new version of the original story, edited to sound the way it should have when we first produced it four years ago.

Explicit Language warning: this episode contains repeated use of a swear word used in the original episode many times. It also contains an ethnic slur, spoken in the context of a conversation about racism. For those reasons, this episode may not be suitable for young kids.

For months, producer Taylor Quimby has been trying to craft a story about spicy peppers. Every one of his pitches has been shot down…until now. On this episode of Outside/In, a CULINARY challenge, a DELICIOUS debate, a FANTASTIC food fight in which four producers argue about which seed-bearing delicacy is the ABSOLUTE best. Of course these fruits aren’t the ones you typically think of when you’re making a fruit salad…

*To Take our FUN and VERY SCIENTIFIC survey, click here. *

To cast your vote in the Outside/In Fruit Fight, click here.

The experience of public outdoor spaces isn't the same for everyone. Today, we explore birding while Black (and #blackbirdersweek) and how racist housing policies drive unequal exposure to climate-driven heat waves.

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Today on the show, we’re bringing you inside what may be the most important environmental Supreme Court Decision in history. Massachusetts v. EPA declared that greenhouse gases are pollution under the definition set out by one of the nation’s oldest and most successful environmental laws, the 1970 Clean Air Act. The case determined that if the executive branch wanted to do so, it could** **confront one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century with one of the most celebrated laws of the 20th century. As such, ultimately, it’s a story of the power … and the limits… of the law.

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Outside/In is supported by Ben's. Click here to learn more or go to https://bens30.com/outsidein

With so many of our favorite outdoor activities currently off-limits, we’re look for accessible ways to explore the magic of the nature from the safety of our homes our neighborhoods. In this edition of Inside/In, we discover the magic and wonder of two often ignored or reviled organisms.

Find more Outside/In on our website: outsideinradio.org

Outside/In is supported by Ben's. Click here to learn more or go to https://bens30.com/outsidein

Being stuck at home for an extended period of time, worrying about the safety of yourself and your loved ones takes a toll on your mental health. “For the first time, it seems, the entire world knows what it’s like to live inside my head,” writes Stephanie Foo, who was diagnosed with complex PTSD in 2018. We talk to her about how to keep yourself on an even keel when the whole world feels like a disaster.

Also, how much impact did native people have on the forests of New England? It’s been a great debate ever since William Cronon published *Changes in the Land *in 1983, claiming they had dramatically altered the landscape that colonist observed upon arrival. But a new study challenges that narrative, as well as the very idea that agriculture and large-scale impacts on landscapes should be used as a barometer of the “progress” of a society.

Outside/In is supported by Ben's. Click here to learn more or go to https://bens30.com/outsidein

If you want to donate to Outside/In, you’ll get an invitation to our virtual trivia night, happening Thursday May 21st. Click here to make a gift.

You know that scene in every disaster movie, where the frantic and panicky science nerd unsuccessfully tries to warn the powers that be that something terrible is about to happen?

In this episode, we explore a historic storm of cosmic proportions, which, if it happened today, experts say could turn out to be a disaster the likes of which our modern world has never seen. So…how do you prepare for a disaster that always seems incredibly far away… until it’s not?

With so many of our favorite outdoor activities currently off-limits, we’re look for accessible ways to explore the magic of the nature from the safety of our homes our neighborhoods. This is the first in a series of short episodes for families and individuals who want to discover how, even when we’re stuck inside, the natural world ties us together.

Find more Outside/In on our website: outsideinradio.org

Cat People is a podcast series by Longreads that examines the strange relationships people have with big cats and the legal loopholes that have made America home to more captive tigers than there are left in the wild.

It also serves as an important corrective to some of the irresponsible journalistic choices made by the creators of the hit Netflix series "Tiger King.”

On today’s show, we are addressing a question we have seen A LOT. As we’re all adjusting to life with the coronavirus, the advice is to stay home and stay safe. But depending on where you are in the world, that advice gets a little blurrier when it comes to exercise and outdoor recreation.

Is it safe to go outside? Is it safe… to go on a hike in the woods? What about a neighborhood in the city? Where do you draw the line, and how do you make this decision for yourself - and for your community?

Find more Outside/In on our website.

In our series 10X10, we examine ordinary places that are more interesting than they might initially appear; and few places hold more unexpected mysteries beneath the wet, mossy surfaces than the dark and muddy places we explored for this episode. We call them by a multitude of names: mires, muskegs, moorlands, or kettle bogs. This time, Outside/In digs beneath the shrubs, sedges, rushes and moss of the bog to find something else - peat. It’s a journey that holds smokey hints of pepper, seaweed, and for peat’s sake, a lot of fossil fuels.

Find more Outside/In on our website: outsideinradio.org

The passenger pigeon is one of the world’s most symbolic extinction stories. It’s a cautionary tale of how in just a few short generations, one of the wonders of the world could be completely eradicated.

But when that narrative was questioned in a popular book, *1491 *by Charles Mann, what does the response tell us about the conservation movement as a whole?

The winner of our “Battle of Tiny Proportions” is revealed! Plus, one of our favorite episodes about the pace of technology: The Forest for the Treesap.

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

In New England, the Waterman name is like mountain royalty. But beyond a tight circle of outdoors-people, they're not a household name. Today, we tell the story of one of the most influential voices in American wilderness philosophy, Laura Waterman, and how she has changed following the death of her husband.

A government bureaucrat builds a website that saves a billion gallons in gas. The minuscule Irish invention that enables the industrial revolution. An innovation for doctor’s gloves kicks off women’s liberation. An ill wind leads to America being stuck with the gallon forever.

On this episode, we present a series of small “nudges” (but not actual nudges) that have had profound impacts for the environment… or maybe not the environment, maybe just generally.

Head to our website and vote on your favorite!

Depending on who you ask, astrology is a science, an art, a form of therapy… or, a pseudo-science, fortune-telling, a scam.  But astrology is way more than a horoscope.

Check us out online, as well as on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

From the ancient charcoal animals of France's Chauvet Cave, to 17th century Dutch windmill paintings, art history can tell us a lot about our evolving view of the natural world. In this episode, producer Taylor Quimby (a self-described art-world neophyte) searches for individual works and genres through history that reveal something interesting about human society and the outdoors. This episode has visual aids - so click this link or find us on Instagram to follow along with the show! Outside/In needs your help. Click here to find out how you can support the show. There's lots of great swag to choose from (so check out the thank-you gifts!) but for $20 a month, we'll send you a ticket to an Outside/In Trivia Night! Test your knowledge of the natural world, share an evening with Sam and the rest of the team, and support the podcast you love.

As extreme weather wreaks havoc around the globe NPR's Throughline looks at a natural disaster more than 200 hundred years ago that had far-reaching effects. This week, how the eruption of the Icelandic volcano Laki awed, terrified and disrupted millions around the world and changed the course of history.

Outside/In needs your help. Click here to find out how you can support the show.

There's lots of great swag to choose from (so check out the thank-you gifts!) but for $100 a month, Sam will personally give you a cross country ski lesson! And yes, it's true, he was taught how to ski by an Olympic gold-medalist.

Before Hurricane Maria hit in September of 2017, Puerto Rico's rickety electric grid was a notorious headache. After the storm, it was a crisis.

This is the story of how a pair of star-crossed lovers came to see nuclear as the unlikely solution to Puerto Rico's energy woes, and how their vision for the island might be changing the way we approach power... even if their plan never comes to pass.

Outside/In needs your help. Click here to find out how you can support the show.

There's lots of great swag to choose from (so check out the thank-you gifts!) but for $20 a month, we'll send you a ticket to an Outside/In Trivia Night! Test your knowledge of the natural world, share an evening with Sam and the rest of the team, and support the podcast you love.

People love fishing for trout. They love it so much that we are willing to go to insane lengths to catch them. But what should we make of the fact that much of that experience of fishing for trout is just a facsimile of what it once was… and may actually be bad for the very same fish, that we so love to catch?

Find more Outside/In at outsideinradio.org

When most of us heard about the "insect apocalypse" we were worried. When producer Jimmy Gutierrez heard it, he thought "this is great." Today he takes a journey in which he tries to learn to appreciate our many-legged companions.

Want to read a transcript or support the podcast? Check out our website.

Sam answers questions about rethinking the toilet, line-dry laundry, rhubarb, and sleeping mosquitoes.

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Last year, two people were attacked by sharks on Cape Cod, and one died. The result has been a  media frenzy that really you have to see to believe.

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When it feels like doctors have closed the door to establishment medicine, another set of doors open. These doors lead to dubious providers, and untested treatments.

Click hereto donate $20 and get ad-free episodes of Patient Zero a week early and bonus content. 

A perfect carrier of disease. A race underneath your skin. The part we know, before we get to the parts we don't.

Click hereto donate $20 and get ad-free episodes of Patient Zero a week early and bonus content. 

When you're fighting off a cold or flu, it's easy to imagine the battle is being waged solely inside the confines of your body. 

But in order to spread, pathogens rely on nearly every aspect of our shared societies. Food and drink, social customs, our proximity to animals, urban design, income inequality: The science of epidemiology connects them all. 

Patient Zero investigates the spaces where people and pathogens collide. It is a story about Lyme disease, but it is also a story about uncertainty, and what to do in the face of it. 

A first look at Patient Zero, a series we'll be putting out next month! Hosted by Outside/In's Taylor Quimby. Sweet new theme by Ty Gibbons.

First episode drops mid-August!  Find more at patientzeropodcast.com.

With Disney's reboot of The Lion King hitting theaters, does the original still hold up all these years later? In this episode, the team revisits an epic tale of class, land rights, and destiny... and critiques the landscapes, animals, and themes that so many 90's kids grew up watching. And once again, Jimmy defends the reputation of hyenas.

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 Ever since the threat of climate change was first made public, scientists have offered the possibility of a get-out-of-jail-free card: geoengineering. While reducing emissions is hard and complicated, why not just engineer the Earth's atmosphere in the meantime?

Decades later, the science of geoengineering is still in its infancy, but a growing number of researchers are trying to change that.  Should they?

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Swimming is something that is more or less a part of human experience, depending on who you are, where you are, when you are alive in history. More than half of Americans can't perform all of the basic swimming skills.

On this episode, two stories that explore our relationship with the water, and why people do or don’t learn to swim.

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And follow us on Twitterand Instagram

Traveling to Antarctica to hang with penguins on the company dime likely seems like the dream assignment for a journalist... or anyone. Ron Naveen has been living that dream, counting penguins by hand for decades. And today you're going to hear about that work from our friends at the PBS Newshour's podcast "The Last Continent."

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Today on the podcast, a story that seemed like a perfect fit Outside/In that wound up going places that we didn’t expect to go. When workers at the American embassy Cuba claimed to have been attacked by a mysterious weapon that left no trace, it led to a major shift in American diplomacy towards the Caribbean socialist state. But the story has also led to a split in journalism, stemming from the sources different kinds of journalists rely on.

This story forces us to ask: how do we decide what we know? What kinds of information we trust?

Ask Sam: that special segment when scientists cringe as Sam and the team speculate wildly on answers to a diverse range of questions from listeners before calling in the real experts.  This time we tackle paper towels, cow poop, body temperature, and weighing whales.

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

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This month, Outside/In is asking for your support. Your donations will keep the show kicking butt, and help us make our next big series!  Plus, we’ve got special (limited-edition, super-twee) swag, handcrafted with an actual branding iron. Donate here .

You hike, you fish, you camp… and you’re single. When you’re looking for love, what is the importance of being “outdoorsy”? And how do you communicate your identity — and expectations for potential matches — on an online dating profile?

The fish photo is just the beginning. 

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

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

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

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

The Sununus are one of New Hampshire's grandest families. John H. Sununu was governor and White House Chief of Staff. One of his sons, John E. Sununu, was a U.S. congressman and senator, and another, Chris Sununu, is governor today.  In their roles of political power, all of these men have faced a different landscape with regard to climate change, and what it means to be a Republican. Today, we track that party's evolution on the subject, through the frame of this one family.

For full versions of several of the interviews in this episode, head to our website outsideinradio.org

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For a long time, the elusive night parrot of the Australian outback was believed to be extinct. Then, an experienced birder with a reputation for dubious finds offered up foolproof evidence that the bird is still alive: photographs, feathers, and birdsong that he promises is the real deal. This week on the show, we're featuring our Australian podcast pal Ann Jones, host of ABC's Off-Track, as she heads out into the bush to try and capture sound from a bird few have ever heard.

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Episode photo by Eddie Yip. 

In our 10X10 series, we examine places that might not seem all that interesting... places like your typical frozen pond.  Sure, on the surface it's a wind-swept desert of crunchy snow and frigid temperatures, but drill a few inches down though, and you'll discover a world turned upside-down. In this episode, we give the down low on bizarre properties of water, fish that thrive in a capped-off environment, and long beards of algae clinging to the underside of a secret ecosystem few have ever explored.

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Episode photo by Michael Carian.

Outdoorsy types are the among the biggest ambassadors of Leave No Trace, a set of principles and best practices for sharing and conserving wilderness areas. But while most people agree on the broad strokes - DON'T SCREW UP NATURE! - sorting out the details can be an emotional and argumentative affair... especially when it comes to rocks.

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The 40-hour workweek is as American as apple pie, and it’s been around almost as long. So, is it finally time to re-think our Monday-through-Friday lifestyle? With modern mechanization and automation, should we all have more leisure time? And what would that mean for the environment? Producer Jimmy Gutierrez looks into the history of work culture, where it’s being challenged, and makes the argument that we ALL should be working less, you know, to save the planet. 

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Here's a humdinger of a thought experiment: How fast could people go before the combustion engine and other technologies drastically increased the speed of the human race? And how did they pull it off? Skis? Sled-dogs? Catapults? From ancient horseriders and viking ships to primitive luges and "Russian Mountains", the Outside/In team researches all sorts of old-fashioned methods of locomotion and presents biggest the speed trial of the millennium.

If you've got your own ideas about how humans hit record speeds during ye good olde days before the automobile, send us an email at outsidein@nhpr.org or call us on the Ask Sam hotline: 1-844-GO-OTTER!

Episode photo  by William James, courtesy of the City of Toronto Archives.

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Pirate trails are everywhere: the pioneers of mountain biking built them on private land, public land and everything in between. They were built by riders just looking for a place to take their new bikes, and in the process they simply appropriated land that they wanted for their trails.

But what happens when the evolution of a sport threatens the very thing that made it so attractive in the first place?

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

Check out Threshold at thresholdpodcast.org

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Find more Outside/In at outsideinradio.org

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

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

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

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

Find more at outsideinradio.org

Two barrels. Four bodies. And the decades-long mystery that led to a serial killer.

A special look at a new podcast from NHPR, Bear Brook: A podcast about a cold case that's changing how murders will be investigated forever.

www.bearbrookpodcast.com

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Decades of legal and public relations battles with First Nations have changed the way that Hydro-Quebec approaches new projects. Today, the company hires specialists who consult with impacted communities, and modify the designs of their projects to take what they have heard into consideration. But is that enough?

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

Hydro-Quebec is the provincially-owned utility that helped French-Canadians stake a claim in Quebec politics and economy. As it forged ahead with two massive hydro projects, the company flooded land that had been used by indigenous people for thousands of years. On episode two of Powerline, we bring you the stories of two groups of First Nations people who grappled with Hydro-Quebec... two stories that end in very different ways.

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

Hydro-Québec, the world’s fourth largest hydropower producer, pumps out low carbon electricity at the cheapest rates in North America. For some, it is the key to a greener, more prosperous, future, but that “clean energy” comes freighted with a complicated history and an uncertain future. This is the story of how a massive, state-owned utility company came to be a symbol of the French-Canadian people. It’s also the story of how a company, with all of the force of a colonial culture behind it, used its power to try to push Quebec’s original occupants—its indigenous people—to one side. It’s the story of how that effort led to something that has become its own kind of revolution in Canada: native people pushing to regain power over their own lives and culture. And it’s a story about the environmental benefits and human costs of clean energy. 

New episodes weekly starting November 9th.

Featuring new music from Breakmaster Cylinder. 

outsideinradio,org

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

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

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

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

Two young, starry-eyed conservation biologists take a college road trip through Mexico that transforms their outlook on the world. In so doing, they created the foundation for a strategy that would lead them to succeed where heavy-handed government policies had failed. But along the way, they had to get their hands dirty. 

Looking for a relatively cheap way to spend a few weeks abroad? You might want to consider World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, or WWOOF. Have an aversion to mud, farm animals, and learning on the job? Maybe reconsider that first suggestion. But for those of you who are looking for an adventure, on a budget, Sam and Molly have composed a “guide” for would-be WWOOFers to think about before taking off–from how to make sure your visa is in order, to embracing the awkwardness of close quarters with strangers, while still maintaining your dignity. 

Lēf Farms built a $10 million dollar, state of the art, automated greenhouse, hoping to sell baby greens branded as fresh and local to area grocery stores and restaurants. But even local foods can meet with local opposition when the neighbors see a farm that doesn’t match their expectations for what agriculture should look like.

Wilderness Therapy is a form of treatment that uses the natural world to address behavioral and mental health issues in teens. But with a tattered history of institutional abuse, patchwork oversight, and absent legislation, is this treatment option too wild to be trusted?

In 1982, Times Beach was wiped off the map by an environmental disaster. But once the houses and streets were gone, the town was erased again, this time in a way that may make it difficult to learn from the mistakes of the past. 

This week we attempt to not only eat the invaders, but drink them as well. And this time, most of us were on board. Also, the Ask Sam hotline gets some attention as Sam answers questions about bird feeders, black flies, storm clouds, and dew.

Global Rescue is a business that, should you get yourself into trouble, will drop everything to come and save you, anywhere in the world. They employ former Navy Seals, helicopters, airplanes, and even yaks to get the job done. But this service comes at a price, and when disaster strikes, is it fair that a service that won’t save everyone can rush in pull out those who can afford it?

Up along the banks of the Damariscotta River in Maine there used to be two stadium-sized piles of oyster shells. Where did they come from? Why are they there? What can they tell us about the people that created them? There are mysteries abound in the middens!

If you're a long-time listener of the podcast, you might remember this as Episode 6: Champagne on the Rocks. But if you're new around here, we thought you'd like to hear one of our favorite episodes from the archives, complete with an update at the end. In the summer of 2015, Scott Jurek set a new record for running the 2,181 miles of the Appalachian Trail. But on his triumphant day atop the last mountain in Northern Maine, his 21st century campaign for the trail's record ran afoul of a park founded on ideas about wilderness from a decidedly earlier time. 

Ever wonder where those flowers in the grocery come from and why, no matter what time of year, there are always roses available? Just in time for Mother's Day—the second busiest floral day behind Valentine's Day—we look inside the billion dollar flower industry and trace the well oiled supply chain that makes sure saying it with flowers is always an option.

Since we launched the toll free version of our Ask Sam hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837), we've seen a real healthy uptick in queries. This time around we decided to ask Chris Martin of the New Hampshire Audubon, and Dave Anderson from the Forest Society to join Sam in our quest to answer your questions about the outdoor world. We've got everything from the geometry of wombat feces to planting trees by the light of the moon. #AskSam

Beaver (Castor canadensis), have been kicking around in North America for 2 million years. Ecologically they do all sorts of great things: their ponds ease flooding downstream, and support large numbers of bird species, fish, amphibians, and otters. They're what's called a keystone species, as in the keystone to an entire eco-system. But they're also the world's second largest rodent and a nightmare for property owners. Humans and beavers have a long history together because they like to live in the same places, but the way we've built our infrastructure has almost guaranteed our two species will be locked in eternal conflict.

Nature documentaries and wildlife films transport us to places in the world that still feel wild, but what if the wilderness they present is staged? What if, in order to capture nature’s unvarnished beauty and conflict, filmmakers have to engage in a bit of fakery? In this episode we examine how deception is used to enhance the drama of nature documentaries, from Disney’s Oscar-winning film White Wilderness, to the incredible footage featured in the BBC’s Planet Earth II. Plus, we own up to some of the production tricks we use to make this podcast. 

When he was just 38 years old, Mackie Branham Jr., a coal miner, was diagnosed with progressive massive fibrosis, a debilitating and terminal form of black lung, a disease that was thought to be a relic of the past; a problem when coal mining was at its peak. In this episode we hear from Branham and his family, in a collaboration with Producer Benny Becker who reported on the resurgence of black lung in coal country. We'll look into why, despite the severity of the illness and the large number of miners being diagnosed, it's not getting a lot of attention.

This is a follow-up to Episode 30: The Death Machine.

Is skiing a sport reserved for rich people? Producers Maureen and Jimmy think so, and Sam wants to prove them wrong. In this episode, Sam takes his skeptical colleagues skiing for the very first time to show that it doesn’t have to be a fancy endeavor. Will he succeed? Will it be wicked expensive? Will they enjoy it? Listen to find out. www.outsideinradio.org Theme music by Breakmaster Cylinder

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

Every so often, we take some time out from telling stories to answer questions from you, our friends and listeners. These questions have been piling up, and so we thought we’d dig through them and bring you some of the more interesting ones. This week, we're digging into snow fleas, the lies we tell others about mountains, and whether there's more wind than there used to be. If you want us to answer your question, you should give us a call! The number is 603-223-2448. If you’re technologically inclined, record your question on a voice-memo and send it to outsidein@nhpr.org.

When Ryan and Sinehan Lessard first started dating, they discovered they have something strange in common: after they die, they both want to “become a tree”. This is the story about a growing number of people who want to forgo standard funeral practices like embalming, caskets and big granite monuments in favor of a more natural burial - and why that’s easier said than done. 

Coastal communities of every partisan stripe are wrestling with the reality of rising seas. But when you’ve built a life centered around your dream home by the shore, the decision to pull up stakes and leave is a wrenching one. 

If you’re even the least bit interested in solar power, you’ve probably come across an obscure, hard-to-parse, seemingly conflict-free term: net metering. It’s a system that has come to be the bedrock of the American rooftop solar industry, and the root of one of today’s biggest energy battles. It was also started by a dude named Steven Strong, kind of by accident. Buckle up folks, we're going full energy nerd. 

Sam is going to take us all hunting this week. Not hunting for animals, but instead, hunting for the secret of what’s behind that 26-mile fence cutting through the woods of New Hampshire, and why some people want it to stay a secret.

This week on the show we’re bringing you something a little different, a story from someone else. Caroline Ballard and Micah Schweizer started HumaNature, which is based in Wyoming, and they’re part of the team responsible for bringing us the story of a man, his walk through an unfamiliar culture and an unexpected friendship, in a couple of different ways. 

Mount Washington is famously home of "The World's Worst Weather", but it also hosts a huge amount of tourist infrastructure. Senior producer Taylor Quimby brings us this tale of how the mountain was conquered, and how that process became the template for mountain tourism nation-wide. 

Sam won’t tell you this, but he’s a really great athlete. He has another secret, too. There’s this photo of him leading a ski race, and it’s plastered on the side of a city bus in Argentina. So, how did Sam wind up on the side of a bus? This story explains.

In our series, 10X10, we take you on a journey to a 10X10 plot and uncover the secrets in spaces you’d never think to look. This time, we look for signs of extraordinary life, at the center of a traffic circle.

Tony Bosco hid in plain sight for more than two decades in the most densely populated state in the nation. How did he do it? And what makes someone exchange all of the comforts of their home for the simplicity of a shed in the woods? 

Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, Friday the Thirteenth, Blair Witch. It seems the woods make a great backdrop for scary stories, but why? Are we hardwired to fear the forest? Or, let’s throw it out there, do ghosts just like hanging out in the thickets? Sam goes on the trail with paranormal experts and talks with Lore’s Aaron Mahnke to find out what makes the woods so terrifying, and tests his own beliefs along the way. 

This is Eat The Invaders - our occasional segment where we take a bite out of invasive species populations. On the menu today, one of the scariest, most voracious and intractable invaders out there: the lionfish.

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

It’s not surprising that many of the medicines we use today are derived from plants. The surprising part is how similar the molecular components of plants are to the building blocks of our own human, mammalian bodies. This week we dive head first into a vat of soybean oil with Dr. Percy Julian who, against all odds, became one of the most prominent chemists of his time and whose work paved the way for the birth control pill. Plus, why the cone snail and its deadly neurotoxin just might be the key to a pain free future.

In 2013, Neil Hayward was depressed. He had just left the biotech company he helped start, and he was getting over the end of a very serious relationship. He had disposable income, and free time. Suddenly, he found himself doing a lot of birding. A LOT. In this episode Sam delves into the subculture of extreme bird-watching. Plus, this week’s Ask Sam is all about assassin crows.

The producers commandeer the show while host Sam Evans-Brown is on a much-needed vacation. They sail into weird territory almost immediately. Note: Sam will be back with a new, normal episode right after Labor Day.

When you walk a trail in the woods, have you ever wondered, how did this get here? Who carved this path? Was this stone staircase always like this? Nope. Chances are a team of hardscrabble men and women worked tirelessly to make sure the paths you follow blend right into the landscape. In this story, we find out why one such trail crew, known as the 'TFC', is the stuff of legend.

When a Harvard professor accidentally let Gypsy Moths loose in the 1860s, he didn’t realize he was releasing a scourge that would plague New England forests for more than a century. Nothing could stop the moths except a controversial method of wildlife management called biocontrol. It’s the scientific version of “fighting fire with fire”: eradicate an invasive species by introducing another invasive species. Since then, there have been lots of biocontrol success stories, but also a few disastrous failures. In this episode, we ask whether biocontrol is the best--maybe the only way--to combat invasives, or if it’s just an example of scientific hubris.

Producer Taylor Quimby has been defending Vibram FiveFingers™ shoes to naysayers for years. When people see him wearing them while he’s on the trail or out for a run, they tend to have a pretty visceral reaction, and that reaction is typically disgust. So what is it about these glove-like shoes that makes people so upset? #running #fivefingers #vibram

Pokémon Go is getting people outside and moving around, but is that enough? When it comes to developing a lasting appreciation for the natural world, will augmented reality make a dent? Sam hashes it out with a Poké-believer and a Poké-skeptic.

The “Save the Whales” movement of the 1970’s was instrumental in putting a stop to commercial whaling. But even as humpbacks and other whale populations have bounced back, one species is still up against the ropes. Literally. In this story, Sam tackles the problem of whale entanglement - and discovers that proposed solutions include crossbows, Australian lobsters, and Chinese finger traps. 

Two listeners, two very different questions for Sam. Can you 'taste' which state maple syrup comes from & why do dogs spend so much time deciding where to go #2?

Ari Ofsevit is a guy from Boston fueled by an intense, nerdy love for sports. The day after running this year’s Boston Marathon, his face was all over the cover of the Boston Globe and on all of the network news channels, but on the internet, people were accusing him of cheating. This is Ari’s story.

A mini-episode about the world's cutest predator.

We're gonna give it to you straight. This story is Sam's white whale. For years, the electrical grid has called to him like a siren, and lead him down a treacherous path of unintelligible tech jargon, mind-numbing energy reports, unfinished radio stories, and lots of mixed metaphors. But out of the ashes, the story of Boothbay, Maine rose like a Phoenix...or perhaps it was cobbled into existence, like Frankenstein. Either way, this is a story about the electrical grid, and it's darned interesting. Sam has slayed the beast. 

For alpinist Ben Clark, scaling the world's toughest montains was a source of pride and accomplishment, for his parents it was a source of constant worry. After learning to live with their son's adventurous streak, Ben decided to quit mountaineering altogether. Why? The answer may surprise you.

Tyler Armstrong is 12 years old. He likes to play laser tag. He’s learning to play guitar. And this spring he’s heading to China, where he will attempt to summit the world’s highest mountain. In this episode, an ethical debate: how young is too young to climb Everest?

In the early '90s Keene, New Hampshire created a pumpkin festival to bring the community together, but after 24 years the quaint festival tore the town apart.

This past summer, Scott Jurek set a new record for running the 2,181 miles of the Appalachian Trail. But on his triumphant day atop the last mountain in Northern Maine, his 21st century campaign for the trail's record ran afoul of a park founded on ideas about wilderness from a decidedly earlier time. Photo credit: "The Shared Experience" via Creative Commons BIT.LY/23A9KSV

In 1998, Forest Quimby spent thousands of dollars building one of the most beautiful, most elaborate docks on Franklin Pierce Lake in New Hampshire. There was just one problem – it was illegal. In this story, we hear about Quimby’s seventeen-year battle with the NH Department of Environmental Services, and find out why small-scale environmental regulations are so hard to enforce.

In 2015 about 2,700 of the 50,000 people who applied will receive a moose hunting permit. If you're one of the lucky ones who has waited 20 years for this moment, you're going to want an expert on your team. You're going to want a moose whisperer.

....or, why you should always be careful when you're traipsing through the woods in the springtime. In this episode we check out the most short-lived and abundant sources of life that you've never heard of.

Or, how Sam learned to stop worrying and love the cold hardy kiwi. It's a fruit you've never heard of, but it could be the key to one man's dream, even though it's another man's invasive nightmare. 

Introducing our new podcast about the outside world and how we use it. Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio