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Submit ReviewIt’s that special time again! Scientists everywhere hold their breath as the team opens the Outside/Inbox and answers listener questions about the natural world. In this episode, we consider Flaco the Eurasian eagle owl, an impulsive goat purchase, and a big night for salamanders. Plus, we’re graced us with Nate’s rendition of a Tom Waits song.
Questions:
Featuring Stephon Alexander, Luke Kemp, Chris Sturdy, and Sandi Houghton.
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Subscribe to our (free) newsletter.
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Check out these gorgeous virtual-tour-virus.html">visualizations created by the Mannahatta Project, which has since been renamed the Welikia Project.
Flaco the Eurasian eagle owl died after crashing into a building earlier this month. His autopsy revealed his body to be riddled with rodenticide and pigeon herpes, cementing his status as “a real New Yorker” for some observers. Still, building collisions, rat poison, and disease are all major risks for birds of prey in urban environments.
CREDITS
Outside/In host: Nate Hegyi
Reported and produced by Felix Poon, Taylor Quimby, and Justine Paradis
Mixed by Justine Paradis
Edited by Taylor Quimby and Rebecca Lavoie
NHPR’s Director of Podcasts is Rebecca Lavoie
Music by blacksona, Katori Walker, Bisou, Young Community, Diamond Ortiz, Brightarm Orchestra, Kevin MacLeod, Tellsonic, Walt Adams, and ProleteR.
Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.
To save for retirement, common knowledge says to “diversify your portfolio.” Give your cash to a company so they can invest it into hundreds of other companies on the stock market. But unless you’ve gone out of your way to change it, your portfolio probably has little to do with your values.
For example, there are climate activists invested in fossil fuel companies. Staunch vegans putting some of their hard-earned income into Tyson Foods. On the flip side, there are climate deniers with money in Tesla!
So is there a way to save for retirement that’s both good for your pocketbook… and good for the planet?
Featuring: Timothy Yee, Clara Vondrich, Kelly Shue
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Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In.
Subscribe to our newsletter (it’s free!).
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Divestment helped reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the coal industry, according to this white paper from the Harvard Business School. However, divestment can also backfire, according to this study from Yale.
Got a lot of time to kill? You can watch the recent SEC commissioner meeting where they voted to pass a weakened version of the climate disclosure rule.
CREDITS
Host: Nate Hegyi
Reported and produced by Nate Hegyi
Mixed by Nate Hegyi and Taylor Quimby
Editing by Taylor Quimby
Our staff includes Justine Paradis and Felix Poon
Executive producer: Taylor Quimby
Rebecca Lavoie is NHPR’s Director of On-Demand Audio
Music by Blue Dot Sessions
Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio
Editor's Note: This episode first aired in July, 2023
With 'Oppenheimer,' director Christopher Nolan turned the Manhattan Project into an Academy-Award-winning blockbuster. The film is set in Los Alamos, where the first atomic bomb was tested. But few people know the history of Carrizozo, a rural farming area downwind of the test.
Radioactive fallout from the bomb settled on everything: the soil, gardens, and drinking water. Cow’s milk became radioactive. Later, hundreds of people developed radiogenic cancers.
The people of Carrizozo were among the first people in the world exposed to a nuclear blast. More than 75 years later, their families are still fighting for medical compensation from the federal government.
Host Nate Hegyi traveled to New Mexico to visit the Trinity Site, and to hear the stories of so-called ‘downwinders.'
Featuring: Paul Pino, Tina Cordova, Ben Ray Lujan
SUPPORT
Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In.
Subscribe to our newsletter (it’s free!).
Follow Outside/In on Instagram or join our private discussion group on Facebook.
Submit a question to the “Outside/Inbox.” We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).
LINKS
Read more about RECA (the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act) which passed in the U.S. Senate this March. (Idaho Capital Sun)
The federal government has produced a few studies on the fallout from Trinity. This one from Los Alamos found that there was still contamination in the area in 1985.
Another, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, produced one of the most in-depth histories of the fallout from Trinity and the government’s reaction.
The National Cancer Institute found that hundreds of people likely developed cancer because of the fallout.
The history of Trinity is full of strange little details, like the desert toads that were croaking all night.
You can find affidavits and first-hand accounts of the fallout from Trinity at the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium website.
This review by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists explains why it’s so hard to determine a definitive death toll for the USI bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during WWII.
CREDITS
Host: Nate Hegyi
Reported and produced by Nate Hegyi
Edited by Taylor Quimby
Editing help from Rebecca Lavoie, Justine Paradis, Felix Poon, and Jeongyoon Han
Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer
Music for this episode by Blue Dot Sessions
Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio
If you grew up with family members who pushed (or dragged) you onto the trail, chances are you have strong memories associated with hiking. Epic vistas… swarms of black flies… and your dad’s terrible homemade gorp.
Whether you grow up to see them as personal triumphs or family fiascos, those early adventures can shape your perception of the outdoors for life.Can parents shape kids into hardcore hikers? And what happens when your best-laid plans go off the map?
Featuring Sarah Lamagna, Nick Capodice, Daisy Curtin, Niles Lashway, Sarah Raiche, Tiffany Raiche, and Phineas Quimby
SUPPORT
Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In.
Subscribe to our newsletter (it’s free!).
Follow Outside/In on Instagram or join our private discussion group on Facebook.
LINKS
If you liked Sarah Lamagna’s tips on how to hike with children, you’ll find more in her recently published guidebook.
CREDITS
Host: Nate Hegyi
Reported, produced, and mixed by Taylor Quimby
Edited by Rebecca Lavoie
Our staff includes Justine Paradis and Felix Poon.
Executive producer: Taylor Quimby
Rebecca Lavoie is NHPR’s Director of On-Demand Audio
Music by Blue Dot Sessions, The New Fools, and SINY.
Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio
Submit a question to the “Outside/Inbox.” We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).
A century ago, coastal dunes threatened to overwhelm the city of Florence, Oregon. The sand swallowed roads, highways, and houses. When “Dune” author Frank Herbert visited the area in 1957, he was stunned by the awesome power of the sand. Eventually, it inspired his fictional desert planet, Arrakis.
But now, the dunes that inspired “Dune” are disappearing.
To solve the sand problem, the US Forest Service planted dunes with non-native beachgrass, hoping its strong roots would keep the dunes in place. The strategy worked… too well. The grass spread, out-competing native species and transforming the dunes. At one popular spot, roughly 60% of what was once open sand is now gone.
Producer Justine Paradis traveled to the Oregon Coast to see the mountains of sand which inspired a sci-fi classic, and meet the people working to save them.
Featuring Dina Pavlis, Patty Whereat Phillips, and Jesse Beers.
SUPPORT
Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member.
Subscribe to our (free) newsletter.
Follow Outside/In on Instagram or Twitter, or join our private discussion group on Facebook.
LINKS
These aerial photos demonstrate the dramatic changes in the Oregon dunes since 1941.
Dina Pavlis’ Secrets of the Oregon Dunes Facebook page
The Oregon dunes are the setting of an episode of “Lassie” (1964), in which a little girl gets lost in a sand storm. New hires at the Forest Service in Florence are shown this film during orientation.
The Siuslaw Public Library in Florence is home to the eclectic Frank Herbert collection, as reported by Oregon Public Broadcasting. These are books donated by Herbert’s daughter which he was reading at the time he wrote ‘Dune,’ and are available to the public. Fans make the pilgrimage to browse the collection, which includes titles on the desert, politics in the Middle East, computation, Scottish folk singing, rug hooking, and much more.
Frank Herbert originally visited Florence to research a proposed magazine article on the Forest Service’s dune, as reported on the Siuslaw News. His (unsuccessful) proposal, “They Stopped the Moving Sands,” can be read in “The Road to Dune.”
An episode of Endless Thread about the time a six-year-old boy fell into a tree hole (he’s fine now) in Michigan City, Indiana.
CREDITS
Outside/In host: Nate Hegyi
Reported, produced, and mixed by Justine Paradis
Edited by Taylor Quimby and Katie Colaneri
Our team also includes Felix Poon.
NHPR’s Director of Podcasts is Rebecca Lavoie
Special thanks to Meg Spencer, Kegen Benson, Armand Rebischke, and Kevin Mittge.
Music by Sarah the Illstrumentalist, Elm Lake, Chris Zabriskie, and Blue Dot Sessions.
Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.
In the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York, dozens of strangers gathered together in the woods for three straight days. Their mission? Teach people of color how to kill, gut, and butcher a deer for the first time.
Producer Felix Poon was there as a first-time hunter. He wanted to know: what does it feel like to take an animal's life to sustain your own? Given the opportunity… would he pull the trigger?
In this episode we follow Felix out of his depth and into the woods, to find out if one weekend can convert a longtime city-dweller into a dedicated deer hunter.
Featuring Dorothy Ren, Brandon Dale, and Brant MacDuff.
SUPPORT
Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In.
Subscribe to our newsletter (it’s free!).
Follow Outside/In on Instagram or join our private discussion group on Facebook.
LINKS
Lydia Parker, executive director of Hunters of Color, discusses how to make the outdoors more equitable. (The Nature Conservancy)
Melissa Harris-Perry talks to Brandon Dale, the New York ambassador for the Hunters of Color organization, on WNYC’s The Takeaway.
CREDITS
Host: Nate Hegyi
Reported, produced, and mixed by Felix Poon
Edited by Taylor Quimby, with help from Rebecca Lavoie.
Our staff also includes Justine Paradis
Taylor Quimby is our Executive Producer
Rebecca Lavoie is NHPR’s Director of On-Demand Audio.
Music for this episode by Blue Dot Sessions, Hanna Lindgren, and Walt Adams.
Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio
Submit a question to the “Outside/Inbox.” We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).
Editor's note: This episode was first published in July, 2022.Humans have had an impressive run thus far; we’ve explored most of the planet (the parts that aren’t underwater anyway), landed on the moon, created art and music, and made some pretty entertaining Tik Toks.
But we’ve survived on the planet for just a fraction of the time horseshoe crabs and alligators have. And we’re vastly outnumbered by many species of bacteria and insects.
So what is the most successful species on Earth? And how do you measure that, anyway?
From longevity and happiness, to sheer numbers, we put a handful of different organisms under the microscope in hopes of better understanding what exactly it means to succeed at life on a collective and individual scale.
Featuring: Stephen Giovannoni, Rashidah Farid, and Steward Pickett
SUPPORT
Check out Stephen Giovannoni’s paper: “SAR11 Bacteria: The Most Abundant Plankton in the Oceans”
An interesting treatise on adaptability: “Why crocodiles still look the same as they did 200 million years ago”
From the NSF: “The most common organism in the oceans harbors a virus in its DNA”
More food for thought: “The non-human living inside you"
CREDITS
Host: Nate Hegyi
Reported and produced by: Taylor Quimby
Editing by: Nate Hegyi, Rebecca Lavoie
Additional editing help from Justine Paradis, Felix Poon, and Jessica Hunt.
Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer
Special thanks to everybody who answered our question at the top of the show: Josemar Ochoa, m Carey Grant, Butter Wilson, Tim Blagden, Robert Baker, Sheila Rydel, and Bob Beaulac.
Music for this episode by Blue Dot Sessions, and Jules Gaia
Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio
Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica is massive, bigger than the state of Florida. If it collapses, it could reshape every coast on this planet during this century. That’s why it’s sometimes known as “the Doomsday Glacier.”
And yet, until recently, we knew very little about it. Because Thwaites is extremely remote, reachable only by crossing the wildest ocean on the planet, scientists had never observed its calving edge firsthand.
In 2019, a ground-breaking international mission set out to change that, and writer Elizabeth Rush was on board to document the voyage. We caught up with her to learn about life on an Antarctic icebreaker, how she grappled with classic Antarctic narratives about exploration (and domination), and how she summons hope even after coming face-to-face with Thwaites.
Featuring Elizabeth Rush.
SUPPORT
Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member.
Subscribe to our (free) newsletter.
Follow Outside/In on Instagram or Twitter, or join our private discussion group on Facebook.
LINKS
Our 2022 episode featuring Elizabeth Rush about community responses to sea level rise in Staten Island and Louisiana. If you’re interested in reading more about the journey to Thwaites, check out Elizabeth’s book, “The Quickening: Creation and Community at the Ends of the Earth”.
A paper published in Nature with some of the findings from this voyage, showing that Thwaites has historically retreated two to three times faster than we’ve ever observed. Here’s the one detailing findings about Thwaites’ past extent, extrapolated from their study of ancient penguin bones, and another sharing observations about water currents beneath its ice shelf.
We also recommend “Encounters at the End of the World,” Werner Herzog’s (2007) documentary about science and community in Antarctica.
CREDITS
Outside/In host: Nate Hegyi
Reported, produced, and mixed by Justine Paradis
Edited by Taylor Quimby
Our team also includes Felix Poon.
NHPR’s Director of Podcasts is Rebecca Lavoie
Music by Blue Dot Sessions, Nctrnm, Sometimes Why, FLYIN, Silver Maple, Chris Zabriskie, Ooyy, and the Weddell seals of Antarctica.
Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.
A lot of discussion about sustainability revolves around the trash and waste we leave behind. But at some point, every human being will die and leave behind a body.
So what should we do with it? Casket? Cremation? Compost? And does our choice actually have a meaningful impact on the soils and skies around us?
Today, we’ve got another edition of our segment, “This, That, or the Other Thing”, where Outside/In’s unofficial decomposition correspondent Felix Poon investigates how we can more sustainably rest in peace. Featuring Regina Harrison, Katrina Spade, and Matt Scott
SUPPORT
Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In.
Subscribe to our newsletter (it’s free!).
Follow Outside/In on Instagram or join our private discussion group on Facebook.
Submit a question to the “Outside/Inbox.” We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).
LINKS
Find how you can help with climate solutions by drawing your Climate Action Venn Diagram.
Learn more about Project Drawdown’s Drawdown Solutions Library.
Tag along on a visit to the Recompose human composting facility (Youtube).
CREDITS
Host: Nate Hegyi
Reported and produced by Felix Poon
Edited by Taylor Quimby
Our team includes Justine Paradis.
Rebecca Lavoie is NHPR’s Director of On-Demand Audio.
Music for this episode by Blue Dot Sessions
Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio
Submit a question to the “Outside/Inbox.” We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).
Once in a blue moon the Outside/In team opens up the mailbag and answers your questions about the natural world. This time, they all share a preoccupation with a particular hue: blue.
Come along as we learn about the differences between European and Aztec conceptions of the color blue, how construction workers build offshore turbine foundations under the deep blue sea, and why the most exciting picture astronauts took during Apollo 8 wasn’t of the lunar surface.
Questions:
Featuring Kai Kupferschmidt and Justin Alves.
SUPPORT
Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In.
Subscribe to our newsletter (it’s free!).
Follow Outside/In on Instagram or join our private discussion group on Facebook.
Submit a question to the “Outside/Inbox.” We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).
LINKS
Check out science journalist Kai Kupferscmidt’s book, “Blue: In Search of Nature’s Rarest Color”
CREDITS
Host: Nate Hegyi
Reported and produced by Taylor Quimby, Felix Poon, and Nate Hegyi
Mixed by Taylor Quimby and Felix Poon
Our team also includes Justine Paradis
Editing by Taylor Quimby, with help from Rebecca Lavoie
Executive producer: Taylor Quimby
Rebecca Lavoie is NHPR’s Director of On-Demand Audio
Music by Blue Dot Sessions
Outside/In is a production of NHPR
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