Outside/InA podcast in which curiosity and the natural world collide. Outside /n is hosted by Nate Hegyi, and is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.
Help us celebrate our 250th episode by becoming a sustaining member today. For $5 a month, we'll send you an Outside/In baseball cap. The first 250 people to donate during our fall fund drive will also receive a "ginkgo love" sticker. Support Outside/In today! From Dante's Peak and Twister, to the twin apocalypse movies Armageddon and Deep Impact, Outside/In senior producer Taylor Quimby was raised on disaster movies. But with real climate-related catastrophes popping up more and more, one has to wonder:... what is it about disaster stories that were so appealing in the first place? Do they have anything redeeming to teach us about ourselves or our planet? Taylor attempts to answer that question (and weirdly enough, to celebrate Outside/In's 250th episode) by looking back at one of the planet's all-time worst disasters: The Permian-Triassic Extinction Event, or as it's sometimes called "The Great Dying." Featuring Michael Benton. SUPPORT Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. Subscribe to our newsletter (it's free!). Follow Outside/In on Instagram or join our private discussion group on Facebook. Submit a question to the "Outside/Inbox." We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837). CREDITS Host: Nate Hegyi Reported and produced by Taylor Quimby Mixed by Taylor Quimby Editing by Rebecca Lavoie and Nate Hegyi. Executive producer: Rebecca Lavoie Music by Blue Dot Sessions. Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio
In the midst of a battle with cancer, Kathy Kral found herself facing another diagnosis: major depression. So, Kathy signed up for a clinical study to see if psilocybin – the psychedelic compound found in "magic mushrooms" – could help her confront her fears about cancer and death, as well as her deepest inner demons. Featuring Kathleen Kral, Manish Agrawal, and Norma Stevens. SUPPORT Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. Talk to us! Follow Outside/In on Instagram or Twitter, or discuss the show in our private listener group on Facebook. Submit a question to our Outside/Inbox. We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837). LINKS Can Psychedelic Therapy Offer a Sense of Peace for the Dying? The Sunstone Psilocybin Playlist patients listen to during their psychedelic trips Citations In the psilocybin study Kathy Kral participated in, 80% of participants experienced a significant reduction in depression, and half were no longer depressed at all. These results were persistent even a year and a half after their psilocybin sessions. Psychedelics cause hallucinations because they compromise the part of the brain that processes what you see, and promote communication between different parts of your brain that usually don't talk to each other. Risks associated with psilocybin range from nausea and increased heart rate, to Hallucination Persisting Perception Disorder where people continue having hallucinations for months or years after the trip has ended. But magic mushrooms had the lowest rates of associated emergency room visits out of any drug surveyed by the Global Drug Survey in 2019, 2020, and 2021. And researchers have found that psychedelics are not addictive in lab animals, and the lethal dose of psilocybin is so high that overdoses are impractical and rare. CREDITS Host: Nate Hegyi Reported, produced, and mixed by Felix Poon Edited by Taylor Quimby with help from Rebecca Lavoie, Nate Hegyi, Justine Paradis, and Jeongyoon Han. Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer Special thanks to Evan Craig, Heather Honstein, Kathryn Tucker, and Erinn Baldeshwiler. Music for this episode by Blue Dot Sessions, Pawan Krishna, the Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra, and Paul De Bra. Theme music by Breakmaster Cylinder. Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.
It's time again for our listener mail round-up, and this week, the theme is borders and boundaries. We learn what it means to define the "end of an era," explore how close is too close to a black hole, and discuss the power of animal urine. Plus, we hear the story about the time the U.S. and Great Britain almost fought a border war... because of a pig. How do different animals mark their territory? How does surveying work? How close do you have to be to get pulled in by a black hole? How do historians decide how to categorize chunks of time? Featuring Eric Salovich, Naoufal Souitat, Dagomar Degroot, and Christine Wilkinson. SUPPORT Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. Talk to us! Follow Outside/In on Instagram or Twitter, or discuss the show in our private listener group on Facebook. Submit a question to our Outside/Inbox. We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837). CREDITS Host: Nate Hegyi Reported and produced by Nate Hegyi, Taylor Quimby, Justine Paradis, Felix Poon and Jeongyoon Han. Edited by Taylor Quimby Executive Producer: Rebecca Lavoie Music by Blue Dot Sessions. 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. He was severely hypothermic but alive. Wilderness EMTs can work for decades and never encounter this particular situation. And what happened next was an attempted rescue that people in Northern New England are still learning from. What happens when a rescue goes wrong? And how do first responders cope when an opportunity to save someone's life slips through their fingers? Editor's Note: This episode first aired in May of 2022, and was later honored with a National Edward R. Murrow Award for News Documentary. Featuring: Denise Butler, Frank Carus, Jeff Fongemie, Nicholas Weinberg SUPPORT Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. Talk to us! Follow Outside/In on Instagram and Twitter, or discuss episodes in our private listener group on Facebook. Submit a question to our Outside/Inbox. We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837). LINKS Learn more about avalanche safety here. Read the Wilderness Medical Society Journal article about this incident here. CREDITS Host: Nate Hegyi Reported and produced by: Jessica Hunt Mixer: Taylor Quimby Editing by Taylor Quimby and Nate Hegyi, with help and feedback from Rebecca Lavoie, Justine Paradis, Felix Poon, Erika Janik, Sam Evans-Brown, Jimmy Gutierrez, and Christina Philips. Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer Special Thanks to: Matt Dustin, Ty Gagne, Frank Hubbell, and Andrew Parrella. Music for this episode by Blue Dot Sessions. Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.
At any given time, millions of lab mice are being used in research facilities nationwide. And yet nearly all of them can be connected back to a single source: The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, where the modern lab mouse was invented. What started as a research project aimed at understanding heredity is now a global business. Research on lab mice has led to more than two dozen Nobel prizes, helped save countless human lives, and has pushed science and medicine to new heights. But behind it all is a cost that's rarely discussed outside of the ethics boards that determine how lab mice are used. In this episode, we hear the story of how a leading eugenicist turned the humble mouse from a household pest into science's number one guinea pig. Plus, we get a rare peek inside the Jackson Laboratory - where over 10,000 strains of lab mice DNA are kept cryogenically frozen. Featuring Bethany Brookshire, Kristin Blanchette, Lon Cardon, Rachael Pelletier, Karen Rader, Nadia Rosenthal and Mark Wanner. 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 Karen Rader's book, Making Mice: Standardizing Animals for American Biomedical Research, 1900-1955, is a definitive source on the birth of the lab mouse... Curious to learn more about pests? Take a look at Bethany Brookshire's book, Pests: How Humans Create Villains. This piece from the New Yorker questions the assumptions and ethical choices scientists have made by using lab mice in sterilized lab environments. In this New York Times essay, Brandon Keim explores how some ethicists want to reduce harm to animals used for research through a new model: repaying them. CREDITS Produced by Jeongyoon Han Mixed by Taylor Quimby Editing by Taylor Quimby, with help from Nate Hegyi, Rebecca Lavoie, Justine Paradis, and Felix Poon Executive producer: Rebecca Lavoie Music by Blue Dot Sessions, Spring Gang, and El Flaco Collective. Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio
In case you hadn't heard, El Niño is back in the news, and this time it's pushing global temperatures to the 1.5-degree climate threshold, giving us a sneak preview of a world scorched by global warming. But when it comes to El Niño, the first question on people's minds is usually...wait...what the heck is El Niño again? Well, today on Outside/In we've got answers. Plus, we ask how to tell if extreme weather events are caused by climate change or by El Niño, and consider what this El Niño can tell us about our climate future. Featuring Kim Cobb, Emily Becker, and Ángel Muñoz. SUPPORT Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. Talk to us! Follow Outside/In on Instagram or Twitter, or discuss the show in our private listener group on Facebook. Submit a question to our Outside/Inbox. We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837). LINKS Read Kim Cobb's 2016 article, A bittersweet victory for an El Niño chaser – Cobb explains how her research on corals gives us a surprisingly accurate history of El Niño events going back as far as 7,000 years ago. The National Weather Service for the UK has a great video explainer of El Nino, as well as over a hundred other short videos on their YouTube channel explaining various weather and climate phenomena like jet streams, global circulation, and the Coriolis effect. For more science-talk on El Nino, check out the ENSO Blog, where climate scientist Emily Becker is a lead writer. CREDITS Host: Nate Hegyi Reported and produced by Felix Poon Edited by Taylor Quimby with help from Justine Paradis and Nate Hegyi. Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer Special thanks to Jeongyoon Han for playing the violin, and Michael Prentky for the timpani recording. Music for this episode by Blue Dot Sessions, Walt Adams, and Brightarm Orchestra. Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio
At Outside/In, we often talk about the challenge of covering climate in a way that doesn't leave us feeling hopeless or overwhelmed. For us, that's often meant staying curious and keeping a sense of humor. But a few years ago, investigative journalist Amy Westervelt had another idea. Why not use one of podcasting's most popular genres—true crime—to tell the story of climate change? From greenwashing to climate denialism and corporate propaganda, Drilled makes accountability journalism a thrill to listen to, while consistently being one of the most informative sources for in-depth climate news. So today, we're featuring the first episode of their latest three-part series: "Herb." This is the story of Herb Schmertz, the political strategist-turned-oil-man who popularized corporate personhood, and how it's become one of the biggest problems facing climate action today. Featuring Robert Kerr and Robert Bruhl Read the episode transcript. SUPPORT Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. Subscribe to our newsletter (it's free!). Follow Outside/In on Instagram or join our private discussion group on Facebook. Submit a question to the "Outside/Inbox." We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837). CREDITS This episode of Drilled was written and reported by Amy Westervelt. It was produced and sound designed by Martin Zaltz Ostwick. Sound engineer: Peter Doff Additional reporting by Julia Manepela Fact checking: Wudan Yan Outside/In is hosted by Nate Hegyi. The team also includes Tayor Quimby, Justine Paradis, Felix Poon, and Jeongyoon Han. Outside/In's executive producer is Rebecca Lavoie Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio
If houseplants could talk: communication and the natural world
It's our listener mail round up, and this week it's all about communication in the natural world, like: how do migratory animals teach their young how to migrate and where to go? Do sharks smell underwater? And, are plants talking to each other? Plus, a mini-story about a lost baby squirrel and a Bluetooth speaker. Take a listen! How do young animals know how to migrate? Can plants talk to each other? What makes an animal a pest? How do shark noses work underwater? Featuring: Patrik Byholm, Richard Karban, Bethany Brookshire, and Stephen Kajiura. SUPPORT Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. Talk to us! Follow Outside/In on Instagram or Twitter, or discuss the show in our private listener group on Facebook. Submit a question to our Outside/Inbox. We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837). LINKS Visit outsideinradio.org for video of a Bluetooth speaker-assisted baby squirrel rescue. On animal migration: A magnetic compass aids monarch butterfly migration Paternal transmission of migration knowledge in a long-distance bird migrant On plants talking: Rumor Has It...: Relay Communication of Stress Cues in Plants Towards understanding plant bioacoustics On what makes an animal a pest: The long history of speed at Reuters about carrier pigeons and The Tastiest Bird You Can Legally Eat about the tastiness of pigeon meat, also known as squab Burmese Pythons: The Giant Invasive Snake at Risk in Its Native Land On sharks: Check out the Shark Lab at Florida Atlantic University. Scientists believe sharks came into existence about 400 million years ago. CREDITS Host: Nate Hegyi Reported and produced by Felix Poon, Jeongyoon Han, Taylor Quimby, and Jessica Hunt Edited by Taylor Quimby Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer Special thanks to Lani Asuncion and Angus Murphy Music for this episode by Blue Dot Sessions Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio
If houseplants could talk: communication and the natural world
Wine is considered to be an expression of a place and climate, a reflection of centuries-old traditions. But these days, a lot of wine is a product of an industrialized agricultural system, and just as processed as the bulk of products in the grocery store. Today on Outside/In, we take a look at what really goes into your wine, and at a growing movement exploring just how "natural" wine can be. Featuring Julia Furukawa, Helen Johannesen, and Lee Campbell, with appearances by Lucy Leske, Steve Paradis, Jenny Paradis, Elsie Turner Matthews, and Samuel Golding. 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 Lee Campbell is a partner in a Virginia winery called Common Wealth Crush. Helen Johannesen is a partner in Jon & Vinny's and Helen's Wines, a wine shop and delivery club in Los Angeles. She's also the host of Wineface podcast, with episodes covering the basics of natural wine, a deeper dive on the specific grapes (like pinot noir), and an introduction to certain styles, like orange wine. Julia Furukawa is the host of All Things Considered at New Hampshire Public Radio. Check out her investigative reporting on a lack of evidence for some claims of Abenaki ancestry in New England. 5 tips for navigating the world of natural wine 1. As Helen Johannesen likes to say, "wine is for enjoying and wine is for everyone," but it's also a luxury. Still, you can get natural wines for $20 a bottle or less. The hard part is finding them. 2. If you're trying to figure out whether a wine is natural or not, turn the bottle around and look at the importer on the back. There are certain importers who seek out small producers who are aligned with the natural wine movement. A couple of importers with such a reputation are Zev Rovine and Jenny & Francois. 3. If possible, find a local brick-and-mortar wine shop. They're more likely to help you find a natural wine. Plus, wine shops often offer free or low-cost tastings, which can help you figure out what you like without spending a ton of money. There are online wine subscription services that have natural wines as well. 4. If you're just dipping your toe into the natural wine world, start with what you like. If you love Sauvignon Blanc, try a natural bottle of the same variety. 5. Last, have a good time! Don't get intimidated or think that you have to be completely pure about it. Again, in the end, wine is supposed to be fun. -Justine P. CREDITS Outside/In Host: Nate Hegyi Hosted, reported, written, and produced by Justine Paradis Mixed and edited by Taylor Quimby Our team also includes Felix Poon and Jeongyoon Han. Executive producer: Rebecca Lavoie Music by Matt Large and Blue Dot Sessions Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.
With 'Oppenheimer', director Christopher Nolan has turned the Manhattan Project into a summer blockbuster. The film is set in Los Alamos, one of the primary places where the first atomic bomb was developed. But fewer people know the history of Carrizozo, a rural farming area downwind of the Trinity test — and a community still dealing with the fallout to this day. 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 Editor's note: A previous version of this description incorrectly described Los Alamos as the site of the first atomic bomb test. The actual test took place in the White Sands Missle Range. 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 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 U.S. 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
