Outside/In

It’s tough to see your hometown portrayed in television and movies. New Englanders roll their eyes at overly quaint shots of church steeples and fall foliage. Minnesotans balk at the over-the-top accents in ‘Fargo.’ And now Montanans are struggling with the way the state is portrayed in the hit television series ‘Yellowstone.’ The show stars Kevin Costner as the gravelly-voiced patriarch of the Du...

Some people think artificial intelligence is the best thing since sliced bread. Others say it’s the beginning of a science-fiction apocalypse. At COP28 – the U.N. Climate Change Conference – tech companies are saying AI is key to unlocking a more efficient future.  But what if the truth is less sensational than all that?  In this episode, how AI tools are helping and hurting efforts to curb climat...

Most Americans can look down at their phone and see a prediction of the future. How is that even possible? Well, this episode from Civics 101 is all about the weather – from early predictive methods and almanacs to the National Weather Service's modern-day practices of collecting, analyzing, and sharing a staggering amount of data. Featuring Kris Harper and Felicia Bowser   SUPPORT Click here to b...

For humans, roads epitomize freedom. For wildlife, it’s a different story: a million animals are killed by cars every day in the US alone. How did our infrastructure turn so deadly? And what are people trying to do about it? In this episode, we look at how two very different species are impacted by roads. Along the way, we visit a turtle rescue clinic, hear about a celebrity cougar that was trappe...

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

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...

According to our unscientific office poll, the annual changing of the clocks has all the popularity of a root canal. With few exceptions, people described the shift to and from Daylight Saving Time as disorienting, arbitrary, and unwelcome. On a more existential level, winding the clocks back and forth reminds us that no matter how concrete minutes and hours may feel, the way we perceive time is f...

Depending on who you ask bats are either a favorite mascot of spooky season, a dangerous nuisance and vector for rabies, or a charismatic group of nocturnal mammals in need of protection.  So when Outside/In host Nate Hegyi moved to the countryside of Montana and discovered a colony of bats living in the siding of his new house, he was forced to make a decision. Evict the bats that pest control pe...

During disasters, people flock to social media to share warnings, coordinate in real time, and share images of the destruction. But others use the chaos of breaking news events to spread false information.  On today’s episode, we’re exploring the rise of fake news in the environmental space, from #HawaiiNotUkraine, to a news site spreading climate disinformation in Wyoming. Plus, we speak to the p...

Become a sustaining member today. For $5 a month, we'll send you an Outside/In baseball cap. The first 250 people to donate during our fall fund drive will also receive a "ginkgo love" sticker.  Support Outside/In today! Flying is a mess. Underserved airports, a global pilot shortage, and incessant extra fees… not to mention, of course, the emissions.  But, in 2022, an aviation start-up debuted “t...

Become a sustaining member today. For $5 a month, we'll send you an Outside/In baseball cap. The first 250 people to donate during our fall fund drive will also receive a "ginkgo love" sticker.  Support Outside/In today! As of late, Endless Thread co-host Ben Brock Johnson has been obsessed with a rock in Wyoming, a lot like the protagonist of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.  But you won't fin...

Become a sustaining member today. For $5 a month, we'll send you an Outside/In baseball cap. The first 250 people to donate during our fall fund drive will also receive a "ginkgo love" sticker.  Support Outside/In today! Earlier this year, our host Nate Hegyi picked a fight with Ryan Zinke.  Zinke is the former Interior Secretary under Trump – the guy who rode into office on horseback.  In the mid...

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 ra...

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...

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?...

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...

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 priz...

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...

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 greenwas...

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 ot...

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. ...

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...

Humans are noisy. The National Park Service estimates that all of our whirring, grinding, and revving machines are doubling or even tripling global noise pollution every 30 years.  A lot of that noise is negatively affecting wildlife and human health. Maybe that’s why we’re so consumed with managing our sonic environments, with noise-cancelling headphones and white noise machines — and sometimes,...

We love shrimp in the United States. As a country, we eat over 2 billion pounds a year, making it the most consumed seafood in the country. So times should be really good for shrimpers, right? In this episode, our friends at the Sea Change podcast from WWNO and WRKF head to the docks and out in the bayous with shrimpers fighting for a livelihood and a culture that has been here for centuries.  Thi...

Most dog owners know they’re supposed to scoop the poop.  But when a pup does the deed off the trail, a lot of otherwise responsible citizens find themselves wondering… Is it really better to pick it up in a plastic bag and throw it in the garbage? Isn’t dog poop… natural? Listen to the latest edition of This, That, or The Other Thing: our series about the little decisions we make in life to try a...