Outside/In

In 1985, high school teacher Christa McAuliffe was selected to become the first private citizen to travel to space. After the Challenger explosion that killed her and 6 other astronauts, NASA scrapped its Teacher in Space Project; it was still too risky to send private citizens to space.   40 years later, things are looking very different.  Today, celebrities and billionaires are buying trips on c...

One of the very first books for the general public about climate change was written and published by Bill McKibben in 1989. In The End of Nature, Bill wrote that continuing to burn fossil fuels would “lead us, if not straight to hell, then straight to a place with a similar temperature.” Bill was right. The planet is hotter. Climate disasters are everywhere. You’d think he’d be more upset now than...

You might not think much about the sticky bottle of vanilla sitting in the back of your pantry. But that flavor – one of the most common in the world – has a fascinating history, involving a fickle orchid and a 12-year-old enslaved boy who made the discovery of a lifetime.  That’s the sort of tale that attracts poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil. From peacock feathers to the sounds of garden insects, her...

** We’re celebrating our 10 year anniversary and want you to come! Join us in Portsmouth, New Hampshire for a night of storytelling, featuring former Outside/In guests and hosted by our very own Nate Hegyi. Get your tickets here! **  In celebration of Outside/In’s 10th anniversary we’re looking back at our very first episode: “The Kiwi Apocalypse,” first published in December of 2015. Afterwards,...

Over the past few decades, CGI has allowed directors to put virtually anything they can imagine onto the big screen. But in the world of theater, practical effects still rule supreme.  So how do these special effects wizards make it snow, rain, and gust inside the confines of a theater, where real live audiences are sitting just feet away? And what are the challenges to dumping more than 100 gallo...

When Avatar came out in 2009, it shattered box-office records.  And even though it was billed as a sci-fi epic featuring blue aliens on a far-away moon, the movie didn’t shy away from a pretty Earth-based message of environmental conservation. So, with a third Avatar hitting theaters this weekend, we were inspired to bust out the popcorn, dim the lights, and play the part of pop culture critics. ...

Did you know that some species of worms can be cut into multiple pieces and each piece will make a new worm? Some can even make a whole new brain. Wild, right? While not all forms of healing are quite as miraculous as this, the body’s ability to repair itself is pretty darned cool. So today, we’re answering your questions about healing. Like… Why do we pick at scabs? Why do animals lick their woun...

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...

The garment industry has a giant carbon footprint, labor issues, and a massive waste problem. We have the power to change how and where we shop, but there’s another way to shift our consumption: the practice of repairing our clothes. After all, the most sustainable garment is always the one already hanging in your closet.  But mending is more than a household chore: it can also infuse new joy in o...

“Operation Night Cat” is a special three-part series from NHPR’s Document team and Outside/In. Episode 3: A Duck’s a Duck Two sets of potential crimes, investigated by more than five sets of law enforcement agencies. Why most of them never took a shot at accountability. News audio clip credit: WMUR. For a full list of credits and transcript, visit outsideinradio.org.    SUPPORT Operation Night Cat...

“Operation Night Cat” is a special three-part series from NHPR’s Document team and Outside/In. Episode 2: Behind the Brick Wall The poaching investigation takes a surprising turn when it reveals another set of potential crimes – this time, behind the brick walls of New Hampshire’s State Prison for Men. This episode contains strong language that may not be suitable for all listeners. For a full lis...

“Operation Night Cat” is a special three-part series from NHPR’s Document team and Outside/In. Episode 1: Why Did the Deer Cross the Road?  A New Hampshire Fish and Game warden follows a tip to a man’s backyard. He finds a twisted game of one-upmanship with digital trophy rooms. This episode contains strong language. For a full list of credits and transcript, visit outsideinradio.org.   SUPPORT Op...

Introducing a special three-part series from NHPR’s Document team and Outside/In: Operation Night Cat.  A New Hampshire Fish and Game warden follows a tip to a man’s backyard. He finds a twisted game of one-upmanship, digital trophy rooms, and one of the biggest poaching cases in recent state history. Then, the hunting investigation takes a surprising turn when it reveals another set of potential...

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...

Every so often, oak trees go into overdrive. During these so-called mast years, the gentle patter of falling acorns grows into a mighty downpour and ripples across and over ecosystems like a flood.  What happens when a small thing goes from scarce to plentiful? When a player usually hidden behind the scenes vaults onto the main stage?   From swimming squirrels and bug-infested weddings, to an expl...

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...

Ever since a tornado tore through one of St. Louis, Missouri’s poorest neighborhoods, there are piles of bricks all over the place.  It’s not just a debris problem. Bricks in St. Louis have a long and complicated history here – the darling of many historic preservationists and a good source of profit to just as many demolition crews.  Producer Marina Henke spent a week in North City, tagging along...

What do pastries have to do with environmental justice? Cat butts with the climate crisis? And what US president ate a half-chewed piece of salmon leftover from a bear on reality TV? Grab a pencil (and maybe a pint?) and get ready for the inaugural Outside/In trivia episode we’re calling “Natural Selection.” We’ve got a game called “Guess That Animal!” We’re testing our panel’s knowledge on the en...

When designer Matt Leacock decided to make a board game about climate action, he knew he wanted to make it – first and foremost – fun to play. “If we sold anything as an educational game… people would run screaming and running for the hills,” he told us.  But can simulating the climate crisis really make for a good Friday night with your friends? What are the limits to gamifying social issues as c...

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, and hear about a celebrity cougar that was tr...

In the early 1900s, people didn’t trust refrigerated food. Fruits and vegetables, cuts of meat… these things are supposed to decay, right? As Nicola Twilley writes, “What kind of unnatural technology could deliver a two-year old chicken carcass that still looked as though it was slaughtered yesterday?” But just a few decades later, Americans have done a full one-eighty. Livestock can be slaughtere...

We’re catching some air this week, and talking things with wings!   Quandaries range from the practical (how do different animal and insect wings differ?) to the ethereal (this includes dragons). Here’s the questions we’ll be answering… What makes wings different? How have wings in nature inspired human flight?  Did we ever solve the colony collapse problem with bees? Why do so many cultures have...

Shipwrecks captivate our imagination, and are the subject of many books, academic papers, and movies—from the world-famous Titanic, to sunken World War II warships, to ancient fishing canoes. Some describe them as time capsules of our maritime history, waiting to be discovered and opened. But there’s a group of people who are drawn to shipwrecks for very different reasons, and it sometimes leads t...

GPS is essential these days. We use it for everything, from a hunter figuring out where the heck they are in the backcountry, to a delivery truck finding a grocery store, to keeping clocks in sync. But our reliance on GPS may also be changing our brains. Old school navigation strengthens the hippocampus, and multiple studies suggest that our new reliance on satellite navigation may put us at highe...

Fungi used to be considered plants. Bad plants. Carl Linnaeus even referred to them as “the poorest peasants” of the vegetable class. This reputation stuck, and fungi were considered a nuisance in the Western world well into the 20th century. Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian is trying to rewrite that narrative. Her new book, Forest Euphoria: The Abounding Queerness of Nature catalogs fungi that sprout fr...