Outside/In

“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...

Last spring, a curious listener called with an unusual question about coyote urine. Is it – as advertised by companies who sell it – an effective, all natural pest deterrent? And more importantly: “Who are the coyotes that are providing this urine?” Since then, producer Taylor Quimby has been trying to find out… and with literal gallons of the stuff available online, he discovered the answers aren...

It’s a weird time to be an environmental scientist. The proposed cuts to federal science funding in the United States are profound, and if they come to pass, it’s not clear what American science will look like on the other side. But for many researchers, science is much more than a career: it’s a community, lifestyle, and sometimes even a family business.  Outside/In producer Justine Paradis tagge...

Helium is full of contradictions. It’s the second most abundant element in the universe, but is relatively rare on Earth. It’s non-reactive, totally inert—yet the most valuable helium isotope is sourced from thermonuclear warheads.  And even though we treat it as a disposable gas, often for making funny voices and single-use party balloons, our global supply of helium will eventually run out. That...

“In the last days of the fourth world I wished to make a map for those who would climb through the hole in the sky.” That’s the first line of the poem “A Map to the Next World” by Muscogee writer and former U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo. It’s a piece that’s inspired Aquinnah Wampanoag writer Joseph Lee as he undertakes one of journalism's most nuanced beats: covering hundreds of unique tribal commu...

In 1970, marine architect Charlie Canby got an odd assignment: Design a 600-foot ship for an undisclosed purpose and an undisclosed customer. Only after it was built did he finally find out what it was for.  “I was dumbfounded,” he said. “I drove away in a daze. I could not believe what we were really doing.” In this episode, reporter Daniel Ackerman tells the unbelievable story of a boat, a gover...

Today on Outside/In, we’re sharing an episode from our friends and partners at Common Land. Common Land explores the creation stories behind protected land. Each season takes a deep dive into the history, science and politics behind the creation of one particular patch of protected, common land. Season two of Common Land, produced in partnership with New Hampshire Public Radio, follows documentari...

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 fictiona...

In this episode, we’re taking your questions on the subject of sound. We talk about tinnitus, “the mind’s ear,” and the celebrity voices we have strong feelings about, from Bob Ross to President Obama, Michael Barbaro to Ira Glass. So strap your earbuds in, we’re going for a ride! What are tintinnabula, and the first wind chimes in the world? What exactly is ASMR, and what makes it feel good? Why...

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 r...

This summer, more than 100 cruise ships will visit the small city of Portland, Maine, dropping thousands of passengers onto the city’s commercial waterfront for lobster rolls, local souvenirs and a quintessential New England experience.  But as Portland has rapidly become a landmark destination for cruise lines, a group of activists are calling into question the long held narrative that cruise shi...

Growing up, Kiese Laymon thought of himself as a city kid. But he spent his childhood with a foot in two worlds: his mom’s house in the capital city of Jackson, Mississippi and his grandma’s house in a rural country town. It wasn’t until Kiese left Mississippi that he came to understand that this question of city versus country actually meant a lot more. It carries a lot of baggage: the tensions b...