Outside/In

Lead is a study in contradictions. It’s dense enough to stop an X-ray, but soft enough to scratch with your fingernail. It’s heavier than steel and iron, but also more flexible. And, despite evidence of its toxicity, humans have been using it for all sorts of things for thousands of years. In this edition of our series “The Element of Surprise,” we hone in on this notorious heavy metal. What chemical properties make lead so harmful? How did something so dangerous become so ubiquitous? And if medical authorities acknowledge no amount of lead exposure is safe – especially for children – why do so many of us have lead in our water and our homes?Featuring Justin Richardson, Bruce Lanphear, and Chakena Perry.This episode was produced by Kate Dario. For the full credits and transcript, go to outsideinradio.org. SUPPORTTo share your questions and feedback with Outside/In, call the show’s hotline and leave us a voicemail. The number is 1-844-GO-OTTER. No question is too serious or too silly.Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. Follow Outside/In on Instagram or join our private discussion group on Facebook.LINKSRadiolab dedicated an episode to the scientist that was trying to estimate the earth’s age, and unintentionally helped get rid of leaded gasoline in the process. It’s wild and worth a listen. A comprehensive history of leaded gasoline and an in-depth investigation of how the lead industry lobbied cities to use lead pipes. Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner have published numerous books covering the American lead industry and lead’s lasting public health impacts. The EPA has robust resources about how to deal with lead exposure and how to minimize your risk. 

In the late 1950s, engineer Herb Ueda Sr. traveled to a remote Arctic military base. His mission? To drill through nearly a mile of ice, and extract the world’s first complete ice core.To finish the job, he and his team would endure sub-zero weather, toxic chemicals, and life inside a military base… which was slowly being crushed by the glacier from which it was carved. In this episode (first released in 2023) Daniel Ackerman takes us inside Camp Century, and explains how a foundational moment in climate science was inextricably linked with the United State's military interest in Greenland.Featuring Curt La Bombard, Julie Brigham-Grette, Herb Ueda Jr., Don Garfield, and Aleqa Hammond.Produced by Daniel Ackerman. For a full list of credits and transcript, go to outsidinradio.org. 

A magician spins a black top hat to show their audience it’s empty. Then, with the wave of a wand and a few magic words, PRESTO: a snow white rabbit pokes its ears over the brim. Compared to sawing a person in half, pulling a rabbit out of a hat is a joyful bit of magic that entertainers have been doing for more than 200 years. But after the applause dies down, one is left wondering: where did the rabbit come from? And where did it go? Today, in honor of the Easter Bunny (who doesn’t actually appear in this episode), we’re pulling a handful of rabbit stories out of our proverbial hat. But be warned: these are dark tales of disappearing pets, occult eugenicists, and animal sacrifice. The secrets behind some magic tricks are more shocking than others. Featuring Nicole Cardoza, Gwyne Henke, Suzanne Loui, Sally Master, Ana DiMaria, Tanya Singer, and Meg Crane. Produced by Nate Hegyi, Marina Henke, Kate Dario, and Justine Paradis. For full credits, photos, and transcript, visit outsideinradio.org. SUPPORTTo share your questions and feedback with Outside/In, call the show’s hotline and leave us a voicemail. The number is 1-844-GO-OTTER. No question is too serious or too silly.Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. Follow Outside/In on Instagram or join our private discussion group on Facebook. LINKSJoin us for NHPR’s 3rd Annual Climate Summit! The theme is “Healthy Connections,” and we’ve got a great lineup of speakers and breakout sessions PLUS a trivia night. And the best part? It’s all FREE. Learn more and register here. Check out this video of magician and storyteller Nicole Cardoza performing for a group in Chicago in 2024. You can check out Gwyne Henke’s childhood rabbit poetry on our website. Tanya Singer reported on the history of Project Angora for Tablet. You can also learn more about Helena Weinrauch and her blue sweater here. Read more about the history of pregnancy testing in this paper on Egyptian grain method, rabbit tests, and more, and in A Woman’s Right to Know by Jesse Olszynko-Gryn, available as a free ebook from MIT Press.The story of Meg Crane’s Predictor test can also be found in the excellent Designing Motherhood, a book and exhibit on human reproduction through the lens of design.Pagan Kennedy’s New York Times article, which prompted Meg Crane to start sharing her story—and Pagan’s follow-up, which does include Meg.

Allergies have been documented in historical records dating as far back as 2,400 years ago, when Hippocrates wrote about “hostile humors” in some people who suffered badly after eating cheese. But why do we experience them to begin with? What even is an allergy? Are allergies on the rise? And why are some mere nuisances, while others are deadly?This episode is a roundup of allergy stories—from the mundane to the frightful—and a round up of allergy questions we’re asking Dr. Theresa MacPhail, author of Allergic: Our Irritated Bodies in a Changing World, to answer for us.Featuring Beni Osei Duker, Theresa MacPhail, Dwayne Smith, and Lily Ko.Produced by Felix Poon. For a transcript and full list of credits, go to outsideinradio.org. SUPPORTOutside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. Follow Outside/In on Instagram or join our private discussion group on Facebook. LINKSCheck out Theresa MacPhail’s book, Allergic: Our Irritated Bodies in a Changing World.Read up on the different hypotheses on why we get allergies in the first place:The parasite hypothesisThe toxin hypothesisThe hygiene hypothesisThe old friends hypothesisLearn about the history of the EpiPen.

Venom is full of dualities. According to the UN’s World Health Organization, snakebite envenoming causes somewhere between 81,000 and 138,000 deaths per year, and even that is likely an undercount. Yet research into venom has yielded treatments for diabetes, cancer, erectile dysfunction, and even the celebrity favorite diabetes slash diet drug, Ozempic. In this episode, we explore the world of venom, where fear and fascination go hand-in-hand, and the potential for healing comes with deadly stakes. This is part II of our “Things That Can Kill You” miniseries, which also explores poison and allergies.Featuring Sakthi Vaiyapuri. Thanks to Iva Tatić for her question.Produced by Justine Paradis. For full credits and transcript, visit outsideinradio.org. SUPPORTTo share your questions and feedback with Outside/In, call the show’s hotline and leave us a voicemail. The number is 1-844-GO-OTTER. No question is too serious or too silly.Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. Follow Outside/In on Instagram, BlueSky, Tiktok, or join our private discussion group on Facebook. LINKSHere’s more on Sakthi Vaiyapuri’s community awareness programs in India and his team’s research on the socioeconomic impacts on rural populations in Tamil NaduThe UN’s World Health Organization’s fact sheet on snake envenoming as a high-priority neglected tropical diseaseA great breakdown on why snakebite deaths are undercounted and the problem of missing data, written by global health researcher Saloni Dattani on SubstackA Nature article on potential advances in antivenomCheck out this Science Friday film on the cool research on cone snails and the non-opoiod painkillers derived from their venom. More on Ozempic and lots of other innovations with roots in venom research (New York Times) 

A few months ago we got an email from a listener who tried a bit of a very poisonous apple and lived to tell the tale. Ultimately, he was fine, but the incident left him full of questions. We figured, why not run with that curiosity? We put a call out for all of your poison related queries and you delivered: How much should you worry about those green potatoes in your pantry? Could our car tires be poisoning the environment? It’s another Outside/Inbox roundup on the show this week. Buckle up. This is the first part of a “Things That Can Kill You” mini-series. Up next we tackle venom and allergies.Featuring Hussein Elgridly, Deborah Blum, Andy Robinson, Angela Mech, Kyle Lombard and Heejung Jung.Are green potatoes toxic?Are invasive browntail moths expanding their range?Is hydroxyapatite an effective substitute for fluoride?How much toxic airborne pollution is contributed by vehicle tires?For our next Outside/Inbox roundup, we’re looking for questions about sound! Dream big here: we’re talking animal sounds, traffic noise, the sounds of space… Send us your questions by recording yourself on a voice memo, and emailing that to us at outsidein@nhpr.org.  Or you can call our hotline: 844-GO-OTTER.For full credits and transcript, visit outsideinradio.org. 

Sgt. Tibbs, a fluffy, 19-year-old Maine Coon with tiger stripes, soft eyes, and a chipped tooth, is missing on the streets of Manchester, New Hampshire. His owner, Rose, fears the worst. But when she finds out her cat was never missing at all – the truth turns out to be worse than she feared.From our friends over at the Document team at New Hampshire Public Radio, this is the first in a four-part series about what we owe our pets – and what we owe our neighbors.For full credits and transcript, visit outsideinradio.org.SUPPORTOutside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In.  Follow Outside/In on Instagram or join our private discussion group on Facebook.

After the Irish fought for and won their independence from the British in 1921, they had a problem. Centuries of exploitation had left the island one of the least forested nations in Europe, with less than 2% tree cover. So, they started planting a non-native American tree: fast-growing Sitka spruce capable of rebuilding their timber resources in record time. And it worked. Today, about 12% of the island is forested. But in the rural areas where iconic rolling hills have been replaced by rows and rows of conifers, farmers are not happy. Outside/In host Nate Hegyi takes us to County Leitrim, an area of Ireland hit hard by the Troubles and the Great Famine, to meet the townspeople who are fighting what they say is a new wave of colonialism: Sitka spruce plantations. Produced by Nate Hegyi. For a transcript and full list of credits, go to outsideinradio.org. Featuring: Justin Warnock, Brian Smyth, Donal Magner, Liam Byrne and Jodie Asselin SUPPORTTo share your questions and feedback with Outside/In, call the show’s hotline and leave us a voicemail. The number is 1-844-GO-OTTER. No question is too serious or too silly.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 BlueSky, or join our private discussion group on Facebook LINKSDonal Magner wrote a book covering the history of Ireland’s forests and timber industry. Sitka spruce plantations are controversial in other parts of Ireland as well, including Cork. There are also efforts to rewild parts of Ireland with entirely native trees and to protect and restore carbon-sequestering bogs. It can be really tough to figure out exactly what was growing in Ireland thousands of years ago – but these scientists used ancient pollen counts to figure it out. Researchers at University College Dublin produced  a detailed socio-economic impact report on sitka spruce plantations and County Leitrim in 2019.

Recently, our producer Justine Paradis noticed something. Humans really like to sing together in groups: birthday parties, sports games, church hymns, protest chants, singing along to Taylor Swift at the Eras concert… the list could get very long.But… why? Did singing play a part in human evolution? Why does singing together make us feel so good?Featuring Hannah Mayree, Ani Patel, Dor Shilton, and Arla Good. For full credits and transcript, visit outsideinradio.org. SUPPORTTo share your questions and feedback with Outside/In, call the show’s hotline and leave us a voicemail. The number is 1-844-GO-OTTER. No question is too serious or too silly.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 BlueSky, or join our private discussion group on Facebook LINKSBobby McFerrin in 2009 at the World Science Festival, demonstrating the intuitive power of the pentatonic scale, and in 2010, improvising in a stadium in Germany with 60,000 singers.A short documentary about Sing For Your Life! and OneVoice Circle Singers.Check out Hannah Mayree’s music and work.Dor Shilton and Ani Patel collaborated on a paper (currently preprint) examining four societies where collective music-making is rare.Dor Shilton’s paper on the evolution of music as an “interactive technology” and open-access analysis of patterns in group singing.This journal presented the hypothesis of music as a mechanism for social bonding as part of an ongoing conversation. SingWell’s forthcoming research on group singing, aging, and Parkinson’s disease.

We’re used to seeing dogs and cats play with toys or get the zoomies… but do animals like rats and bumblebees play too? What is animal play for? How do scientists even decide what counts as play?Today, we’re taking a serious look at goofy behavior. We’ll discover the five-part checklist that many scientists use to recognize play in nature, and find out why taking turns is so important for healthy brain development. This episode is a collaboration between Outside/In and Tumble, the science podcast for kids. Featuring Junyi Chu and Jackson HamProduced by Lindsay Patterson, Marshall Escamilla, and Taylor Quimby. For a transcript and full list of credits, go to outsideinradio.org.  SUPPORTOutside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. Follow Outside/In on Instagram or join our private discussion group on Facebook. LINKSLove this episode? Looking for family-friendly podcasts to listen to? There are over 150 episodes of Tumble to check out, including a few of our favorites: Do Trees Fart?The Swift QuakeWhy Are Sloths SlowAre Cats Evil? The five-part play checklist mentioned in the episode was developed by play researcher Gordon M. Burghardt. His paper, “Play in fishes, frogs and reptiles,” answers some other really interesting questions about animal play.