Outside/In

Few bear witness to human decomposition. We embalm and seal bodies in caskets, and bury them six feet underground. Decomposition happens out of sight and out of mind, or in the case of cremation, is skipped over entirely.But at human decomposition facilities, sometimes known as "body farms," students and researchers see rotting corpses every day. They watch as scavengers and bacteria feast on them. And when it's all over, they clean the skeletons, and file them away in a collection.In this episode, producer Felix Poon visits a human decomposition facility in North Carolina to  see what the people who work there have learned about death, find out how a human body decomposes, and why a person might choose to wind up there in the first place. Featuring: Nick Passalacqua, Rebecca George, Carter Unger, Maggie Klemm, Carlee Green, Victoria Deal, Kadri Greene, Mackenzie Gascon, Reagan Baechle, Leigh Irwin, and Lucinda Denton LINKSYou can watch Bill Bass tell the story of Colonel William Shy and the time since death estimation he got so wrong that led to him founding the first ever “Body Farm.”If you want to hear from pre-registered donors about their decision to donate their bodies, you can watch a WBIR-TV segment, The Body Farm: A donor explains why she’s ready to hand off her corpse to the forensic center about Lucinda Denton, who we feature in this episode. And you can read Fawn Fitter’s article, My Afterlife on the Body Farm (NY Times), about how she intends to help solve crimes as part of a world-renowned criminal justice program after she dies.If you’re curious to read more about the “CSI Effect,” check this article out: ‘CSI effect’ draws more women to forensics.And if you want to read up on how the field of forensics is talking about evolving their concepts of race and gender, you can read Decolonizing ancestry estimation in the United States, and Centering Transgender Individuals in Forensic Anthropology and Expanding Binary Sex Estimation in Casework and Research. SUPPORTOutside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. Subscribe to our FREE newsletter.Follow Outside/In on Instagram or Twitter, or join our private discussion group on Facebook. CREDITSHost: Nate HegyiReported and produced by: Felix PoonEditing by Taylor Quimby, with help and feedback from Nate Hegyi, Rebecca Lavoie, Justine Paradis, and Jessica Hunt.Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive ProducerSpecial Thanks to: Fawn Fitter, Katie Zejdlik, Jimmy Holt, Carter Unger, Maggie Klemm, Carlee Green, Victoria Deal, Kadri Greene, Mackenzie Gascon, Reagan Baechle, and Leigh Irwin.Music for this episode by Blue Dot Sessions.Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio WIN A NEW CAR OR 25K IN CASH DURING NHPR'S SUMMER RAFFLE! GET YOUR TICKETS HERE.

Anybody who supports the show RIGHT NOW, during our June 2020 Fund Drive, will be entered to win a $500 Airbnb gift card, and will receive an adorable limited-edition Outside/In axolotl sticker.Click here to donate to Outside/In right now.  A few weeks ago, we teamed up with the Civics 101 podcast to bring you the story of Happy, an Asian elephant living in the Bronx Zoo.Lawyers had petitioned the New York State Court of Appeals for a writ of Habeas Corpus; a legal maneuver that could have freed Happy and set a new precedent for animal rights. But in a ruling out this week, the court has decided: Happy isn’t going anywhere. In this quick update to our previous episode (listen here if you haven’t already)  Nate and Hannah debrief on the 5-2 split decision, and what it means for the future of animal rights. Featuring: Maneesha Deckha SUPPORTOutside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. Subscribe to our FREE newsletter.Follow Outside/In on Instagram or Twitter, or join our private discussion group on Facebook LINKSRead more about this week’s ruling, and what it may mean for animal rights, in this article  from Slate. CREDITS Hosts: Nate Hegyi and Hannah McCarthyReported and produced by: Nate HegyiMixer: Taylor QuimbyEditing by Taylor QuimbyRebecca Lavoie is our Executive ProducerMusic for this episode by Fabien Tell, Bill Ferngren, Sarah the Illstrumentalist, and Alexandra WoodwardOur theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio WIN A NEW CAR OR 25K IN CASH DURING NHPR'S SUMMER RAFFLE! GET YOUR TICKETS HERE.

Anybody who supports the show RIGHT NOW, during our June 2020 Fund Drive, will be entered to win a $500 Airbnb gift card, and will receive an adorable limited-edition Outside/In axolotl sticker.Click here to donate to Outside/In right now. 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 fictional monster movie? In this episode, three Jurassic Park super-fans (one paleontologist, and two podcasters) try to sort it all out. Featuring: Gabriel-Philip Santos SUPPORTOutside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. Subscribe to our FREE newsletter.Follow Outside/In on Instagram or Twitter, or join our private discussion group on Facebook LINKSWant to learn more about dinosaurs? Check the publish date before you check it out from the library!  And here are some good options:Smithsonian’s The Dinosaur Book (pretty much all of the Smithsonian books are good for younger readers)Want to get a more global perspective of where dinosaurs have been discovered? Check out a dinosaur atlas book. For older readers, or anybody who loves a good coffee table book, check out this entry featuring a number of excellent paleoartists: Dinosaur Art II (Taylor has the first one and loves to show it off). Also: A truly disheartening read about people who think feathered dinosaurs are an attack on masculinity.  CREDITSHost: Nate HegyiReported and produced by Taylor QuimbyMixer: Taylor QuimbyEditing by Rebecca Lavoie, with help from Nate Hegyi and Justine ParadisRebecca Lavoie is our Executive ProducerMusic for this episode by Sarah the Illstrumentalist, Pandaraps, Matt Large, Ballpoint, and Valante.Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio WIN A NEW CAR OR 25K IN CASH DURING NHPR'S SUMMER RAFFLE! GET YOUR TICKETS HERE.

Anybody who supports the show RIGHT NOW, during our June 2020 Fund Drive, will be entered to win a $500 Airbnb gift card, AND will receive an adorable limited-edition Outside/In axolotl sticker.Click here to donate to Outside/In right now. Happy has lived in New York City’s Bronx Zoo for years. To visitors, she’s a lone Asian elephant. But to a team of animal rights lawyers, she’s a prisoner. They’ve petitioned state courts for a writ of Habeas Corpus; a legal maneuver that, if granted, would declare Happy a legal person who deserves to be freed. It’s the latest case in an ongoing fight to extend basic human rights to animals – one that could have big repercussions in the natural world. Because this is a case that deals with animals AND the law, two podcasts from New Hampshire Public Radio have teamed up to take it on: Outside/In and Civics 101. We always hear about the animal rights movement… but what rights do animals actually have? Featuring: Maneesha Deckha, Kevin Schneider SUPPORTOutside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. Subscribe to our FREE newsletter.Follow Outside/In on Instagram or Twitter, or join our private discussion group on Facebook LINKSListen and subscribe to Civics 101!Check out which animals don’t get covered by the country’s biggest anti-cruelty law, the Animal Welfare Act, here.Nonhuman Rights Project founder, Steven Wise, explained why he compares the plight of nonhuman animals to the plight of enslaved people in a wide-ranging interview with University of Toronto law professor Angela Fernandez in 2018. The New Yorker wrote about Happy the elephant’s legal case earlier this year. You can rent the HBO Documentary about Tommy the chimpanzee, Unlocking the Cage, on Apple TV.We weren’t able to dive into it in this episode, but Maneesha has made a compelling case for not fighting for personhood for animals – instead, there should be a distinct third classification known as “legal beings.” Check out her lecture on it here.  CREDITSHosts: Nate Hegyi, Hannah McCarthy, Nick CapodiceReported and produced by: Nate HegyiEditing by Taylor Quimby, with help and feedback from Nick Capodice, Hannah McCarthy, Rebecca Lavoie, and Nate HegyiRebecca Lavoie is our Executive ProducerMusic for this episode by El Flaco Collective, The Fly Guy Five, Jules Gaia, and Peerless. Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio WIN A NEW CAR OR 25K IN CASH DURING NHPR'S SUMMER RAFFLE! GET YOUR TICKETS HERE.

It’s that time again, when scientists everywhere hold their breath as we open our listener mailbag. It’s spring in the northern hemisphere, so the theme of the questions in this episode is “growth” — with the exception of the last question, which is… kind of the opposite.Question 1: Um, what are those frogs doing? (go to our website to see the picture)Question 2: What’s that white foam that forms on trees when it rains?Question 3: Does moss get damaged when you walk on it?Question 4: What’s the best filling for raised beds in the garden?Question 5: How long does it take for a dead squirrel to decompose?[insert image]Thanks for the excellent questions, Louise, Mihaela, Tricia, Kevin, and Nicolas! Do you have a question about the natural world? Submit it to the Outside/Inbox! Send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or call our hotline: 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837). Don’t forget to leave a number so we can call you back.Featuring: Nat Cleavitt, Rebecca Roy, Yolanda Burrell, and Sibyl Bucheli SUPPORTOutside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. Subscribe to our FREE newsletter.Follow Outside/In on Instagram or Twitter, or join our private discussion group on Facebook LINKSCheck out one of many salacious articles about frog sex, or read the somewhat less sensational study about underwater breeding chambers. And here’s one more study about frog sex; specifically simultaneous polyandry.  CREDITSHost: Nate HegyiReported and produced by: Taylor Quimby, Justine Paradis, Felix Poon, and Jessica HuntMixed by Taylor Quimby, Justine Paradis, and Felix Poon Editing by Taylor Quimby, with help from Rebecca Lavoie and Justine Paradis Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive ProducerMusic for this episode by Blue Dot SessionsOur theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio WIN A NEW CAR OR 25K IN CASH DURING NHPR'S SUMMER RAFFLE! GET YOUR TICKETS HERE.

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. The man 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?Featuring:  Denise Butler, Frank Carus, Jeff Fongemie, Nicholas Weinberg SUPPORTOutside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. Subscribe to our FREE newsletter.Follow Outside/In on Instagram or Twitter, or join our private discussion group on Facebook LINKSRead the Mount Washington Avalanche Center’s final report on Nick Benedix’s death.Learn more about avalanche safety here.Read the Wilderness Medical Society Journal article about this incident here. CREDITSHost: Nate HegyiReported and produced by: Jessica HuntMixer: Taylor QuimbyEditing 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 ProducerSpecial Thanks to: Matt Dustin, Ty Gagne, Frank Hubbell, and Andrew Parrella. Music for this episode by Blue Dot Sessions.Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio WIN A NEW CAR OR 25K IN CASH DURING NHPR'S SUMMER RAFFLE! GET YOUR TICKETS HERE.

A few weeks ago our host, Nate Hegyi, was on the edge of a very high cliff in Utah’s Zion National Park when he heard a little voice inside his head whisper… “jump.”  He didn’t heed the call, thankfully, and when he got down safely he discovered that more than a third of all people might feel this urge, ominously known as “the call of the void.” Most of us can wave off these impulses. But what if you couldn’t? What if the call of the void was so intense that you almost acted? Is there a cure? This episode contains a contextual reference to suicidal ideation. If you or someone you know is struggling with depression, anxiety, or just needs someone to talk to, reach out to the folks at the Crisis Text Line, a texting service for emotional crisis support. To speak with a trained listener, text HELLO to 741741. It is free, available 24/7, and confidential.Featuring: Jennifer Hames, Stephen Hunt ELECTRIC VEHICLE SURVEYHey folks – we’re working on some stories about electric vehicles, and we’re looking to hear from you. Are you interested in going electric? Wish there was better charging infrastructure where you are? Or would you prefer sticking with the car/truck you’re used to? Tell us what you think about EVs, and help inform our reporting by filling out this survey. It’ll only take a couple minutes, and it really helps us produce the show. Thanks so much! SUPPORTOutside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. Subscribe to our FREE newsletter.Follow Outside/In on Instagram or Twitter, or join our private discussion group on Facebook LINKSThis 2020 study, in BMC Psychiatry, looks at the prevalence of high place phenomenon and whether it’s connected to suicidal ideation. Read Jennifer Hames’ paper in The Journal of Affective Disorders on the “call of the void”: “An urge to jump affirms the urge to live: an empirical examination of the high place phenomenon.”The Imp of the Perverse, by Edgar Allen PoeMarconi Union, “Weightless”Listen to our previous episode “Even Hikers Get The Blues”  CREDITSHost: Nate HegyiReported and produced by: Nate Hegyi.Mixer: Nate Hegyi and Taylor QuimbyEditing by Taylor Quimby, with help from Justine Paradis, Jessica Hunt, Felix Poon and Rebecca Lavoie.Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive ProducerMusic for this episode by Marconi Union, Sour Mash, Dew of Light, Gavin Luke, and Christopher Moe Ditlevsen.Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio WIN A NEW CAR OR 25K IN CASH DURING NHPR'S SUMMER RAFFLE! GET YOUR TICKETS HERE.

Three hundred years ago on Easter Sunday, 1722, European explorers landed on a South Pacific island that they called “Easter Island.” And they were shocked to see nearly one-thousand giant statues of stoic faces, called “moai”, placed all over the island.Who moved them? And how did they do it?The most popular theory was that this remote civilization destroyed itself – cutting down all the trees to make contraptions for moving statues.But according to the Indigenous people of Rapa Nui, their ancestors didn’t need to cut down any trees to transport the statues. In fact, their oral history has always been clear about how the moai were transported. The real mystery is, why hasn’t anyone been listening?This story originally ran in  October 2021, and was updated for the 300th anniversary of first contact between Rapanui and European peoples.Featuring: Sergio Rapu Haoa, Carl Lipo, Terry Hunt, Sergio Mata’u Rapu, and Gina Pakarati SUPPORTOutside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. Subscribe to our newsletter. LINKSA profile of Sergio Rapu Haoa for the 2002 Rotary World Peace Scholars program at BerkeleyEating Up Easter -- a documentary film produced by Sergio Mata’u Rapu, about how the people of Rapa Nui are grappling with environmental and social changes brought on by tourism and economic development.The NOVA-National Geographic DocumentaryA team of 18 volunteers move a 10-foot 5-ton statue for the NOVA-National Geographic documentary, Mystery of Easter IslandA figurine animation demonstrating five different theories of moai-transport through the years.Mystery of Easter Island -- The NOVA-National Geographic Documentary in its entiretyLectures by Terry Hunt and Carl LipoNational Geographic Live Lecture -- Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo: The Statues That WalkedLong Now Foundation Lecture: The Statues Walked -- What Really Happened on Easter Island | Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo CREDITSReported and produced by Felix PoonEdited by Taylor QuimbyExecutive Producer: Rebecca LavoieMixed by Felix PoonAdditional Editing: Justine Paradis, Jessica Hunt, Rebecca Lavoie, and Erika JanikSpecial thanks to Effie Kong, and Daniela Allee for her Spanish and Rapanui voiceovers.Theme: Breakmaster CylinderAdditional Music by Blue Dot Sessions WIN A NEW CAR OR 25K IN CASH DURING NHPR'S SUMMER RAFFLE! GET YOUR TICKETS HERE.

Like most modern publications, Low-tech Magazine has a website. But when you scroll through theirs, you’ll notice an icon in the corner: the weather forecast in Barcelona.That’s because Kris Decker, the creator of Low-tech Magazine, powers the site off a solar panel on his balcony. When the weather gets bad, the website just… goes offline.In a way, the solar-powered website is an experiment: an attempt to peel back the curtain and to reveal the infrastructure behind it, and to raise questions about our relationship with technology. Should everything on the internet be accessible, all the time? Could progress mean choosing to live with less?Featuring Kris De Decker. ELECTRIC VEHICLE SURVEYWe’re working on a series about electric vehicles, and we’re looking to hear from you. Would you consider going electric? What do you think about the EV transition?  Help inform our reporting by filling out this survey. It’ll only take a couple minutes, and it really helps us produce the show. Thanks so much! SUPPORTOutside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. Subscribe to our (free) newsletter.Follow Outside/In on Instagram or Twitter, or join our private discussion group on Facebook LINKSLow-tech Magazine has published instructions on how to build a low tech or solar-powered site. Solar Protocol, a solar-powered platform designed with the idea that “it’s always sunny somewhere!”HTTP Archive tracks the history of web performance.Re: that time it rained inside the data center.This website lets you measure the emissions of any website (including this one).Photographer Trevor Paglen’s images of undersea Internet cables (reportedly wiretapped by the NSA), and a video of sharks nipping at them.Another example of the natural world interfering with computers, from the cutting room floor: the world’s first computer bug was a literal bug.When Senator Ted Stevens described the internet as a “series of tubes,” many have opined that he actually wasn’t wrong. CREDITSHost: Nate HegyiProducer: Justine ParadisEditor: Taylor QuimbyAdditional editing: Nate Hegyi, Jessica Hunt, and Felix Poon Executive Producer: Rebecca LavoieSpecial thanks to Melanie Risch.Music: Pandaraps, Damma Beatz, Dusty Decks, Harry Edvino, Sarah the Illstrumentalist (sic), and Blue Dot Sessions.The “Internet is a Series of Tubes” remix was created by superfunky59 on Youtube. WIN A NEW CAR OR 25K IN CASH DURING NHPR'S SUMMER RAFFLE! GET YOUR TICKETS HERE.

Lake trout are on life support in Lake Michigan. They rely on intense breeding and stocking by federal fisheries. There was a breakthrough last summer, though, that could help bolster the lake trout’s recovery. A geneticist successfully mapped the lake trout genome: an outline of the fish’s genetic makeup. The genome will help biologists understand why some “strains” of trout have a higher survival rate. But could it also be used to create a sort of super-trout? And is that a good thing? Or is conservation-based gene editing a step too far? Featuring: Mark Walton, Roger Gordon, Chuck Madenjian, Seth Smith, Marty Kardos and Kim Scribner. ELECTRIC VEHICLE SURVEYHey folks – we’re working on some stories about electric vehicles, and we’re looking to hear from you. Are you interested in going electric? Wish there was better charging infrastructure where you are? Or would you prefer sticking with the car/truck you’re used to? Tell us what you think about EVs, and help inform our reporting by filling out this survey. It’ll only take a couple minutes, and it really helps us produce the show. Thanks so much!SUPPORTOutside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. Subscribe to our FREE newsletter.Follow Outside/In on Instagram or Twitter, or join our private discussion group on FacebookLINKSCheck out more episodes of Points North, and their special series: [Un]Natural Selection Listen to our previous episode “The Particular Sadness of Trout Fishing in America” CREDITSThis episode of Points North was written and produced by Patrick SheaHosts: Dan wanschura and Morgan SpringerEditor: Morgan Springer Consulting editor: Peter Payette Music for this episode by Max Dragoo, Marlin Ledin, Santah, and Blue Dot Sessions Outside/In is produced by Nate Hegyi, Taylor Quimby, Justine Paradis, Jessica Hunt, and Felix Poon   WIN A NEW CAR OR 25K IN CASH DURING NHPR'S SUMMER RAFFLE! GET YOUR TICKETS HERE.