Outside/In

30/07/2025

It’s a weird time to be an environmental scientist.

Tom Butler is the site manager at NY67, one of the longest running atmospheric monitoring stations in the country. For almost 50 years, he’s been coming out here at least once a week, quietly collecting precipitation and dry deposition samples. This is just one of hundreds of sites across the U.S., which together offer a window into the atmosphere — notably, they track acid rain. The data is available to anyone for free, and was critical in designing policy to help tackle acid rain.

But this spring, Tom and his colleagues got word that the federal government was cutting the funding to NY67. Since then, he’s continued collecting the samples anyway.

In our latest episode, “Field reports from the cutting edge of science,” ’s .j headed to Ithaca, New York tagged along with researchers in the field, as they try to continue their work even as their funding collapses around them.

Listen at the link in bio or on the podcast app of your choice.

All photos by Justine Paradis.
1) a map of the region and site information, tacked to the wall at NY67.
2) Tom Butler, with ozone analyzer and shelter in the background.
3) This is “bucket science,” Tom joked, an old-school method originally designed to track nuclear fall-out. But now, they collect precipitation to measure acid rain.
4) Long term monitoring is “not sexy,” per Tom. But it took decades to build these networks. “We’ve cleaned up the atmosphere. Good stuff.”
5) Graphs showing decades of NADP data. Tom estimates that this site costs about $25,000 per year to run.
6) Tom Butler at NY67. These networks were built over decades. If they go away, Tom isn’t optimistic they’d come back.
7) Tom Butler, wearing a Cornell Ornithology baseball cap and a t-shirt depicting the state fossil of New York. Despite losing funding, Tom keeps coming out to NY67 once a week. “I’ll keep doing it as long as I can,” he said.
8) “It’s easy to wreck stuff. It a lot harder to build it.”

18/07/2025

“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 communities.

In this week's episode we talk to Joseph Lee about some of the stories he’s covered, and his own attempt to make a map to the next world.

Indigenous journalist Joseph Lee on the nuanced ways tribes are adapting to climate change and more.

24/04/2025

Hey folks in the NH region! There's a really cool (and FREE) event coming up next week that you might be interested in. Speakers, breakout sessions, AND a trivia night. Come and mingle with some members of the O/I team and learn more about the connections between health and climate.

At this year’s By Degrees Climate Summit, NHPR is thrilled to bring together a diverse group of experts to share their insights on how we can better understand and tackle the challenges of climate change in a rapidly evolving world.

04/04/2025

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/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 the second part of our “Things That Can Kill You” miniseries.

📸 Captions and Credits:
1. This common sipo is neither poisonous nor venomous, but we simply couldn’t resist its curious expression. Credit: Harry Williams.
2. A snake wrangler holding a Russell’s viper, a highly venomous snake. A drop of venom is visible on its right fang. Credit: Usman Ahmad on Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)
3. Dandelion, Jim Lukach (CC BY 2.0) / Peanuts, John Campbell (Public Domain) / Malabar pit viper, Yogendra Joshi (CC BY 2.0)

27/03/2025

A few months ago we got an email from a listener who tried a bite 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?

This is the first part of a “Things That Can Kill You” series, so buckle up! 🍎🐍🥜

Photo Credits:
Manchineel tree, Scott Hughes (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Dandelion, Jim Lukach (CC BY 2.0)
Peanuts, John Campbell (Public Domain)
Malabar pit viper, Yogendra Joshi (CC BY 2.0)

07/03/2025

Recently, our producer Justine Paradis .j 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?

Episode is in your feeds! Featuring , Ani Patel, Dor Shilton, and Arla Good of .

Photo credits:
1) Bobby McFerrin performing at TED in 2011. Credit: Suzie Katz on Flickr (CC BY-NC ND 2.0).
2) singing in the car. Adobe stock photo.
3) A close up of hands in a choir. Adobe stock photo.
4) Women performing folk songs during the Chuvash festival “Akatuj” held in Saint Petersburg, Russia, by the Сhuvash diaspora. Credit: Zakharov Oleg via Wikiemedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
5) A cheerful karaoke sesh. Credit: Cord Allman on Pexels.
6) Three women singing and walking on the day of the Million Man March in Washington, DC., 1995. Library of Congress.

27/02/2025

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?

In this episode we’re taking a serious look at goofy behavior.

This episode is a collaboration between Outside/In and , the science podcast for kids.

Photo 1: ’s friend’s cat is a chess master.
Video 1: Nate’s dogs play
Video 2: Justine plays laser tag with her cat

25/02/2025

What is a forest for?

In New Hampshire, the most beloved swath of public land is the White Mountain National Forest. People interact with it as they would a national park – hiking, swimming, camping, and more. But a national forest is NOT a national park.

This week’s episode looks at one patch of forest from three different perspectives: conservationists, loggers,and the US Forest Service that has to somehow appease them both.

Listen to at outsideinradio.org or in the Outside/In podcast feed.

Photos: The Great Gulf Wilderness in the White Mountain National Forest. Courtesy of Zack Porter.

12/02/2025

Do trees age?

When we got this question from Will, a listener in Coulterville, California, we thought the answer would be fun and straightforward.

But it turns out this is a bit of an unknown. At nearly 5000 years-old, the bristlecone pine known as Methuselah is the oldest known tree on the planet. All things considered, Methuselah is aging rather gracefully.

But how?

Aging takes place on a cellular level. In human, as our cells replicate, the DNA in our cells is copied over and over, which gradually degrades the DNA. When that happens in our stem cells, we notice. Our hair gets grey and our skin loses its elasticity.

In plants, the equivalent to a stem cell is called a meristem. But unlike human stem cells, it looks like plant meristems may not age, in at least some species. So, “theoretically, trees can be immortal organisms,” according to a recent literature review.

The authors lay out evidence that trees don’t die because of genetically-destined cell decline. Instead, they’re killed by some external event, like a wildfire, insect attack, or the swinging of an ax.

When it comes to super long-lived trees like Methuselah, they tend to grow very slowly in pretty harsh environments, where not much else can live. In short, the reason some trees can live for millennia is simple: they’re really good at surviving.

PHOTOS 1-2: Exploring the California redwoods. Courtesy of Justine Paradis.
3: a bristlecone pine. Jim Morefield on Flickr (CC BY SA 2.0)
4: Peaches ripening on the branch. Zechariah Judy on Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
5-8: Bristlecone pine cone, wood, and landscape. Matthew Dillon on Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Sources: Piovesan & Biondi, 2020. On Tree Longevity. The New Phytologist.

Qiu et al, 2021. Is there tree senescence? The fecundity evidence.

Interviews with Deborah Roach and Tong Qiu.

NOVA. 2021. “Methusaleh Tree.”

10/02/2025

Did you read “Brighty of the Grand Canyon” growing up? Well, enough people did that when the National Park Service announced plans to shoot the wild b***os of the Grand Canyon there was massive protest.

What followed was one of the flashiest animal rescue tales of our time. And, a story that says a lot about the ability of animal activism to make enduring change.

Listen at the link in our feed or at outsideinradio.org.

Photo Credits

1. Corralled b***os at the bottom of the canyon
2. Park rangers and the artist pose next to the Grand Canyon Brighty sculpture (NPS Photo, Flickr, CC by 2.0)
3. Captured b***os rest in a corral
4. The Fund for Animals’ round-up camp at the canyon bottom
5. Cowboys chase b***os on horseback
6. A b***o rises from out of the Grand Canyon
7. Wild b***os roam in the Grand Canyon prior to the round-up

(All rescue images NPS photos by David Sharrow)

05/02/2025

Hey Outside/Innies,

We're exploring the idea of creating an Outside/In club so people can support the podcast directly, get cool swag AND an ad-free version of the show. But... WHAT SHOULD WE CALL IT? We're reaching out to fans on social media to get your input:

1. The Outside/In club
2. Go Otter!
3. The Outside/Insiders
4. Outside/In+
5. The Outside/Inner Circle
6. The Outsiders

Thoughts?

03/02/2025

Producer Felix P**n has the story of a new kind of turf war, and how one community is trying to make peace with pickleball.

Coming to a podcast app near you.