Outside/In

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 tr...

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 ...

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. 

The difference comes down to a fundamental concept: the “multiple-use” land mandate. In the WMNF, you’ll find parts of the forest preserved for wildlife conservation, recreation, climate resilience, an...

It seems like every morning, another arm of the federal government is being reformed, eliminated, or downsized. That might wind up including an agency that a lot of Americans rely on when disaster strikes: FEMA.

President Trump has called FEMA a “disaster.” His new head of homeland security, Kristi Noem, has signaled it’s time to “get rid of FEMA the way it exists today.” FEMA is a big agency, and understanding its role can be diffi...

In the early 1980s, an animal rights group airlifted nearly 600 wild burros out of Grand Canyon National Park. 

The media ate it up – magazines sold full-page ads advertising the cause and families from the East Coast clamored to adopt the rescued animals.

But conflict around wild burros in the West still exists today. What does one of the flashiest rescue stories of the last century tell us about the power of animal activism to make...

Pickleball is the fastest growing sport in America. It may also be the most hated. Tennis and basketball players are complaining about losing court space because of an “invasion” of pickleballers. Residents are losing sleep because of the incessant noise. Fights over pickleball have led to a slew of petitions, calls to the police, and even lawsuits.

So why do pickleball players love this sport so much? Just how annoying is it to eve...

Ever since fluoridation became widespread in the 1950s, cavities in kids have fallen drastically. The effort is considered one of the ten greatest public health achievements of the 20th century. But it’s also one of the most controversial. 

At really high doses, fluoride is toxic – it can calcify your ligaments and joints and even fuse your spine. It also potentially has impacts on our brains. There’s a small but growing body of res...

What has Donald Trump claimed he would do when it comes to environmental policy in the U.S.? What happened during his last administration?  And what are the limits on executive powers when it comes to treaties and global agreements?

Just days before Trump’s inauguration, this episode comes to us from our friends over at Civics 101. 

Featuring Elizabeth Bomberg.

This episode was produced by Hannah McCarthy with help from Nick Capodice ...

Sardines are in vogue. Literally. They are in Vogue magazine. They’re delicious (subjectively), good for you, and sustainable… right? 

Recently, a listener called into the show asking about just that.

“I've always had this sense that they're a more environmentally friendly fish, perhaps because of being low on the food chain. But I'm realizing I really have no sense of what it looks like to actually fish for sardines,” Jeannie told u...

The next blue moon isn’t until May 2026, but luckily for you, you won’t have to wait that long to hear the Outside/In team answering listeners’ questions. This time, we’re exploring why blue moons are cool (or even what the heck a blue moon even is) and other seasonably appropriate curiosities.

1. What’s all the fuss about a blue moon?
2. Should we leave the leaves?
3. Which is a more sustainable choice: real or fake Christmas trees?
4. What h...

Appalachia is Bigfoot territory. In a big way. This week, we look at the mythical beast's legend, lore and sizable economic impact in the region. And we follow one reporter’s journey through the mountains and foothills of western North Carolina in search of Sasquatch.

This episode comes to us from the wonderful folks at The Broadside from North Carolina Public Radio, a weekly podcast exploring stories happening in their home at the ...

Coyotes are a sort of goldilocks animal. They can be active during the day, and at night. They can hunt in groups, or survive solo. They’re wolfish enough to survive in the wild, dog-like enough to blossom in the big city.  

That adaptability has arguably made coyotes one of the most successful mammalian predators on the planet. It’s also given them a reputation as opportunistic villains that prey on neighborhood garbage, livestock,...

Just a few weeks after we released the What Remains series, news broke that the Penn Museum discovered additional remains of 1985 MOVE bombing victims in the museum.

How did this happen? And what's next for the thousands of other human remains still in their possession?

Producer Felix Poon knew just the person to talk to for answers.

Featuring Rachel Watkins. 

MORE ABOUT “WHAT REMAINS”

Across the country, the remains of tens of thousand...

Hear ye, hear ye! Winter is fast approaching, and it is time for our fifth annual ‘surthrival’ special, in which the Outside/In team reframes the endurance sport that is winter. We’ve got suggestions for thriving during the cold-season, which we hope will help you positively look forward to dirty snow banks and single-digit temperatures.

This year, though, there’s a twist. A listener asked us for advice on what to do before the snow...

Humans are noisy. The National Park Service estimates that all of our whirring, grinding, and revving machines are doubling or even tripling global noise pollution every 30 years. 

A lot of that noise is negatively affecting wildlife and human health. Maybe that’s why we’re so consumed with managing our sonic environments, with noise-cancelling headphones and white noise machines — and sometimes, we get into spats with our neighbors...

In Appalachia, Hurricane Helene was a thousand-year-flood. It flattened towns and forests, washed roads away, and killed hundreds.

But this story is not about the flood. It’s about what happened after.

A month after Hurricane Helene, our producer Justine Paradis visited Marshall, a tiny town in the Black Mountains of western North Carolina, a region renowned for its biodiversity, music, and art.

She went to see what it really looks li...

A few months ago, producer Marina Henke saw two skunks sprint under her porch. Since then, she can’t stop wondering what’s really going on beneath her feet.

And as it turns out, she’s not the only one. Every day across the country, homeowners are waging wars with the animals who stake out our porches, decks and crawl spaces. Have we as humans inadvertently designed luxury apartments for “unwelcome” wildlife? And is that necessarily ...

For over ten years, biologist Mark Higley has been stalking the forests of the Hoopa Valley Reservation with a shotgun. His mission? To save the northern spotted owl. The threat? The more aggressive barred owl, which has spread from eastern forests into the Pacific Northwest.

The federal government plans to scale up these efforts and kill hundreds of thousands of barred owls across multiple states. But can the plan really save the n...

For the past few weeks, we’ve been exploring the issue of human remains collections for our miniseries, “What Remains.” Today, we want to share another excellent series that has covered some similar, but also, very different ground.

Introducing “Postmortem: The Stolen Bodies of Harvard,” the latest season of Last Seen from WBUR. 

In this first episode, the police find buckets of body parts in a basement in Pennsylvania. Throughout th...