A 1,500 year old skeleton is diagnosed with tuberculosis. A visit to a modern-day bone library. A fight over the future of ethical science.

MORE ABOUT "WHAT REMAINS"

Across the country, the remains of tens of thousands of human beings are held by museums and institutions. Scientists say they’ve helped lay the foundations of forensic science and unlocked the secrets of humanity’s shared past.

But these bones were also collected before informed consent was the gold standard for ethical study. 19th and 20th-century physicians and anthropologists took unclaimed bodies from poorhouses and hospitals, robbed graves, and looted Indigenous bones from sacred sites.

Now, under pressure from activists and an evolving scientific community, these institutions are rethinking what to do with their unethically collected human remains.

Outside/In producer Felix Poon has informally gained a reputation as the podcast’s “death beat” correspondent. He’s visited a human decomposition facility (aka, “body farm”), reported on the growing trend of “green burial,” and explored the use of psychedelic mushrooms to help terminal cancer patients confront death.

In this three-episode series from Outside/In, Felix takes us to Philadelphia, where the prestigious Penn Museum has promised to “respectfully repatriate” hundreds of skulls collected by 19th century physician Samuel George Morton, who used them to pursue pseudo-scientific theories of white supremacy. Those efforts have been met with support by some, and anger and distrust by others.

Along the way, Felix explores the long legacy of scientific racism, lingering questions over the 1985 MOVE bombing, and evolving ethics in the field of biological anthropology.

Can the institutions that have long benefited from these remains be trusted to give them up? And if so, who decides what happens next?

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL

The Smithsonian’s ‘Bone Doctor’ scavenged thousands of body parts (Washington Post)

Medical, scientific racism revealed in century-old plaque from Black man’s teeth (Science)

America’s Biggest Museums Fail to Return Native American Human Remains (ProPublica)

Read about Maria Pearson, the “Rosa Parks of NAGPRA” and how she sparked a movement. (Library of Congress Blogs)

Read Olga Spekker’s paper on SPF15, “The first probable case with tuberculous meningitis from the Hun period of the Carpathian Basin.”

Listen to our episode about so-called body farms, “Life and Death at a Human Decomposition Facility.”

You can find our full episode credits, listen to our back catalogue, and support Outside/In at our website: outsideinradio.org.

When KALW’s Marissa Ortega-Welch hit the Pacific Crest Trail, she used her preferred method of navigation: an old-fashioned trail map. But along the way, she met a couple who only used phones to guide them, a Search and Rescue team that welcomes the power of GPS, and a woman who has been told her adaptive wheelchair isn't allowed in official wilderness areas (not actually true).

So… does technology help people access wilderness? Or does it get in the way?

This week’s episode comes to us from “How Wild” produced by our friends at KALW Public Media. In this seven-part series, host Marissa Ortega-Welch charts the complex meaning of “wilderness” in the United States and how it’s changing. Marissa criss-crosses the country to speak with hikers, land managers, scientists and Indigenous leaders – people who spend every day grappling with how ideas about wilderness play out in the hundreds of designated wilderness areas across the U.S.

LINKS

Check out more episodes of “How Wild” here.

SUPPORT

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

HOW WILD CREDITS

How Wild is created and executive produced by Marissa Ortega-Welch.

Edited by Lisa Morehouse. Additional editing and sound design by Gabe Grabin.

Life coaching by Shereen Adel. Fact-checking by Mark Armao.

How Wild is produced in partnership with KALW Public Media, distributed by NPR and made possible with support from California Humanities, a partner of the NEH. This podcast is produced in Oakland, California…on the unceded ancestral homeland of the Ohlone. Learn more about the Indigenous communities where you live at native-land.ca

OUTSIDE/IN CREDITS

Outside/In Host: Nate Hegyi

Executive producer: Taylor Quimby

NHPR’s Director of On-Demand Audio is Rebecca Lavoie

Our staff includes Justine Paradis, Felix Poon, Kate Dario and Marina Henke.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

Submit a question to the “Outside/Inbox.” We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).

Perhaps you’re familiar with our Outside/Inbox hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER. Anyone can leave us a voicemail sharing questions about the natural world, and we periodically answer them on the show.

A few weeks ago, it came to our attention that we hadn't gotten a new voicemail in some time. Turns out our hotline has been bugging out for at least six months, and we have a lot of catching up to do.

So, we present: Outside/Inbox, the lost voicemails edition.

Featuring Stephanie Spera, with contributions from Ariel, Joe, Carolyn, Maverick, Jarrett, Eben, a rooster, and a closet (?) full of snakes.

SUPPORT

Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member.

Subscribe to our newsletter for occasional emails about new show swag, call-outs for listener submissions, and other announcements.

Follow Outside/In on Instagram or Twitter, or join our private discussion group on Facebook.

LINKS

This is the study Marina mentioned with a comparative life cycle assessment of hand dryers vs. paper towel dispensers.

If you want to learn more about chronic wasting disease, Nate recommends listening to Bent Out of Shape, a three-part series from KUNC. For a quick read, here’s a fact sheet from the CDC.

Listen to Outside/In’s behind-the-scenes journey into a human decomposition facility, aka “body farm,” reported by Felix Poon.

If you’ve been to Acadia National Park in Maine and taken photos of the fall foliage anytime since 1950, you can participate in research about how climate change is shifting the timing of peak foliage. Contribute your pictures of the autumn leaves to the Acadia National Park Fall Foliage Project here.

Many are predicting that fall 2024 will be a banner season for spectacular foliage, including our colleagues at NHPR’s Something Wild. Plus, here’s more on the dynamics of fall foliage, precipitation, and anthocyanin.

CREDITS

Outside/In host: Nate Hegyi

Reported by Justine Paradis, Nate Hegyi, and Marina Henke.

Produced and mixed by Justine Paradis.

Edited by Taylor Quimby

NHPR’s Director of Podcasts is Rebecca Lavoie

Our staff also includes Kate Dario.

Music by Blue Dot Sessions, Brigham Orchestra, Guustavv, Katori Walker, John B. Lund, and Bonkers Beat Club.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.

Editor's note: A previous version of this episode incorrectly stated that Forest Park is the biggest public park in the United States. It is the biggest in St. Louis, Missouri and arguably bigger than Central Park. The audio and transcript have been updated.

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 slaughtered thousands of miles away, and taste just as good (or better) by the time it hits your plate. Apples can be stored for over a year without any noticeable change. A network called the “cold-chain” criss-crosses the country, and at home our refrigerators are fooling us into thinking we waste less food than we actually do.

Today, refrigeration has reshaped what we eat, how we cook it, and even warped our very definition of what is and isn’t “fresh.”

Featuring Nicola Twilley.

SUPPORT

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.

LINKS

You can find Nicola’s new book “Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet and Ourselves,” at your local bookstore or online.

CREDITS

Our host is Nate Hegyi.

Reported and produced by Nate Hegyi and Taylor Quimby.

Mixed by Nate Hegyi

Editing by Taylor Quimby

Our staff includes Justine Paradis, Felix Poon, Kate Dario and Marina Henke.

Executive producer: Taylor Quimby

Rebecca Lavoie is NHPR’s Director of On-Demand Audio

Music by Blue Dot Sessions. Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

Submit a question to the “Outside/Inbox.” We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).

For more than two hundred years Americans have tried to tame the Mississippi River. And, for that entire time, the river has fought back.

Journalist and author Boyce Upholt has spent dozens of nights camping along the Lower Mississippi and knows the river for what it is: both a water-moving machine and a supremely wild place. His recent book, “The Great River: The Making and Unmaking of the Mississippi River” tells the story of how engineers have made the Mississippi into one of the most engineered waterways in the world, and in turn have transformed it into a bit of a cyborg — half mechanical, half natural.

In this episode, host Nate Hegyi and Upholt take us from the flood ravaged town of Greenville, Mississippi, to the small office of a group of army engineers, in a tale of faulty science, big egos and a river that will ultimately do what it wants.

Featuring Boyce Upholt.

SUPPORT

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.

LINKS

You can find Boyce’s new book The Great River, at your local bookstore or online.

The 2018 study which attributed increased engineering of the Mississippi as a greater influence to worsening floods on the river than climate change.

Check out Harold Fisk's 1944 now famous maps of a meandering and ever-changing Mississippi watershed.

The Mississippi Department of Archives & History has a remarkable collection of digitized photos from the 1927 flood.

To get a sense of the type of work being done on the Mississippi in modern day, a US Army Corps of Engineers video detailing concrete revetment on the Lower Mississippi.

Curious about recent controversy on the Mississippi? Read up on the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion – a $3 billion coastal restoration project that will divert portions of the Mississippi’s flow in hopes of rebuilding lost land via sediment deposition.

CREDITS

Our host is Nate Hegyi.

Written and mixed by Marina Henke.

Editing by Taylor Quimby and Nate Hegyi.

Our staff also includes Felix Poon and Justine Paradis. Our executive producer is Taylor Quimby. Rebecca Lavoie is NHPR’s Director of On-Demand Audio.

Music in this episode from Blue Dot Sessions, Martin Landstrom, and Chris Zabriskie. Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

Submit a question to the “Outside/Inbox.” We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).

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’s because, at a rate of about 50 grams per second, this non-renewable resource is escaping the atmosphere for good.

In this edition of The Element of Surprise, our occasional series about the hidden histories behind the periodic table’s most unassuming atoms, we examine the incredible properties and baffling economics of our most notable noble gas.

Featuring Anjali Tripathi and William Halperin.

SUPPORT

Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In.

Subscribe to our newsletter to get occasional emails about new show swag, call-outs for listener submissions, and other announcements.

Follow Outside/In on Instagram or join our private discussion group on Facebook.

LINKS

Read John Paul Merkle’s petition arguing to change the name of helium to “helion.”

Despite being about a quarter century old, this passage from “The Impact of Selling the Federal Helium Reserve” has a pretty comprehensive list of the uses and properties of helium.

More on the recent sale of the Federal Helium Reserve (NBC News)

Physicist William Halperin said the idea of mining helium-3 on the moon was… unlikely… but that hasn’t stopped this startup company from trying it. (Wired)

Want to learn more about the weird history of American airships? Check out this film produced by the U.S. government in 1937, when they were still hoping to keep our airship program afloat.

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported, produced, and mixed by Taylor Quimby

Editing by Rebecca Lavoie, with help from Marina Henke and Justine Paradis

Our staff includes Felix Poon

Executive producer: Taylor Quimby

Rebecca Lavoie is NHPR’s Director of On-Demand Audio.

Music by Blue Dot Sessions and Ryan James Carr.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

Submit a question to the “Outside/Inbox.” We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).

Jack Rodolico knows exactly what scares him. Sharks.

But here’s what he doesn’t get: if he’s so freaked out, why can’t he stop incessantly watching online videos of bloody shark attacks?

Why would he deliberately seek out the very thing that spooks him?

To figure it out, Jack enlists the help of other scaredy-cats: our listeners, who shared their fears about nature with us. Together, Jack and the gang consider the spectrum of fear, from phobia to terror, and what it might mean when we don’t look away.

Featuring Lauren Passell, Arash Javanbakht, Nile Carrethers, and Sushmitha Madaboosi.

This episode originally aired in October 2022.

SUPPORT

Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In.

Subscribe to our (free) newsletter for occasional merch drops and updates.

Follow Outside/In on Instagram or Twitter, or join our private discussion group on Facebook.

LINKS

Lauren Passell’s Podcast the Newsletter.

Related: why people love horror movies.

The ubiquity of smartphones means plenty of hair-raising amateur videos of shark attacks to get you started on your doomscrolling (warning: a couple of these are bloody).

If this image of an octopus freaks you out, you might share Lauren’s “fear of holes,” or trypophobia.

Learn more about augmented reality technology and other projects at Arash Javanbakht’s clinic.

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by Jack Rodolico

Mixed by Taylor Quimby

Edited by Taylor Quimby, with help from Justine Paradis, Felix Poon, Nate Hegy, and Jessica Hunt.

Executive producer: Rebecca Lavoie

Music for this episode by Silver Maple, Matt Large, Luella Gren, John Abbot and Blue Dot Sessions.

Thanks to everyone who sent in voicemails and memos, even the ones we didn’t play: Erin Partridge, Lauren Passell, Nile Carrethers, Michelle MacKay, Alec from Nashville, and Hillary from Washington.

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.