In 1970, marine architect Charlie Canby got an odd assignment: Design a 600-foot ship for an undisclosed purpose and an undisclosed customer. Only after it was built did he finally find out what it was for.

“I was dumbfounded,” he said. “I drove away in a daze. I could not believe what we were really doing.”

In this episode, reporter Daniel Ackerman tells the unbelievable story of a boat, a government conspiracy, and the birth of a new industry that could change the way we look at oceans forever.

Featuring Charlie Canby, Andrew Thaler, Wernher Krutein, and Hank Philippi Ryan

Produced by Daniel Ackerman. For full credits and transcript, visit outsideinradio.org.

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Check out this 1975 New York Times article published after reporters discovered the true mission of the Glomar Explorer.

A corporate update for shareholders detailing The Metals Company’s recent test of deep-sea mining.

Another archival report from The New York Times details the SEC investigation into whether investors in the Glomar Explorer were misled.

WIN A NEW CAR OR 25K IN CASH DURING NHPR'S SUMMER RAFFLE! GET YOUR TICKETS HERE.

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.

This episode was originally published in 2022. For full credits and transcript, visit outsideinradio.org.

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To 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.

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Want 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.

In this episode, we’re taking your questions on the subject of sound. We talk about tinnitus, “the mind’s ear,” and the celebrity voices we have strong feelings about, from Bob Ross to President Obama, Michael Barbaro to Ira Glass.

So strap your earbuds in, we’re going for a ride!

1. What are tintinnabula, and the first wind chimes in the world?
2. What exactly is ASMR, and what makes it feel good?
3. Why does my cat make twitter sounds when she sees birds?
4. Why do frogs sing together around the same tiny pond?
5. If a tree falls in the woods, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
6. Does the environment influence the evolution of a language?
7. If we have a “mind’s eye” do we have a “mind’s ear?”
8. What’s tinnitus?

Featuring Ilija Dankovic, Craig Richard, Alejandro Vélez, Seán Roberts, Sarah Theodoroff, and Tara Zaugg.

For full credits and transcript, visit outsideinradio.org.

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Check out these 3D models of a tintinnabulum held by the British Museum.

The ASMR clips used in this episode are from @CelainesASMR, Coromo Sara. ASMR, @ASMRCrinkle, and @marlenaasmr481. If you want to listen to Craig Richard’s ASMR podcasts, they are Sleep Whispers, and Calm History.

Learn more about the effect drier climates might have on language, especially tonal ones, and about the overlap between biodiversity and language diversity.

For more information about tinnitus from the VA, check out the National Center for Rehabilitative Auditory Research.

Green grass grows everywhere: on baseball fields, in backyards, in front of strip malls. Collectively, we spend billions of dollars every year keeping them fertilized and watered.

But lawns cost more than money in Western states like Utah. Despite a severe drought, residents of Utah’s towns and cities use more water per capita than any other place in the nation, and a majority of that water goes right into lawns. That’s helping fuel an environmental disaster that could wipe out one of America’s largest inland seas.

In this episode, first produced in 2022, we trace the 600-year history of lawns, explore how they became a symbol of power, wealth, and Whiteness in America, and share tips on how to make a yard more environmentally responsible.

Featuring: Malin Curry, Ira Curry, Kelly Kopp, Zach Frankel, Karen Stenehjel

Produced by Nate Hegyi. For a full list of credits, go to outsideinradio.org.

This summer, more than 100 cruise ships will visit the small city of Portland, Maine, dropping thousands of passengers onto the city’s commercial waterfront for lobster rolls, local souvenirs and a quintessential New England experience.

But as Portland has rapidly become a landmark destination for cruise lines, a group of activists are calling into question the long held narrative that cruise ships provide a dependable economic boom.

Producer Marina Henke spent the months leading up to the 2025 cruise season charting these muddy waters. For small coastal cities like Portland, are cruise ships really the economic generator that the industry claims them to be?

Featuring JoAnn Locktov, Jack Humeniuk, Joe Redman, Jacques de Villier, Zach Rand, Brian Fournier, Kevin Rodriquez, Martha Honey and Dan Kraus.

Produced by Marina Henke. For full credits and transcript, visit outsideinradio.org.

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Martha Honey is the co-founder of the Center for Responsible Travel. She’s the editor of the book “Cruise Tourism in the Caribbean: Selling Sunshine” which includes much of her own research on the economics of cruise ships.

You can find Portland Cruise Control on Bluesky or at their website portlandcruisecontrolmaine.org.

In 2019, Colin Woodward published “Pier Pressure”, a three-part series out of The Portland Press Herald documenting the rise of the cruise ship industry across Maine.

Are you a Portland local? You can see a schedule of all cruise ship arrivals at maine.portcall.com

Portland is not the only city to face rapid cruise growth. Check out Cruise Boom, a PBS documentary focused on the cruise industry's footprint in Sitka, Alaska.

Growing up, Kiese Laymon thought of himself as a city kid. But he spent his childhood with a foot in two worlds: his mom’s house in the capital city of Jackson, Mississippi and his grandma’s house in a rural country town.

It wasn’t until Kiese left Mississippi that he came to understand that this question of city versus country actually meant a lot more. It carries a lot of baggage: the tensions between north and south, tectonic historical forces, and the contradictions of life in Mississippi.

In this episode, our producer Justine Paradis sits down with writer Kiese Laymon for a conversation on this question of country versus city, what that has to do with the history of Black life in this country, and the story of Kiese’s first children’s picture book, his latest in a lifelong exploration of a complicated love of Mississippi.

Featuring Kiese Laymon.

Produced by Justine Paradis. For full credits and transcript, visit outsideinradio.org.

SUPPORT

To 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.

LINKS

Kiese Laymon’s first children’s book, City Summer, Country Summer.

If you’d like to read more by Kiese, we recommend “Da Art of Storytellin’ (A Prequel)”, his essay about Outkast, his grandmother, and stank. (Oxford American)

Kiese adapted City Summer, Country Summer from this 2020 prose-poem essay. (New York Times)

One of our listeners is in a pickle. He’s looking to buy an engagement ring but wants to make sure the diamond comes from an ethical and sustainable source. So he sent us an email asking for help.

This is our latest addition of “This, That, or the Other Thing.” It's a series about the choices we make in our lives to try and build a more sustainable world, whether they have any effect, and what we can do instead if they don't.

Today… Host Nate Hegyi looks into the most sustainable ways to source that big, sparkly rock. Should it be a diamond from the ground? A diamond grown in a lab? Or maybe a different gemstone altogether?

Featuring Saleem Ali, Rachelle Bergstein and Anna Provost.

Produced by Nate Hegyi. For full credits and transcript, visit outsideinradio.org.

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Visit our website to see Justine's sapphire engagement ring.

You can find a copy of Rachelle Bergstein’s book here. She was also featured on this episode about diamonds, from 99% Invisible.

The Kimberley Process helped reduce the number of conflict diamonds in the world – here’s a list of countries that are participants.

Anna Provost features a lot of her really cool Montana-mined sapphires on Instagram.

A recent study in the journal Nature found that mining diamonds produces millions times more greenhouse gas emissions than growing them in a lab.