Outside/In

Here's a humdinger of a thought experiment: How fast could people go before the combustion engine and other technologies drastically increased the speed of the human race? And how did they pull it off? Skis? Sled-dogs? Catapults? From ancient horseriders and viking ships to primitive luges and "Russian Mountains", the Outside/In team researches all sorts of old-fashioned methods of locomotion and presents biggest the speed trial of the millennium. If you've got your own ideas about how humans hit record speeds during ye good olde days before the automobile, send us an email at [email protected] or call us on the Ask Sam hotline: 1-844-GO-OTTER! Episode photo by William James, courtesy of the City of Toronto Archives. Sign up for our newsletter Find more Outside/In at outsideinradio.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Pirate trails are everywhere: the pioneers of mountain biking built them on private land, public land and everything in between. They were built by riders just looking for a place to take their new bikes, and in the process they simply appropriated land that they wanted for their trails. But what happens when the evolution of a sport threatens the very thing that made it so attractive in the first place? Sign up for our newsletter Find more Outside/In at outsideinradio.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Everyone's heard of Vikings - their daring North Atlantic voyages, their mysterious runes. But there's another ancient culture in Arctic Scandinavia that's much older, and just as fascinating - the Sámi. While the Vikings have been celebrated, Sámi music, language and traditions were forced underground. Why? Check out Threshold at thresholdpodcast.org And find more Outside/In at outsideinradio.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There's only one place in the world that you can find the axolotl—the Mexican salamander—in the wild. This creature is the living embodiment of Xolotl, the Aztec god of heavenly fire, of lightning and the underworld, and the renegade twin brother of Quetzalcoatl. But the wild axolotl’s fate might be bound to the Aztecs by more than myth: its life in 21st century could rely on a landscape both very old and very human. Find more Outside/In at outsideinradio.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ask Sam: that special time when scientists worldwide cringe as Sam & the team speculate wildly on a diverse range of topics before picking up the phone to call in the real experts. This time, we've got another hirsute mystery: Are insect and plant hairs also made from the magical (seeming) protein called keratin? Also, do bugs get cancer? And which came first: the chachalaca (not a typo) or the turkey? The Ask Sam Hotline (1-844-GO-OTTER) is always open, so do your best to stump the gang and send us down another figurative rabbit-hole! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listener feedback is a big part of working in radio and podcasting. We try to look for the lesson in every critical email, phone call, or tweet (even the cranky ones). However, there is one listener who has probably gotten in touch with producers at New Hampshire Public Radio more than any other - a vegan advocate named Laura Slitt. Her approach hasn’t always made it easy to take her seriously. Today, we’ve got a deeply personal story from producer Taylor Quimby, who last year decided to strike up a relationship with Laura, to try and understand where she’s coming from and what made her decide to give up meat and dairy. Heads up: This episode features descriptions of people killing animals to eat them. Find more Outside/In at outsideinradio.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today the second in our two-part series on the politics of population. In this episode, we’re digging into the story of how around the turn of the millennium, population got all tangled up in immigration in one vote at the Sierra Club. That ugly fight represents a pivot point for the movement: a transition from the environmental politics of the 70s and 80s to the environmental politics of today. Find more at outsideinradio.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, we’re talking about population. How it went from being on the front pages of our newspapers and all over late night television to being the issue that you’ll only hear from out of the mouth of comic book super-villain Thanos. It's a big story, so we're spending two episodes on it. Also, we promised you a link to David Roberts' Vox piece, so here's that. Find more at outsideinradio.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Two barrels. Four bodies. And the decades-long mystery that led to a serial killer. A special look at a new podcast from NHPR, Bear Brook: A podcast about a cold case that's changing how murders will be investigated forever. www.bearbrookpodcast.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, we take a step back to imagine a world without a web of GPS satellites telling your smartphone where you are every second of the day. While this might sound scary, come along and maybe you’ll discover you have a secret sixth sense...one that’s been inside you all along, if you just knew how to turn it on. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, we’re giving you an inside look at what it takes to make the podcast. A bunch of people make this show, which means that our ideas meetings almost inevitably turn into total chaos when one of us starts shouting our favorite facts about our favorite animals. This time, we gave up. Rather than fight it, we’re leaning in to bring you four stories about animals. Or rather… four cases for animals that are the best… the coolest… the niftiest… however you want to define that. And when it’s all said and done, we’d like you to settle this one for us. www.outsideinradio.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

News flash: men aren't the only people who enjoy the outdoors. No sh*#, right? But the outdoor gear industry has only recently started to realize that there are more people wanting high quality gear than traditionally fit men. Today, we're digging in to the fraught relationship between the gear industry and gender. When do women actually need something different, and when are companies just looking to make more money by selling women a product that is essentially the same thing... but smaller and pink? And what do you do if the available products - pink or not - don't fit your body at all? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There are between eight and ten thousand wildfires in the United States each year, but most quietly burn out and we never hear about them. The Pagami Creek Wildfire in Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area was supposed to be like that, but things turned out differently. And Greg and Julie Welch were camping right in its path. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Another year… another record-breaking wildfire season. Thanks to climate change the fire season now starts sooner and ends later. Scientists also say climate change will make lightning more frequent, and winds more powerful… basically the world is a tinderbox. But what if I told you that maybe the problem with all these big, out of control fires was *not enough* fire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bengal cat is an attempt to preserve the image of a leopard in the body of a house cat — using a wild animal’s genes, while leaving out the wild animal personality. But is it possible to isolate the parts of a wild animal that you like, and forgo the parts that you don’t? Can you have your leopard rosette, and your little cat too? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It took 200 years of dealing with with the invasive European green crab before American scientists finally decided to head back to the source. And when they did, they discovered that the invasive scourge of our estuaries is a straight up Italian delicacy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Show that you love Outside/In! (And stick it to the guy in the corner office) Click here to donate: https://goo.gl/ijzVaZ On June 27th, 1981, a bodybuilder, a stockbroker, and 10 other men entered the woods of New Hampshire, determined to settle an argument. They called it The First Annual Survival Game, and the details are the stuff of the legend. The game marked the birth of a multi-billion dollar sports industry, but also sheds light on the squishy art of myth-making. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Show that you love Outside/In! (And stick it to the guy in the corner office) Click here to donate: https://goo.gl/ijzVaZ Mysteries are brewing in the sugar shack. Changes are coming to New England’s sugar bushes. And the very identity of a product that we’ve been crafting in basically the same way for centuries, could be on the verge of a radical shift. But a shift towards what? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Storm chasing is a pursuit we love to hate in the comment section, but if you look at the TV ratings, or YouTube views, it’s clear that we can’t look away, either. So what motivates chasers to actively put themselves in front of a storm when everyone is else is taking shelter? And, ultimately, do we owe them an apology? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Curiosity abounds in the listener ranks and the Ask Sam Hotline (1-844-GO-OTTER) has been ringing off the hook! Sam and the gang tackle your questions about decorative fountains, land fish and the difference between dog hair and dog fur. Oh, and think you love wood stoves? Think again. It's time for another Sam Ruined It! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you ask John Forester, there’s a war being fought, between the forces that want to eject cyclists from the roads, and those that want to preserve their right to ride. According to him, it’s been underway for at least a century, and environmentalists and cycling advocates have all been co-opted by the car lobby. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Robert Person Sr. — Percy, as he’s known — has been shining shoes for 70 years. He started around age 10 and now, at 80, continues to work at Percy’s Shoe Shine Service in Nashville. He’s worn out, stressed out, but this veteran shoe shiner just can’t stop. This episode comes to us from Neighbors, a podcast by Jakob Lewis made with Nashville Public Radio. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The reality is, recycling doesn’t work because we believe in it. It works because it’s an industry. You might be keeping that plastic bottle out of your trash bin, but the commodities market keeps it out of the landfill. That plastic bottle is cash in someone’s pocket. But what happens when the way we recycle no longer fits the rest of the equation? Where does our trash go when our partners aren’t buying? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When you watch the Olympics, you think you’re watching the best in the world competing at the pinnacle of their fitness. And while that is often true when it comes to America’s very best, when you start to get farther down the list, choosing which athletes deserve a ticket to the Olympics gets much more difficult… much more subjective. And it’s often those margin calls, those athletes on the bubble, who have some of the most inspiring stories to tell. Today, the story of Jennie Bender. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For thousands of years, natural spring waters have been associated with health. But recently something called the “raw water movement” has scientists and health officials reminding the public that drinking from untested springs can make you sick. Today, we try to sort it all out: are springs a healing tonic, a source of unadulterated H20, or a passing fad and a dangerous throwback? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There have been a couple of important developments on the subject of Canadian hydropower since we released our 4-part series, Powerline. Today, we bring in NHPR's environmental reporter, Annie Ropeik, and our executive producer, Erika Janik, to talk about Northern Pass and the future of energy projects in New England. Plus, we look back at a handful of older episodes to see what has changed since we first put them out. Beaver deceivers? Kiwi-berries? Crazy trail crew stories? Prepare to have your brain updated. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 2010 a researcher found a clutch of hybrid American-European lobster eggs in a Norwegian fjord. This kicked off a decade of research attempting to determine if Scandinavia was in the midst of a foreign lobster invasion. This question is hard to answer, especially when the fate of a business worth $150 million dollars a year hangs in the balance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You've left us lots of great questions on the Ask Sam hotline (1-844-GO-OTTER) so Sam and the team crammed into a studio to try and answer a few. In this episode we'll tackle metamorphosis, animal sexuality, how to ride a bicycle when it's -18 degrees, and we'll introduce a new segment in which Sam is asked to ruin some of our favorite things. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There’s a legend among energy nerds. According to this legend, California pot-growers — with their illicit capital and counter-cultural ideas — were instrumental in getting the solar industry off the ground, and without them, the industry as we know it would have withered on the vine.So we decided to find out: is it true? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This canine can be found all the way from Panama to Alaska, and shows no sign of going away anytime soon. But what are they? In this episode from Brave Little State, a podcast made next door in Vermont, we get some answers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the late sixties, a soap factory in suburban Illinois discovered one of its outflow pipes had been intentionally clogged by an industrial saboteur. Does environmental damage ever demand radical action? And when does environmental protest cross the line and become eco-terrorism? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Decades of legal and public relations battles with First Nations have changed the way that Hydro-Quebec approaches new projects. Today, the company hires specialists who consult with impacted communities, and modify the designs of their projects to take what they have heard into consideration. But is that enough? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Crees of Quebec signed a landmark agreement with their province and country. The Pessamit Innus now look to that playbook for help in their present-day fight against the provincial utility, but is it too late? On episode two of Powerline, we bring you the story of how one indigenous community got a seat at the table... and how another still struggles to be heard. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hydro-Quebec is the provincially-owned utility that helped French-Canadians stake a claim in Quebec politics and economy. As it forged ahead with two massive hydro projects, the company flooded land that had been used by indigenous people for thousands of years. On episode two of Powerline, we bring you the stories of two groups of First Nations people who grappled with Hydro-Quebec... two stories that end in very different ways. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is part one of our series about how a company, with all of the force of a colonial culture behind it, tried to use its power to push original occupants—its indigenous people—to one side. It’s also the story of how that effort led to something that has become its own kind of revolution in Canada: native people pushing to regain power over their own lives and culture. And it’s a story about the environmental benefits and human costs of clean energy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hydro-Québec, the world’s fourth largest hydropower producer, pumps out low carbon electricity at the cheapest rates in North America. For some, it is the key to a greener, more prosperous, future, but that “clean energy” comes freighted with a complicated history and an uncertain future. This is the story of how a massive, state-owned utility company came to be a symbol of the French-Canadian people. It’s also the story of how a company, with all of the force of a colonial culture behind it, used its power to try to push Quebec’s original occupants—its indigenous people—to one side. It’s the story of how that effort led to something that has become its own kind of revolution in Canada: native people pushing to regain power over their own lives and culture. And it’s a story about the environmental benefits and human costs of clean energy. New episodes weekly starting November 9th. Featuring new music from Breakmaster Cylinder. outsideinradio,org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Bicknell's Thrush is a bird that can only live in a few very very restricted places. It spends its summers in dense alpine forests in the Northeast of the US. In the winter, perhaps as many as 90 percent of the birds fly to the Dominican Republic. It's a bird without many options, and that makes it a poster child for what's to come. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Ask Sam hotline has been blowing up lately! Not like the Galaxy 7, no. In a good way! So Sam, along with a couple of producers from the Outside/In team, took a moment to answer your questions about tree killing, grass eating and the sound in the woods that scared the colonists away. And that's just to name a few. Somebody even gets a trail name out of this one. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The story of Michael Proudfoot is everywhere, and the details are always more or less the same: a SCUBA diver exploring a shipwreck breaks his regulator, and surfaces in an air pocket deep in the belly of the ship. He finds a tea-kettle full of fresh water, and eats sea urchins to survive. But as producers of the Outside Podcast, Robbie Carver and Peter Frick-Wright, dig deeper and deeper into the tale, it becomes harder and harder to tell what's real and what isn't. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In our long, evolutionary history, modernity is just a blip. The wiring of our brains took place over hundreds of thousands of years of hunting and gathering food out in the wilderness, and nothing proves that more vividly than the practice of mushroom hunting. It’s incredibly addictive, even to those who know all too well the associated dangers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Two young, starry-eyed conservation biologists take a college road trip through Mexico that transforms their outlook on the world. In so doing, they created the foundation for a strategy that would lead them to succeed where heavy-handed government policies had failed. But along the way, they had to get their hands dirty. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Looking for a relatively cheap way to spend a few weeks abroad? You might want to consider World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, or WWOOF. Have an aversion to mud, farm animals, and learning on the job? Maybe reconsider that first suggestion. But for those of you who are looking for an adventure, on a budget, Sam and Molly have composed a “guide” for would-be WWOOFers to think about before taking off–from how to make sure your visa is in order, to embracing the awkwardness of close quarters with strangers, while still maintaining your dignity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lēf Farms built a $10 million dollar, state of the art, automated greenhouse, hoping to sell baby greens branded as fresh and local to area grocery stores and restaurants. But even local foods can meet with local opposition when the neighbors see a farm that doesn’t match their expectations for what agriculture should look like. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Wilderness Therapy is a form of treatment that uses the natural world to address behavioral and mental health issues in teens. But with a tattered history of institutional abuse, patchwork oversight, and absent legislation, is this treatment option too wild to be trusted? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1982, Times Beach was wiped off the map by an environmental disaster. But once the houses and streets were gone, the town was erased again, this time in a way that may make it difficult to learn from the mistakes of the past. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week we attempt to not only eat the invaders, but drink them as well. And this time, most of us were on board. Also, the Ask Sam hotline gets some attention as Sam answers questions about bird feeders, black flies, storm clouds, and dew. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Global Rescue is a business that, should you get yourself into trouble, will drop everything to come and save you, anywhere in the world. They employ former Navy Seals, helicopters, airplanes, and even yaks to get the job done. But this service comes at a price, and when disaster strikes, is it fair that a service that won’t save everyone can rush in pull out those who can afford it? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Up along the banks of the Damariscotta River in Maine there used to be two stadium-sized piles of oyster shells. Where did they come from? Why are they there? What can they tell us about the people that created them? There are mysteries abound in the middens! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you're a long-time listener of the podcast, you might remember this as Episode 6: Champagne on the Rocks. But if you're new around here, we thought you'd like to hear one of our favorite episodes from the archives, complete with an update at the end. In the summer of 2015, Scott Jurek set a new record for running the 2,181 miles of the Appalachian Trail. But on his triumphant day atop the last mountain in Northern Maine, his 21st century campaign for the trail's record ran afoul of a park founded on ideas about wilderness from a decidedly earlier time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ever wonder where those flowers in the grocery come from and why, no matter what time of year, there are always roses available? Just in time for Mother's Day—the second busiest floral day behind Valentine's Day—we look inside the billion dollar flower industry and trace the well oiled supply chain that makes sure saying it with flowers is always an option. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices