Outside/In

• O/I Trivia: Natural Selection

  What do pastries have to do with environmental justice? Cat butts with the climate crisis? And what US president ate a half-chewed piece of salmon leftover from a bear on reality TV?Grab a pencil (and maybe a pint?) and get ready for the inaugural Outside/In trivia episode we’re calling “Natural Selection.” We’ve got a game called “Guess That Animal!” We’re testing our panel’s knowledge on the environment in movies and music. And, maybe, we’ll learn a thing or two along the way about environmental policy, past and present.Produced by Felix Poon. For full credits and transcript, visit outsideinradio.org. SUPPORTOutside/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. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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• How to solve the climate crisis in 60-90 minutes

  When designer Matt Leacock decided to make a board game about climate action, he knew he wanted to make it – first and foremost – fun to play. “If we sold anything as an educational game… people would run screaming and running for the hills,” he told us. But can simulating the climate crisis really make for a good Friday night with your friends? What are the limits to gamifying social issues as complex as global warming?In this episode, we speak with Matt about what it took to design an entertaining game about one of the most challenging topics of our time, and enlist a few friends to playtest his game: “Daybreak.” Featuring Matt Leacock, with appearances from NHPR’s Marina Henke, Nick Capodice and Hannah McCarthy. This episode was produced by Taylor Quimby. For a full list of credits and transcript, visit outsideinradio.org SUPPORTTo 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. Subscribe to our newsletter (it’s free!).Follow Outside/In on Instagram and BlueSky, or join our private discussion group on Facebook. LINKSRead game designer Matt Leacock’s 2020 NYT opinion piece about his game, Pandemic, and what it says about social cooperation during an actual pandemic. One of Daybreak’s inspirations was “The 100% Solution” by Solomon Goldstein-Rose. Here’s his TED Talk about building a new global electricity system. For more insight into how Daybreak was made, check out Matt and co-designer Matteo Menapace’s design diaries. A climate scientist/board gamer’s break down of the science and gameplay of DaybreakListen to Civics 101’s great episode on civics-centered board games.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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• Why is there so much roadkill?

  For humans, roads epitomize freedom. For wildlife, it’s a different story: a million animals are killed by cars every day in the US alone. How did our infrastructure turn so deadly? And what are people trying to do about it?In this episode, we look at how two very different species are impacted by roads. Along the way, we visit a turtle rescue clinic, and hear about a celebrity cougar that was trapped in the Hollywood Hills.This episode was first produced in 2023.Right now, the Trump administration is planning to rescind the Roadless Rule – a regulation that restricts the building of new roads in nearly 60 million acres of US forests. Conservationists warn that this will fragment forests and threaten endangered species. A public comment period on the plan is open until September 19th.Featuring Ben Goldfarb, Alexxia Bell, Natasha Nowick, and Michaela Conder.For full credits and transcript, visit outsideinradio.org. SUPPORTOutside/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. LINKSSeptember 19, 2025 is the deadline to submit a comment about the potential effects of rescinding the Roadless Rule.Check out Crossings: How Road Ecology is Shaping the Future of Our Planet, by Ben Goldfarb.Read more about The Turtle Rescue League in Of Time and Turtles: Mending the World, Shell by Shattered Shell, by Sy Montgomery. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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• The cold truth about refrigeration

  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.For full credits and transcript, visit outsideinradio.org. SUPPORTOutside/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. LINKSYou can find Nicola’s new book “Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet and Ourselves,” at your local bookstore or online. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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• All Wings Considered

  We’re catching some air this week, and talking things with wings!  Quandaries range from the practical (how do different animal and insect wings differ?) to the ethereal (this includes dragons). Here’s the questions we’ll be answering…What makes wings different?How have wings in nature inspired human flight? Did we ever solve the colony collapse problem with bees?Why do so many cultures have dragon myths?Featuring Jonathan Rader, Tim Burbery, Lauren Ponisio, and Andrew Howley. For full credits and transcript, visit outsideinradio.org.For our next Outside/Inbox roundup, we’re looking for questions about healing! We’re casting a wide net here: homeopathy, neuroplasticity, chronic disease, plant resiliency. Send us your questions by recording yourself on a voice memo, and emailing that to us at [email protected].  Or you can call our hotline: 844-GO-OTTER.SUPPORTOutside/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.LINKSThe video of the sandhill crane landing lives on TikTok. Here’s that video of an albatross walking on land after years at sea. Timothy Burbery is the author of Geomythology: How Common Stories Reflect Earth Events.The hypothesis connecting the mythical griffin and Protoceratops fossils was popularized by Adrienne Mayor, author of The First Fossil Hunters: Dinosaurs, Mammoths, and Myth in Greek and Roman Times.Here's a paper critiquing Mayor's interpretations, "Did the horned dinosaur Protoceratops inspire the griffin?"A USGS volcanologist on what geologists missed for so long in the stories of Pele, from indigenous Hawaiian oral tradition. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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