Venom is full of dualities. According to the UN’s World Health Organization, snakebite envenoming causes somewhere between 81,000 and 138,000 deaths per year, and even that is likely an undercount. Yet research into venom has yielded treatments for diabetes, cancer, erectile dysfunction, and even the celebrity favorite diabetes slash diet drug, Ozempic. 

In this episode, we explore the world of venom, where fear and fascination go hand-in-hand, and the potential for healing comes with deadly stakes. 

This is part II of our “Things That Can Kill You” miniseries, which also explores poison and allergies.

Featuring Sakthi Vaiyapuri. Thanks to Iva Tatić for her question.

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

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LINKS

Here’s more on Sakthi Vaiyapuri’s community awareness programs in India and his team’s research on the socioeconomic impacts on rural populations in Tamil Nadu

The UN’s World Health Organization’s fact sheet on snake envenoming as a high-priority neglected tropical disease

A great breakdown on why snakebite deaths are undercounted and the problem of missing data, written by global health researcher Saloni Dattani on Substack

A Nature article on potential advances in antivenom

Check out this Science Friday film on the cool research on cone snails and the non-opoiod painkillers derived from their venom. 

More on Ozempic and lots of other innovations with roots in venom research (New York Times) 

A few months ago we got an email from a listener who tried a bit of a very poisonous apple and lived to tell the tale. Ultimately, he was fine, but the incident left him full of questions. 

We figured, why not run with that curiosity? We put a call out for all of your poison related queries and you delivered: How much should you worry about those green potatoes in your pantry? Could our car tires be poisoning the environment? It’s another Outside/Inbox roundup on the show this week. Buckle up. 

This is the first part of a “Things That Can Kill You” mini-series. Up next we tackle venom and allergies.

Featuring Hussein Elgridly, Deborah Blum, Andy Robinson, Angela Mech, Kyle Lombard and Heejung Jung.

1. Are green potatoes toxic?
2. Are invasive browntail moths expanding their range?
3. Is hydroxyapatite an effective substitute for fluoride?
4. How much toxic airborne pollution is contributed by vehicle tires?

For our next Outside/Inbox roundup, we’re looking for questions about sound! Dream big here: we’re talking animal sounds, traffic noise, the sounds of space… Send us your questions by recording yourself on a voice memo, and emailing that to us at outsidein@nhpr.org.  Or you can call our hotline: 844-GO-OTTER.

For full credits and transcript, visit outsideinradio.org. 

Sgt. Tibbs, a fluffy, 19-year-old Maine Coon with tiger stripes, soft eyes, and a chipped tooth, is missing on the streets of Manchester, New Hampshire. His owner, Rose, fears the worst. But when she finds out her cat was never missing at all – the truth turns out to be worse than she feared.

From our friends over at the Document team at New Hampshire Public Radio, this is the first in a four-part series about what we owe our pets – and what we owe our neighbors.

For full credits and transcript, visit outsideinradio.org.

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After the Irish fought for and won their independence from the British in 1921, they had a problem. Centuries of exploitation had left the island one of the least forested nations in Europe, with less than 2% tree cover. 

So, they started planting a non-native American tree: fast-growing Sitka spruce capable of rebuilding their timber resources in record time. And it worked. Today, about 12% of the island is forested. But in the rural areas where iconic rolling hills have been replaced by rows and rows of conifers, farmers are not happy. 

Outside/In host Nate Hegyi takes us to County Leitrim, an area of Ireland hit hard by the Troubles and the Great Famine, to meet the townspeople who are fighting what they say is a new wave of colonialism: Sitka spruce plantations. 

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

Featuring: Justin Warnock, Brian Smyth, Donal Magner, Liam Byrne and Jodie Asselin

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LINKS

Donal Magner wrote a book covering the history of Ireland’s forests and timber industry. 

Sitka spruce plantations are controversial in other parts of Ireland as well, including Cork. 

There are also efforts to rewild parts of Ireland with entirely native trees and to protect and restore carbon-sequestering bogs. 

It can be really tough to figure out exactly what was growing in Ireland thousands of years ago – but these scientists used ancient pollen counts to figure it out. 

Researchers at University College Dublin produced  a detailed socio-economic impact report on sitka spruce plantations and County Leitrim in 2019.

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 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.

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LINKS

Bobby McFerrin in 2009 at the World Science Festival, demonstrating the intuitive power of the pentatonic scale, and in 2010, improvising in a stadium in Germany with 60,000 singers.

A short documentary about Sing For Your Life! and OneVoice Circle Singers.

Check out Hannah Mayree’s music and work.

Dor Shilton and Ani Patel collaborated on a paper (currently preprint) examining four societies where collective music-making is rare.

Dor Shilton’s paper on the evolution of music as an “interactive technology” and open-access analysis of patterns in group singing.

This journal presented the hypothesis of music as a mechanism for social bonding as part of an ongoing conversation. 

SingWell’s forthcoming research on group singing, aging, and Parkinson’s disease.

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 a collaboration between Outside/In and Tumble, the science podcast for kids. 

Featuring Junyi Chu and Jackson Ham

Produced by Lindsay Patterson, Marshall Escamilla, and Taylor Quimby. For a transcript and full list of credits, go to outsideinradio.org. 

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Love this episode? Looking for family-friendly podcasts to listen to? There are over 150 episodes of Tumble to check out, including a few of our favorites: 

Do Trees Fart?

The Swift Quake

Why Are Sloths Slow

Are Cats Evil? 

The five-part play checklist mentioned in the episode was developed by play researcher Gordon M. Burghardt. His paper, “Play in fishes, frogs and reptiles,” answers some other really interesting questions about animal play. 

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, and, most controversially, logging. 

This episode looks at one patch of forest from three different perspectives: a conservationist who would like to see cutting halted in the WMNF, loggers who would like to see it ramped up, and the US Forest Service that has to somehow appease them both. 

Featuring Zack Porter, Jeremy Turner, Charlie Niebling, Jasen Stock, Jim Innes, and Luke Sawyer.

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To share 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.

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LINKS

Zack Porter references this study that shows the potential carbon storage in Eastern forests by 2100. 

Conservation groups and logging advocates filed an amicus brief together against Standing Tree’s lawsuits. 

In 2024, the Southern Environmental Law Center sued the Forest Service over its timber targets. 

NHPR has been covering the legal fight in the White Mountain National Forest over the past year. You can read some of our previous coverage here and here. 

CREDITS

Produced by Kate Dario. Full credits and transcript available on outsideinradio.org.

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 difficult in the abstract. So this week, we’re playing an episode from one of our favorite public radio podcasts: Sea Change.  

It’s all about something called the “50% Rule.” Host Carlyle Calhoun travels to two towns to discover how this obscure federal policy designed to stop the cycle of flood damage is leading to opposite destinies.

For full credits and transcript, visit outsideinradio.org.

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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 enduring change? 

Featuring Rebbel Clayton, Abbie Harlow, John MacPete, Dave Sharrow, Travis Ericsson, and Eric Claman. 

For a transcript and full list of credits, go to outsideinradio.org. 

LINKS

You can read Abbie Harlow’s paper, “The Burro Evil” here. 

If you’re interested in learning more about the burro adoption process, Cynthia Brannigan outlined her experience as an employee of the Fund for Animals in her book, “The Last Diving Horse in America.”  Research for this episode was also sourced from Julie Hoffman Marshall’s Making Burros Fly and Cleveland Amory’s Ranch of Dreams. 

Black Beauty Ranch currently houses more than 600 animals. You can read more about their work here. 

Check out dozens of archival shots from the rescue, via Northern Arizona University’s Cline Library.  

And yes, you can watch Brighty of the Grand Canyon on Youtube. 

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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 everyone else? And what will it take for everyone to just get along? 

Producer Felix Poon visits one of the most popular courts in Boston to see how the drama is unfolding there.

Featuring Kemardo Henry, Martha Merson, Soren Whited, and Zariyah Cherise.

For a transcript and full list of credits, go to outsideinradio.org. 

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LINKS

Want to play pickleball, but don’t want to annoy the neighbors? Check out this guide to quiet pickleball paddles.

Read the petition that first raised concerns over the popularity of pickleball at the South Street Courts in Jamaica Plain.

Learn more about the history of pickleball, which was invented near Seattle in Bainbridge Island, WA.

For more on the various conflicts arising from pickleball’s growing popularity, read One Man’s Lonely War on Central Park Pickleball (NYTimes), and Shattered Nerves, Sleepless Nights: Pickleball Noise Is Driving Everyone Nuts (NYTimes)

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 research suggesting that fluoride can inhibit intelligence in children. 

This is still unsettled and hotly debated science but, as host Nate Hegyi finds out, in our polarized and increasingly digital world… unsettled science can quickly become doctrine. 

Featuring Rene Najera, Philippe Grandjean and Mark Hartzler

For a transcript and full list of credits, go to outsideinradio.org. 

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The CDC has a website that tells you how much fluoride is in your drinking water. 

Here’s the reasoning behind the U.S. Public Health Service’s recommended limit for artificially fluoridating water. 

The National Toxicology Program suggests that a child’s IQ could be impacted if they or their pregnant mother ingests more than 1.5 ppm of fluoride in their water. 

Philippe Grandjean’s peer-reviewed study suggests that the safe level of fluoride in water for pregnant women is much lower than what the U.S. Public Health Service recommends.

The American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Dental Association have cast doubt on the National Toxicology Program’s conclusions and say that the fluoride levels in U.S. waters are safe. 

A U.S. district court judge ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to take a second look at its limits for fluoride in the water, citing the National Toxicology Program’s monograph.