Just a few weeks after we released the What Remains series, news broke that the Penn Museum discovered additional remains of 1985 MOVE bombing victims in the museum.

How did this happen? And what's next for the thousands of other human remains still in their possession?

Producer Felix Poon knew just the person to talk to for answers.

Featuring Rachel Watkins. 

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. 

In this series from Outside/In, producer Felix Poon 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?

LINKS

Read the Penn Museum’s statement about the latest discovery of additional MOVE remains at the museum.

Listen to WHYY’s news report, Penn Museum discovers another set of human remains from the MOVE bombing.

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

Hear ye, hear ye! Winter is fast approaching, and it is time for our fifth annual ‘surthrival’ special, in which the Outside/In team reframes the endurance sport that is winter. We’ve got suggestions for thriving during the cold-season, which we hope will help you positively look forward to dirty snow banks and single-digit temperatures.

This year, though, there’s a twist. A listener asked us for advice on what to do before the snow starts to fall, when it’s gray and bleak. This is that dingy in-between period, known in New England as ‘stick season.’ 

Host Nate Hegyi is joined by Kate Dario, Taylor Quimby, and special guest Zoey Knox, offering suggestions for indoors and out, on-screen and off, and both serious and silly. 

Featuring Eric Diven and special guest Zoey Knox. You can find our Outside/In 'Stick Season' Spotify playlist here. For a full list of this year’s recommendations visit our website.

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Produced and mixed by Taylor Quimby. 

Additional panelists: Kate Dario and Zoey Knox. 

Edited by Rebecca Lavoie

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

Executive producer: Taylor Quimby

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

Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

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 [email protected] or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).

Humans are noisy. The National Park Service estimates that all of our whirring, grinding, and revving machines are doubling or even tripling global noise pollution every 30 years. 

A lot of that noise is negatively affecting wildlife and human health. Maybe that’s why we’re so consumed with managing our sonic environments, with noise-cancelling headphones and white noise machines — and sometimes, we get into spats with our neighbors, as one of our guests did…

So for this episode, producer Jeongyoon Han takes us on an exploration of three sonic landscapes: noise, silence, and something in between. 

Featuring Rachel Buxton, Jim Connell, Stan Ellis, Mercede Erfanian, Nora Ma, and Rob Steadman.

This episode originally aired  in July, 2023.

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by Jeongyoon Han

Mixed by Jeongyoon Han and Taylor Quimby

Edited by Taylor Quimby, with help from Nate Hegyi, Jessica Hunt, and Felix Poon

Executive producer: Rebecca Lavoie

Special thanks to

Music by Blue Dot Sessions, Edvard Grieg, and Mike Franklyn.

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

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

If you’ve got a question for the Outside/Inbox hotline, give us a call! We’re always looking for rabbit holes to dive down into. Leave us a voicemail at: 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837). Don’t forget to leave a number so we can call you back.

In Appalachia, Hurricane Helene was a thousand-year-flood. It flattened towns and forests, washed roads away, and killed hundreds.

But this story is not about the flood. It’s about what happened after.

A month after Hurricane Helene, our producer Justine Paradis visited Marshall, a tiny town in the Black Mountains of western North Carolina, a region renowned for its biodiversity, music, and art.

She went to see what it really looks like on the ground in the wake of a disaster, and how people create systems to help each other. But what she found there wasn’t just a model of mutual aid: it was a glimpse of another way to live with one another.

Featuring Josh Copus, Becca Nicholson, Rachel Bennett, Steve Matlack, Keith Majeroni, and Ian Montgomery.

Appearances by Meredith Silver, Anna Thompson, Kenneth Satterfield, Reid Creswell, Jim Purkerson, Jazz Maltz, Melanie Risch, and Alexandra Barao.

Songs performed by Sheila Kay Adams, Analo Phillips, Leah Song and Chloe Smith of Rising Appalachia, and William Ritter.

LINKS

An excerpt of “A Paradise Built in Hell” by Rebecca Solnit (quoted in this episode) is available on Lithub.

“You know our systems are broke when 5 gay DJs can bring 10k of supplies back before the national guard does.” (Them)

The folks behind the Instagram account @photosfromhelene find, clean, and share lost hurricane photos, aiming to reunite the hurricane survivors with their photo memories. 

A great essay on mutual aid by Jia Tolentino (The New Yorker)
 

CREDITS

Outside/In host: Nate Hegyi

Reported, written, produced, and mixed by Justine Paradis 

Edited by Taylor Quimby

Our team also includes Felix Poon, Marina Henke, and Kate Dario.

NHPR’s Director of Podcasts is Rebecca Lavoie

Special thanks to  Poder Emma and Collaborativa La Milpa in Asheville. Thanks also to Rural Organizing and Resilience (ROAR).

Music by  Doctor Turtle, Guustavv, Blue Dot Sessions, Cody High, and Silver Maple.

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

A few months ago, producer Marina Henke saw two skunks sprint under her porch. Since then, she can’t stop wondering what’s really going on beneath her feet.

And as it turns out, she’s not the only one. Every day across the country, homeowners are waging wars with the animals who stake out our porches, decks and crawl spaces. Have we as humans inadvertently designed luxury apartments for “unwelcome” wildlife? And is that necessarily a bad thing? 

In a new edition of our (long-retired!) 10x10 series we’re going under the porch. So, grab your headlamps, put on a different pair of pants and watch out for skunks. 

Featuring Christopher Schell, Kieran Lindsey, Josh Sparks and Maynard Stanley.

LINKS

Want more 10x10s? We’ve got ‘em! Listen here for traffic circles, gutters, sand beaches, kettle bogs and vernal pools. 

You can read more about the “biological deserts fallacy” here. 

The Schell Lab at UC Berkeley is up to all kinds of urban ecology research.  

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported, produced and mixed by Marina Henke

Editing by Taylor Quimby

Our staff includes Justine Paradis, Felix Poon and Kate Dario

Executive producer: Taylor Quimby

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

Music by Blue Dot Sessions, El Flaco Collective and Spring Gang

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

We want to hear from you! Hate what’s under your porch? Love what’s under your porch? You can send a voice memo to [email protected] or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).

For over ten years, biologist Mark Higley has been stalking the forests of the Hoopa Valley Reservation with a shotgun. His mission? To save the northern spotted owl. The threat? The more aggressive barred owl, which has spread from eastern forests into the Pacific Northwest.

The federal government plans to scale up these efforts and kill hundreds of thousands of barred owls across multiple states. But can the plan really save the northern spotted owl? And is the barred owl really “invasive”… or just expanding its range? 

In this episode, Nate Hegyi dons a headlamp and heads into the forest with Mark Higley to catch a glimpse of these two rivals, and find out what it takes to kill these charismatic raptors, night after night, in the name of conservation.

Featuring Mark Higley, Tom Wheeler, and Wayne Pacelle. 

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

The federal government’s barred owl management plan is very long but they have a helpful list of frequently asked questions.

Check out some beautiful photos of Mark Higley’s work in this Audubon magazine story from a few years ago. 

Curious about the timber wars? Oregon Public Broadcasting has an excellent podcast miniseries you should listen to. 

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by Nate Hegyi

Mixed by Nate Hegyi

Editing by Taylor Quimby

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

Executive producer: Taylor Quimby

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

Music by Blue Dot Sessions

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 [email protected] or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).

For the past few weeks, we’ve been exploring the issue of human remains collections for our miniseries, “What Remains.” Today, we want to share another excellent series that has covered some similar, but also, very different ground.

Introducing “Postmortem: The Stolen Bodies of Harvard,” the latest season of Last Seen from WBUR. 

In this first episode, the police find buckets of body parts in a basement in Pennsylvania. Throughout the series, WBUR reporter Ally Jarmanning tells us what happened at Harvard, and how an elite university became a stop on a nationwide network of human remains trading.

It’s an excellent series, and a perfect follow-up to What Remains. If you want to hear the rest of the episodes afterwards, listen and follow Last Seen wherever you get your podcasts.

This episode of Last Seen: Postmortem was hosted and reported by Ally Jarmanning. It was edited by Dave Shaw and Beth Healy, with additional editing from Katelyn Harrop and Frannie Monahan Mixing and sound design. Paul Vaitkus. Last Seen’s Managing Producer is Samati Joshi. Executive Producer is Ben Brock Johnson. 

Also, we have something new from NHPR’s award-winning Document team.  Listen to “Emilia’s Thing,” a story of survival and resilience in the wake of January 6th. To listen, click here. 

A scholar and an activist make an uncompromising ultimatum. A forgotten burial ground is discovered under the streets of New York City. In Philadelphia, two groups fight over the definition of “descendant community.” 

Featuring Michael Blakey, Lyra Monteiro, Chris Woods, aAliy Muhammad, Wendell Mapson, Sacharja Cunningham, Jazmin Benton, Amrah Salomon, and Aja Lans. 

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? 

LINKS

• Archival tape of protests for the African Burial Ground came from the documentary The African Burial Ground: An American Discovery (1994).
• Learn more about the African Burial Ground National Monument.
• A recently published report, co-authored by bioarchaeologist Michael Blakey for the American Anthropological Association, recommends that research involving the handling of ancestral remains must include collaboration with descendant communities.
• Learn more about Finding Ceremony, the repatriation organization started by aAliy Muhammad and Lyra Monteiro.
• Read the Penn Museum’s statement about the Morton Cranial Collection and the 19 Black Philadelphians they interred at Eden Cemetery in early 2024.

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

A classroom display of human skulls sparks a reckoning at the Penn Museum in Philadelphia. A movement grows to “abolish the collection.” The Penn Museum relents to pressure. More skeletons in the closet.

This episode contains swears.

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

In this three-episode series from Outside/In, producer Felix Poon 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 Morton Cranial Collection

• The Penn & Slavery Project Symposium in 2019 included a presentation on the Morton Cranial Collection.
• aAliy Muhammad’s 2019 opinion piece: “As reparations debate continues, the University of Pennsylvania has a role to play” (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
• Mar Portillo Alvarado’s 2020 opinion piece: “The Penn Museum must end abuse of the Morton collection” (The Daily Pennsylvanian)
• Paul Wolff Mitchell’s 2021 report: “Black Philadelphians in the Samuel George Morton Cranial Collection”
• The Penn Museum’s 2021 press release: “Museum Announces the Repatriation of the Morton Cranial Collection”

The MOVE bombing and MOVE remains controversy

• Archival tape of the MOVE bombing came from the documentary Let the Fire Burn, and Democracy Now!
• She Was Killed by the Police. Why Were Her Bones in a Museum? (NY Times)
• In 2021-2022 three independent investigations reported on the MOVE remains controversy: one commissioned by the Penn Museum, one by the City of Philadelphia, and one by Princeton University.
• Lyra Monteiro's piece on Medium, "What the photos from 2014 reveal about Penn Museum's possession of the remains of multiple victims of the 1985 MOVE bombing."

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

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 [email protected] or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).