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.

Alexis Nikole Nelson, better known to her millions of fans as @blackforager, was raised by a mother who is an avid gardener and a father who loves to cook. Foraging allowed Alexis to fuse her love for wild plants and food from a very young age.

But before Alexis became the @blackforager many know today, there was a period in her life where Alexis lost that love and connection to foraging, and where food became very much the enemy.

This episode comes to us from our friends at Going Wild with Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant, a podcast about the human drama behind saving animals. From a paleoanthropologist who hunts fossils in conflict zones, to someone who helped save an endangered species while in prison, show host and wildlife biologist Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant takes us inside the work of the extraordinary people who are protecting wildlife.

Featuring Alexis Nikole Nelson.

For full credits and transcript, visit outsideinradio.org.

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LINKS

You can find Alexis Nikole Nelson’s videos on Tik Tok and Instagram.

Also, be sure to check out Going Wild with Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant.

Mike Strizki drives the only hydrogen-powered car on the East Coast. That’s because he’s the only person with access to fuel… which he makes, by himself, in his backyard in New Jersey. 

And it’s not just his car. Mike’s house, his lawnmower, even his bicycle are all powered by hydrogen. He’s convinced that this element could be the single most important solution to the climate crisis, if only people and governments would just get on board.

But he’s been screaming this from the rooftop of his hydrogen house for two decades. And today, fewer than 0.2% of cars in the US run on hydrogen. What’s it like to be the earliest early adopter of a technology that never catches on? And does Mike still have a chance to be proven right?

Featuring Mike Strizki.

Produced by Felix Poon. For full credits and transcript, visit outsideinradio.org.

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In the race to decarbonize cars, battery electric vehicles have proven more popular than hydrogen. But debate still rages on which is the better zero-emission technology. Some say hydrogen cars cannot catch up to battery-electric vehicles, whereas others claim EVs aren’t the future, hydrogen is.

Mike Strizki and his hydrogen-powered house have been featured on The Wall Street Journal, ABC World News, and a number of New York Times articles including “The Zero-Energy Solution,” and “The Gospel of Hydrogen Power.”

Lead is a study in contradictions. It’s dense enough to stop an X-ray, but soft enough to scratch with your fingernail. It’s heavier than steel and iron, but also more flexible. 

And, despite evidence of its toxicity, humans have been using it for all sorts of things for thousands of years. 

In this edition of our series “The Element of Surprise,” we hone in on this notorious heavy metal. What chemical properties make lead so harmful? How did something so dangerous become so ubiquitous? And if medical authorities acknowledge no amount of lead exposure is safe – especially for children – why do so many of us have lead in our water and our homes?

Featuring Justin Richardson, Bruce Lanphear, and Chakena Perry.

This episode was produced by Kate Dario. For the full credits and transcript, go to 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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Radiolab dedicated an episode to the scientist that was trying to estimate the earth’s age, and unintentionally helped get rid of leaded gasoline in the process. It’s wild and worth a listen. 

A comprehensive history of leaded gasoline and an in-depth investigation of how the lead industry lobbied cities to use lead pipes. 

Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner have published numerous books covering the American lead industry and lead’s lasting public health impacts. 

The EPA has robust resources about how to deal with lead exposure and how to minimize your risk. 

In the late 1950s, engineer Herb Ueda Sr. traveled to a remote Arctic military base. His mission? To drill through nearly a mile of ice, and extract the world’s first complete ice core.

To finish the job, he and his team would endure sub-zero weather, toxic chemicals, and life inside a military base… which was slowly being crushed by the glacier from which it was carved. 

In this episode (first released in 2023) Daniel Ackerman takes us inside Camp Century, and explains how a foundational moment in climate science was inextricably linked with the United State's military interest in Greenland.

Featuring Curt La Bombard, Julie Brigham-Grette, Herb Ueda Jr., Don Garfield, and Aleqa Hammond.

Produced by Daniel Ackerman. For a full list of credits and transcript, go to outsidinradio.org. 

A magician spins a black top hat to show their audience it’s empty. Then, with the wave of a wand and a few magic words, PRESTO: a snow white rabbit pokes its ears over the brim. 

Compared to sawing a person in half, pulling a rabbit out of a hat is a joyful bit of magic that entertainers have been doing for more than 200 years. But after the applause dies down, one is left wondering: where did the rabbit come from? And where did it go? 

Today, in honor of the Easter Bunny (who doesn’t actually appear in this episode), we’re pulling a handful of rabbit stories out of our proverbial hat. But be warned: these are dark tales of disappearing pets, occult eugenicists, and animal sacrifice. The secrets behind some magic tricks are more shocking than others. 

Featuring Nicole Cardoza, Gwyne Henke, Suzanne Loui, Sally Master, Ana DiMaria, Tanya Singer, and Meg Crane. 

Produced by Nate Hegyi, Marina Henke, Kate Dario, and Justine Paradis. For full credits, photos, 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. 

Follow Outside/In on Instagram or join our private discussion group on Facebook.

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Join us for NHPR’s 3rd Annual Climate Summit! The theme is “Healthy Connections,” and we’ve got a great lineup of speakers and breakout sessions PLUS a trivia night. And the best part? It’s all FREE. Learn more and register here. 

Check out this video of magician and storyteller Nicole Cardoza performing for a group in Chicago in 2024. 

You can check out Gwyne Henke’s childhood rabbit poetry on our website. 

Tanya Singer reported on the history of Project Angora for Tablet. You can also learn more about Helena Weinrauch and her blue sweater here. 

Read more about the history of pregnancy testing in this paper on Egyptian grain method, rabbit tests, and more, and in A Woman’s Right to Know by Jesse Olszynko-Gryn, available as a free ebook from MIT Press.

The story of Meg Crane’s Predictor test can also be found in the excellent Designing Motherhood, a book and exhibit on human reproduction through the lens of design.

Pagan Kennedy’s New York Times article, which prompted Meg Crane to start sharing her story—and Pagan’s follow-up, which does include Meg.

Allergies have been documented in historical records dating as far back as 2,400 years ago, when Hippocrates wrote about “hostile humors” in some people who suffered badly after eating cheese. But why do we experience them to begin with? What even is an allergy? Are allergies on the rise? And why are some mere nuisances, while others are deadly?

This episode is a roundup of allergy stories—from the mundane to the frightful—and a round up of allergy questions we’re asking Dr. Theresa MacPhail, author of Allergic: Our Irritated Bodies in a Changing World, to answer for us.

Featuring Beni Osei Duker, Theresa MacPhail, Dwayne Smith, and Lily Ko.

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

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Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. 

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LINKS

Check out Theresa MacPhail’s book, Allergic: Our Irritated Bodies in a Changing World.

Read up on the different hypotheses on why we get allergies in the first place:

• The parasite hypothesis
• The toxin hypothesis
• The hygiene hypothesis
• The old friends hypothesis

Learn about the history of the EpiPen.

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.

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

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 [email protected].  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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