Outside/In

• 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.

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• Saving the shipwrecks of Stellwagen Bank

  Shipwrecks captivate our imagination, and are the subject of many books, academic papers, and movies—from the world-famous Titanic, to sunken World War II warships, to ancient fishing canoes. Some describe them as time capsules of our maritime history, waiting to be discovered and opened.But there’s a group of people who are drawn to shipwrecks for very different reasons, and it sometimes leads to the demise of the wrecks themselves: fishermen.In this episode, why archaeologists and fishermen have sometimes been at odds over shipwrecks, and the federal government program that’s bringing them together under one common cause.Featuring Ben Roberts, Mike Bailey, Tom Hill, Calvin Meyers, and Ben Haskell.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. LINKSLearn more about the many known shipwrecks of Stellwagen Bank, including the Portland, known as “New England’s Titanic.”Check out some of the other research projects at Stellwagen Bank on topics as varied as whales, sand lances, and seabirds.

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• Your brain on GPS

  GPS is essential these days. We use it for everything, from a hunter figuring out where the heck they are in the backcountry, to a delivery truck finding a grocery store, to keeping clocks in sync.But our reliance on GPS may also be changing our brains. Old school navigation strengthens the hippocampus, and multiple studies suggest that our new reliance on satellite navigation may put us at higher risk for conditions like dementia.In this episode (first released in 2024), we map out how GPS took over our world—from Sputnik’s Doppler effect to the airplane crash that led to its widespread adoption—and share everyday stories of getting lost and found again.Featuring Dana Goward, M.R. O’Connor, Christina Phillips, Michelle Liu, Julia Furukawa, and Taylor Quimby.Produced by Nate Hegyi. For full credits and transcript, visit outsideinradio.org. LINKSIn 2023, Google Maps rerouted dozens of drivers in Los Angeles down a dirt road to the middle of nowhere to avoid a dust storm. Maura O’Connor traveled from rural Alaska to the Australian bush to better understand how people navigate without GPS—and sometimes even maps. Here’s the peer-reviewed study, published in the journal Nature, that found that young people who relied on GPS for daily driving had poorer spatial memories. Another study out of Japan found that people who use smartphone apps like Google Maps to get around had a tougher time retracing their steps or remembering how they got to a place compared to people who use paper maps or landmarks.

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• Taxonomy's 200-Year Mistake

  Fungi used to be considered plants. Bad plants. Carl Linnaeus even referred to them as “the poorest peasants” of the vegetable class. This reputation stuck, and fungi were considered a nuisance in the Western world well into the 20th century.Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian is trying to rewrite that narrative. Her new book, Forest Euphoria: The Abounding Queerness of Nature catalogs fungi that sprout from the shells of beetles, morph with their sexual partners into one being and exhibit as many as 23,000 mating types. Patty believes that fungi’s ability to defy our cut and dry assumptions about the natural world is actually their superpower. All it takes is to first accept that they’re queer as heck. Featuring Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian. Produced by Marina Henke. 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 Patty’s new book Forest Euphoria at your local bookstore or online. Local to Albany? Visit the fungi exhibit that Marina toured at the New York State Museum: Outcasts: Mary Banning’s World of Mushrooms.Patty has had the chance to name several new species of fungi. In 2021 she published an article documenting those species, with some pretty great photos of laboulbeniales (those are the fungi that grow from arthropod shells). Check out C. L. Porter’s 1969 address to the Indiana Academy of Sciences where he critiques fellow mycologists for being “meek.” It’s brutal.One of Patty’s favorite films is Microcosmos, a 1996 French documentary that investigates the daily interactions of insects. It’s not direct mushroom content per se, but it is beautiful.

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• People are buying coyote urine. Where does it come from?

  Last spring, a curious listener called with an unusual question about coyote urine. Is it – as advertised by companies who sell it – an effective, all natural pest deterrent? And more importantly: “Who are the coyotes that are providing this urine?”Since then, producer Taylor Quimby has been trying to find out… and with literal gallons of the stuff available online, he discovered the answers aren’t pretty. Today on Outside/In, we peek inside the unregulated Pandora’s box of urine farming. Does it work? Is it ethical? And is anybody willing to actually talk about it? Featuring Jeannie Bartlett, Caroline Long, Ed Brookmyer, Laura Koivula. Produced by Taylor Quimby. 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.LINKSThis 1998 study assessed coyote urine as a deterrent for deer, and found (with some caveats) a 15-24% reduction in deer browsing after exposure to the urine. However, coyote urine had no measurable effect on the deer browsing of yew saplings in this more recent study. Websites for some coyote urine brands, like PredatorPee.com and Shake-away animal repellents, claim that they source urine from regulated farms that treat animals humanely, but did not provide more information when asked. This article from Cleveland.com details the conditions at The Grand River Fur Exchange, a fur and urine farm where hundreds of animals were found in poor condition after the owner’s death. 

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