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 outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).

Perhaps you’re familiar with our Outside/Inbox hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER. Anyone can leave us a voicemail sharing questions about the natural world, and we periodically answer them on the show.

A few weeks ago, it came to our attention that we hadn't gotten a new voicemail in some time. Turns out our hotline has been bugging out for at least six months, and we have a lot of catching up to do.

So, we present: Outside/Inbox, the lost voicemails edition.

Featuring Stephanie Spera, with contributions from Ariel, Joe, Carolyn, Maverick, Jarrett, Eben, a rooster, and a closet (?) full of snakes.

SUPPORT

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

Subscribe to our newsletter for occasional emails about new show swag, call-outs for listener submissions, and other announcements.

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

LINKS

This is the study Marina mentioned with a comparative life cycle assessment of hand dryers vs. paper towel dispensers.

If you want to learn more about chronic wasting disease, Nate recommends listening to Bent Out of Shape, a three-part series from KUNC. For a quick read, here’s a fact sheet from the CDC.

Listen to Outside/In’s behind-the-scenes journey into a human decomposition facility, aka “body farm,” reported by Felix Poon.

If you’ve been to Acadia National Park in Maine and taken photos of the fall foliage anytime since 1950, you can participate in research about how climate change is shifting the timing of peak foliage. Contribute your pictures of the autumn leaves to the Acadia National Park Fall Foliage Project here.

Many are predicting that fall 2024 will be a banner season for spectacular foliage, including our colleagues at NHPR’s Something Wild. Plus, here’s more on the dynamics of fall foliage, precipitation, and anthocyanin.

CREDITS

Outside/In host: Nate Hegyi

Reported by Justine Paradis, Nate Hegyi, and Marina Henke.

Produced and mixed by Justine Paradis.

Edited by Taylor Quimby

NHPR’s Director of Podcasts is Rebecca Lavoie

Our staff also includes Kate Dario.

Music by Blue Dot Sessions, Brigham Orchestra, Guustavv, Katori Walker, John B. Lund, and Bonkers Beat Club.

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

Editor's note: A previous version of this episode incorrectly stated that Forest Park is the biggest public park in the United States. It is the biggest in St. Louis, Missouri and arguably bigger than Central Park. The audio and transcript have been updated.

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.

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

You can find Nicola’s new book “Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet and Ourselves,” at your local bookstore or online.

CREDITS

Our host is Nate Hegyi.

Reported and produced by Nate Hegyi and Taylor Quimby.

Mixed by Nate Hegyi

Editing by Taylor Quimby

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

Executive producer: Taylor Quimby

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

Music by Blue Dot Sessions. Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

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 outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).

For more than two hundred years Americans have tried to tame the Mississippi River. And, for that entire time, the river has fought back.

Journalist and author Boyce Upholt has spent dozens of nights camping along the Lower Mississippi and knows the river for what it is: both a water-moving machine and a supremely wild place. His recent book, “The Great River: The Making and Unmaking of the Mississippi River” tells the story of how engineers have made the Mississippi into one of the most engineered waterways in the world, and in turn have transformed it into a bit of a cyborg — half mechanical, half natural.

In this episode, host Nate Hegyi and Upholt take us from the flood ravaged town of Greenville, Mississippi, to the small office of a group of army engineers, in a tale of faulty science, big egos and a river that will ultimately do what it wants.

Featuring Boyce Upholt.

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

You can find Boyce’s new book The Great River, at your local bookstore or online.

The 2018 study which attributed increased engineering of the Mississippi as a greater influence to worsening floods on the river than climate change.

Check out Harold Fisk's 1944 now famous maps of a meandering and ever-changing Mississippi watershed.

The Mississippi Department of Archives & History has a remarkable collection of digitized photos from the 1927 flood.

To get a sense of the type of work being done on the Mississippi in modern day, a US Army Corps of Engineers video detailing concrete revetment on the Lower Mississippi.

Curious about recent controversy on the Mississippi? Read up on the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion – a $3 billion coastal restoration project that will divert portions of the Mississippi’s flow in hopes of rebuilding lost land via sediment deposition.

CREDITS

Our host is Nate Hegyi.

Written and mixed by Marina Henke.

Editing by Taylor Quimby and Nate Hegyi.

Our staff also includes Felix Poon and Justine Paradis. Our executive producer is Taylor Quimby. Rebecca Lavoie is NHPR’s Director of On-Demand Audio.

Music in this episode from Blue Dot Sessions, Martin Landstrom, and Chris Zabriskie. Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

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 outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).