Think Out Loud

The U.S. Constitution likely would not have been ratified in 1788 without Article 5, which allowed for amendment. Many of the original founders championed the idea that the document would need to change as the country changed. As historian Jill Lepore points out in her newest book most of the 27 amendments to the constitution have happened just after times of war or conflict, and after 33 years without an amendment, we may be headed that way again. OPB’s Geoff Norcross speaks to Lepore in front of an audience at the 2025 Portland Book Festival about “We the People: A history of the U.S. Constitution.”

Music and science don’t often overlap, but University of Oregon professor Leif Karlstrom is making it happen with the Volcano Listening Project. Karlstrom turns datasets from the volcanoes he studies every day into sound, then uses those soundtracks to make music with a wide array of musicians. The project will be on display at a pair of upcoming shows in Portland and Hood River on Jan. 28 and 29.    Karlstrom joins us to share music from the Volcano Listening Project and what it takes to turn data into song.

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, or NAGPRA, requires museums, universities and other institutions that receive federal funding to return Native American ancestral remains and cultural items to their original tribes. Though the law passed nearly 35 years ago, many institutions have failed to fulfill its requirements.     Oregon State University recently opened a new facility designed to advance its NAGPRA obligations. The two buildings house a records room, a laboratory and a space to consult with tribal members as they move through the repatriation process. The new buildings are also better equipped than the old facility to store cultural items and remains of tribal ancestors awaiting return.   Dawn Marie Alapisco is the director of the NAGPRA Office within OSU’s Office of Institutional Diversity. She joins us to share more about the new facility and how institutions should be approaching their NAGPRA requirements.

 Clark County resident Wayne Sutton was only 7 or 8 years old, he says, when his father, who worked in the logging industry, helped him buy his first chainsaw. That was 60 years ago. Today, Sutton is the founder and curator of Wayne’s Chainsaw Museum, a private museum located a few miles outside of Amboy in Clark County that is free and open to visitors by appointment.    The Columbian recently profiled Sutton and his museum which is big enough to display only about half of the 4,000 or 5,000 chainsaws he has amassed over the years and continues to collect, or have donated to him. Sutton opened the museum in 2000 when he started working for Stihl, the world’s leading maker of gas-powered chainsaws.    Sutton retired from Stihl in 2024. Although his museum boasts hundreds of models made by his former employer, it also showcases other brands and rare, decades-old examples that serve as a time capsule of the evolution of this power tool that is inextricably tied to the logging history of the Pacific Northwest. Sutton joins us to share his love of chainsaws and future plans for sharing his massive collection with more enthusiasts.

 If you were around Portland in the '90s, you probably heard the infectious, upbeat pop tunes of the band Sunset Valley. They toured up and down the West Coast, played in front of big audiences and eventually signed with a big record label. But breakout fame wasn’t in the cards for this group, and the members have since moved on to other things. Now the band is reissuing their record "Boyscout Superhero," and playing a concert to celebrate their 30-year anniversary. We talk to band members Herman Jolly, Jonathan Drews and Tony Lash and hear some music.

Morgan Stanley has projected the weight loss medication market to reach $150 billion globally by 2035. The use of GLP-1s, such as Ozempic, have increased drastically since 2019. At the same time, new research shows that the use of these drugs still comes with the risk of judgement and social pressures that all relate to weight stigma. An Oregon-based group, Body Liberation for Public Health, wants to help end these stigmas. The group is advocating for body liberation, which is a movement aimed to dismantle the systems that have created weight stigmas and bias, as opposed to the body positivity movement, which encourages acceptance of all body types. Debbie Kaufman is the creator of the project. She joins us to share more on what body liberation is and why it’s important to incorporate it into public health.

If you’ve been in Portland for a while, you’ve probably seen Mike Bennett’s artwork: It’s on the facade of the Wonderwood Restaurant & Indoor Mini Golf course. It’s on Trailblazer hats and Portland Timbers banners. It’s on road signs and beer cans. Now, the famous cartoonist and immersive space designer has launched a new video-podcast series that explores the animal kingdom for a youth audience. Every episode of “The Zooquarium Podcast” begins with a listener-submitted question — mostly from young kids — and the video element features animations in Bennett’s whimsical cartoon style. The first episode aired Tuesday, with a silly and science-backed conversation about sloth stool.   Bennett joins us to share more about the origins and details of his new podcast. We’re also joined by his co-host, Chanel Hason, a marine biologist, science communicator and director of outreach and community relations at the Elakha Alliance.

Earlier this month, the Oregon Community Foundation and Oregon Humanities announced the names of four recipients of Fields Artist Fellowships. Each of the winners will be awarded $150,000 during the two-year fellowship to work on artistic projects inspired by the communities and cultural traditions they hail from.   Ernesto Javier Martínez is a 2026-2028 Fields Artist Fellow based in Eugene. He is also an associate professor and head of the indigenous, race and ethnic studies department at University of Oregon. Martinez is a filmmaker and children’s book author whose award-winning works provide a rare glimpse into the experiences of queer Latinx youth. He joins us to share his plans for the Fields Artist Fellowship, which include producing an animated TV pilot inspired by the real-life tragic story of a man and his child who drowned while attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border.  

Oregon became the first in the nation to legalize psychedelic therapy through psilocybin back in 2020. What soon followed were bans in various jurisdictions, large costs for individuals seeking treatment and other barriers to access. Now, new reporting from The New York Times found that a third of psilocybin service centers have closed and other states have also begun offering this therapy, including Colorado and New Mexico. Andrew Jacobs is a health and science reporter for the NYT. He joins us to share more on where things stand in Oregon’s program and what other states have learned from the state’s first-in-the-nation rollout. 

This weekend the Portland band Typhoon will play two concerts celebrating 20 years of making music together. The band broke out in the early 2010s, with albums like "Hunger and Thirst" and "White Lighter." Two members of the band, Kyle Morton and Shannon Steele, join us to talk about the band’s history and future.