A New Year's Mad Lib!
To ring in the new year, producer Berly McCoy brings host Emily Kwong this homemade science mad lib! Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
Episodes
Short Wave
New discoveries, everyday mysteries, and the science behind the headlines — in just under 15 minutes. It's science for everyone, using a lot of creativity and a little humor. Join hosts Emily Kwong and Regina Barber for science on a different wavelength.
If you're hooked, try Short Wave Plus. Your subscription supports the show and unlocks a sponsor-free feed. Learn more at plus.npr.org/shortwave
If you're hooked, try Short Wave Plus. Your subscription supports the show and unlocks a sponsor-free feed. Learn more at plus.npr.org/shortwave
Episodes
I'm Crying Cuz... I'm Human
From misty eyeballs to full-on waterworks, what are tears? Why do we shed them? And what makes humans' ability to cry emotional tears unique? Hosts Emily Kwong and Aaron Scott get into their feelings in this science-fueled exploration of why we cry. (encore) To see more of Rose-Lynn Fisher's images from Topography of Tears, visit her website . Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
The Woman Behind A Mystery That Changed Astronomy
In 1967, Jocelyn Bell Burnell made a discovery that revolutionized astronomy. She detected the radio signals emitted by certain dying stars called pulsars. Today, Jocelyn's story. Scientist-in-residence Regina G. Barber talks to Jocelyn about her winding career, her discovery and how pulsars continue to push the field of astronomy today. (encore) Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
Pumpkin Toadlet: Neither Pumpkin, Nor Toad
Being small has its advantages - and some limitations. One organism that intimately knows the pros and cons of being mini is the pumpkin toadlet. As an adult, the animal reaches merely the size of a chickpea. At that scale, the frog's inner ear is so small, it's not fully functional. That means the frog's movements seem haphazard. Today, with the help of Atlantic science writer Katie Wu , we investigate: If a frog can't jump well, is it still a frog? (encore) Read Katie Wu's piece in The Atlanti...
TikTok's favorite zoologist quizzes us on the most dangerous animals
Mamadou Ndiaye uses comedy to teach animal facts, but there's nothing funny about these deadly ones. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
A Holiday Fact Exchange!
Host Emily Kwong and editor Gisele Grayson exchange the gift of facts - in this quick hello from us to you, our wonderful listeners! Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
Climate Change Stresses Out These Chipmunks. Why Are Their Cousins So Chill?
Kwasi Wrensford describes the subjects of his research as "elfin": skittish little squirrel-cousins with angular faces, pointy ears and narrow, furry tails. He studies two species in particular: the Alpine chipmunk and the Lodgepole chipmunk. As the climate warms, these two chipmunks have developed different ways of coping. The Alpine chipmunk has climbed higher, in search of cooler habitat, while the Lodgepole chipmunk continues to thrive in its historic habitat. On this episode, Kwasi explains...
Can COP 15 Save Our Planet's Biodiversity?
This week, the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP 15) wrapped up in Montreal, Canada. Nations from around the world came together to establish a new set of goals to help preserve the planet's biodiversity and reduce the rate of loss of natural habitats. The last time biodiversity targets were set was in 2010, at COP 10. In the 12 years since, the world collectively failed to meet any of those biodiversity benchmarks. Aaron Scott talks to Giuliana Viglione, an editor at Carbon Brief covering food, l...
Brain Scientists Are Tripping Out Over Psychedelics
Psychedelic drugs – like LSD, salvia, ayahuasca, Ibogaine, MDMA (AKA ecstasy), or psilocybin (AKA 'magic mushrooms' or 'shrooms') – are experiencing a resurgence of interest in their potential medical benefits. At the Neuroscience 2022 meeting held by the Society of Neuroscience, the appetite for psychedelic research permeated the sessions, discussions, and even after-hours barroom talk — drawing in researchers, neuroscientists, companies, reporters, and advocates alike. "In the last couple of y...
Confessions Of A Math Convert
Math is a complex, beautiful language that can help people understand the world. And sometimes math is hard! Science communicator Sadie Witkowski says the key to making math your friend is to foster your own curiosity and shed the fear of sounding dumb. That's the guiding principle behind her podcast, Carry the Two and it's today's show: Embracing all math has to offer without the fear of failure. We encore this episode in between Carry the Two 's seasons - their second one starts on January 3, ...
Your Multivitamin Won't Save You
Dietary supplements — the vitamins, herbs and botanicals that you'll find in most grocery stores — are everywhere. More than half of U.S. adults over 20 take them, spending almost $50 billion on vitamins and other supplements in 2021. Yet decades of research have produced little evidence that they really work. Aaron Scott talks to Dr. Jenny Jia about the science of dietary supplements: which ones might help, which ones might hurt, and where we could be spending our money instead. Learn more abou...
The Hope For Slowing Amazon Deforestation
Brazil's president-elect, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, is renewing calls to protect the Amazon and rein in the deforestation. Climate scientists are encouraged but so far there aren't a lot of specifics of how this might happen. NPR's Kirk Siegler traveled to a remote Amazonian research station that is also threatened by illegal logging and talks to host Aaron Scott about his trip. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
A Step Closer To Nuclear Fusion Energy
On Dec. 5 at 1 o'clock in the morning local time, researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California used lasers to zap a tiny pellet of hydrogen fuel. The lasers hit their target with 2.05 megajoules of energy, and the pellet released roughly 3.15 megajoules. It's a major milestone, and one that the field of fusion science has struggled to reach for more than half a century: producing a fusion reaction that generates more energy than it consumes. While progress, the technol...
From Scientific Exile To Gene Editing Pioneer
Gene editing was a new idea in the mid-1970s. So when Harvard and MIT planned new research in recombinant DNA, alarm bells went off. "People were worried about a 'Frankengene,'" says Lydia Villa-Komaroff, then a freshly minted PhD. Amidst a political circus, the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts banned research into recombinant DNA, forcing scientists like Villa-Komaroff into exile. But that turned out to be just the prelude to a breakthrough. In this episode, Dr. Villa-Komaroff tells Emily Kwong...
You Know That Gut Feeling You Have?...
TFW when you're so excited you get those butterflies in your stomach - or maybe when you see something icky, you feel ill. On today's show, producer Berly McCoy looks at this relationship between our gut and our brain. Berly talks to host Emily Kwong about how the organs evolved to have a tight connection - connections that go beyond transient feelings of excitement or disgust. In fact, an increasing body of research shows links between the gut and conditions we typically associate mostly with t...
The Myth of Plastic Recycling
For many, recycling feels like a tangible way to personally combat climate change and to positively affect the environment. But after a years long investigation, NPR correspondent Laura Sullivan finds that reality is generally the opposite: Only a small fraction of plastic is ultimately recycled. Moreover, plastic production is on the rise. Further reading: - Recycling plastic is practically impossible — and the problem is getting worse - How Big Oil Misled The Public Into Believing Plastic Woul...
DART: The Impacts Of Slamming A Spacecraft Into An Asteroid
If an asteroid were hurling through space, making a beeline straight to Earth, how would humans prevent it from doing what it did to the dinosaurs? Would we bomb it? Would we shoot lasers at it like a scene from Hollywood's latest sci-fi flick? Well, the folks at NASA have designed and tested a theory. "The DART mission, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, is essentially our first test of a kinetic impact for planetary defense." says Cristina Thomas , assistant professor of Astronomy and Plane...
The Biologist Who Talks With Cells
The human body is made up of more than 30 trillion cells, but how do they all work together? It's all about communication! "They talk through molecules going from one cell to the adjacent cell," says Dr. Sandra Murray, a professor of cell biology and physiology at the University of Pittsburgh who studies how cells communicate with each other to do complex tasks, like close a wound or deliver a baby. This year, Dr. Murray became the first person of color elected as president of the American Socie...
What Makes Hawaii's Erupting Volcanoes Special
Just after Thanksgiving, for the first time in almost 40 years, Hawaii's Mauna Loa volcano erupted. It's one of several ongoing eruptions – including Kilauea, also on Hawaii, and Indonesia's Mount Semeru. At just over half the size of the big island of Hawaii, Mauna Loa is the world's biggest active volcano. Today, volcanologist Alison Graettinger talks to Scientist in Residence Regina G. Barber about what makes Mauna Loa's eruption different than Indonesia's and others around the Pacific, and w...
'One Mississippi...' How Lightning Shapes The Climate
When lightning strikes a giant tree in the tropical rainforest, there's usually no fire, no blackened crater — you might not even notice any damage. But come back months later, as Evan Gora does, and you may find that tree and dozens around it dead. Gora, a forest ecologist who studies lightning in tropical forests, says we are just beginning to understand how lightning actually behaves in these forests, and what its implications are for climate change. On today's episode, Evan Gora tells Aaron ...
Don't Call It Dirt: The Science Of Soil
It's easy to overlook the soil beneath our feet, or to think of it as just dirt to be cleaned up. But soil wraps the world in an envelope of life: It grows our food, regulates our climate, and makes our planet habitable. "What stands between life and lifelessness on our planet Earth is this thin layer of soil that exists on the Earth's surface," says Asmeret Asefaw Berhe , a soil scientist at the University of California-Merced. Just ... don't call it dirt. "I don't like the D-word," Berhe says....
Arts Week: Physics Meets The Circus
Julia Ruth 's job takes a lot of strength, a lot of balance, and a surprising amount of physics. She's a circus artist — and has performed her acrobatic Cyr wheel routine around the world. But before she learned her trade and entered the limelight, she was on a very different career path — she was studying physics. Julia talks with Emily (who also shares a past life in the circus) about her journey from physicist to circus artist, and how she learned her physics-defining acts. Learn more about s...
Arts Week: The Life Cycle Of A Neuron
An exhibit that blended science and technology for an immersive art experience went on display in Washington, DC and New York City in 2021 and 2022. It invited visitors to explore the cells in their brain. The installation was a partnership between the Society for Neuroscience and technology-based art space, ARTECHOUSE . In this encore episode, producer Thomas Lu talks to neuroscientist John Morrison and chief creative officer Sandro Kereselidze about the Life of a Neuron. Curious about other wa...
Arts Week: The Literary Magazine Dissecting Health And Healing
New York's Bellevue Hospital is the oldest public hospital in the country, serving patients from all walks of life. It's also the home of a literary magazine, the Bellevue Literary Review , which is now more than 20 years old. In today's encore episode, NPR arts correspondent Neda Ulaby tells Emily how one doctor at Bellevue Hospital decided a literary magazine is essential to both science and healing. As always, you can reach the show by emailing ShortWave@NPR.org . Learn more about sponsor mes...
Arts Week: How Art Can Heal The Brain
Arts therapies appear to ease a host of brain disorders from Parkinson's to PTSD. But these treatments that rely on music, poetry or visual arts haven't been backed by rigorous scientific testing. Now, artists and brain scientists have launched a program to change that. NPR's brain correspondent Jon Hamilton tells us about an initiative called the NeuroArts Blueprint in this encore episode. If you want to know more about the neuroaesthetics research Aaron mentioned participating in, you can read...
Arts Week: Harnessing Bacteria For Art
Pull out your art supplies because it's time to get crafty—with agar! We're beginning Arts Week at the intersection of biology and art. Therein lies a creative medium that's actually alive. Scientists and artists practice etching designs on petri dishes with bacterial paint that can grow and multiply. This encore episode, Aaron talks with science correspondent Nell Greenfieldboyce about her foray into the agar art world. Love the science powering another craft? Email the show at shortwave@npr.or...
Happy Thanksgiving, All!
Emily and Aaron wish you a Happy Thanksgiving, and explain how you can help the show. Hint: It's giving us feedback about what you love and think we could do better on the show. You can take our survey at npr.org/shortwavesurvey . Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
Three Takeaways From The COP27 Climate Conference
The climate meeting known as COP27 has wrapped. Representatives from almost 200 countries attended to talk about how to tackle climate change and how to pay for the costs of its effects that the world is already seeing. Rebecca Hersher and Michael Copley from NPR's Climate Desk talk with Emily about why the meeting went into overtime, three big things that came out of it, and the long and bumpy road still ahead to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcast...
A Taste Of Lab-Grown Meat
The idea came to Uma Valeti while he was working on regrowing human tissue to help heart attack patients: If we can grow tissue from cells in a lab, why not use animal cells to grow meat? Food production accounts for as much as a third of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. The idea behind cultivated meat is to help feed the world while dramatically reducing human contributions to global warming and avoiding killing animals. NPR Health Correspondent Allison Aubrey has been visiting production ...
A Deeply Personal Race Against A Fatal Brain Disease
In the mornings, Sonia Vallabh and Eric Minikel's first job is to get their two garrulous kids awake, fed and out the door to daycare and kindergarten. They then reconvene at the office and turn their focus to their all-consuming mission: to cure, treat, or prevent genetic prion disease. Prions are self-replicating proteins that can cause fatal brain disease. For a decade, Sonia Vallabh has been living with the knowledge that she has a genetic mutation that will likely cause in her the same dise...