Winter storms have flooded parts of California, broken levees and forced thousands to evacuate. Climate change is altering the historic weather patterns that infrastructure like reservoirs and waterways were built to accommodate. Urban planners and engineers are rethinking underlying assumptions baked into buildings and water systems in order to adapt to the changing climate. Today, NPR climate correspondent Lauren Sommer walks us through three innovations happening around the country to help ci...
Jan 19, 2023•13 min•Ep 829•Transcript available on Metacast Time is a concept so central to our daily lives. Yet, the closer scientists look at it, the more it seems to fall apart. Time ticks by differently at sea level than it does on a mountaintop. The universe's expansion slows time's passage. "And some scientists think time might not even be 'real' — or at least not fundamental," says NPR science correspondent Geoff Brumfiel . Geoff joined Short Wave Scientist in Residence Regina G. Barber to bend our brains with his learnings about the true nature o...
Jan 18, 2023•14 min•Ep 828•Transcript available on Metacast Historic drought in the west and water diversion for human use are causing stretches of the Colorado and Mississippi rivers to run dry. "The American West is going to have to need to learn how to do more with less," says Laurence Smith, a river surveyor and environmental studies professor at Brown University. He recently dropped in for a chat with Short Wave co-host Emily Kwong about how scientists are turning a new page on managing two of The United States's central waterways, the Colorado and ...
Jan 17, 2023•13 min•Ep 827•Transcript available on Metacast We're off today in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. In the meantime, we want to share this episode from our friends at NPR's Life Kit podcast about how to become a community scientist — and better scientific research. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
Jan 16, 2023•21 min•Ep 826•Transcript available on Metacast Are humans ever satisfied? Two social psychologists, Ethan Ludwin-Peery and Adam Mastroianni , fell down a research rabbit hole accidentally answering a version of this very question. After conducting several studies, the pair found that when asked how things could be different, people tend to give one kind of answer, regardless of how the question is asked or how good life felt when they were asked. Short Wave 's Scientist in Residence Regina G. Barber digs into the research—and how it might re...
Jan 13, 2023•13 min•Ep 825•Transcript available on Metacast Inside the mountaintop glaciers of the Pacific Northwest lives a mysterious, and often, overlooked creature. They're small, black, thread-like worms that wiggle through snow and ice. That's right, ice worms! Little is known about them. But one thing scientists are sure of? They can't really handle freezing temperatures. In this episode, NPR science correspondent Nell Greenfieldboyce talks to Emily about how ice worms survive in an extreme environment and why scientists don't understand some of t...
Jan 12, 2023•14 min•Ep 824•Transcript available on Metacast There's always a moment of intense isolation when Jessica Mejía gets dropped off on the Greenland ice sheet for a multi-week research stint. "You know you're very much alone," said Jessica, a postdoctoral researcher in glaciology at the University of Buffalo. Glaciers such as those that cover Greenland are melting due to climate change, causing sea levels to rise. That we know. But these glaciers are also moving. What we don't know is just how these two processes – melting and movement – interac...
Jan 11, 2023•14 min•Ep 823•Transcript available on Metacast The mineral zircon is the oldest known piece of Earth existing on the surface today. The oldest bits date back as far as 4.37 billion years — not too far from the age of Earth itself at about 4.5 billion years old. And, unlike other minerals, zircon is hard to get rid of. This resilience enables scientists to use zircon to determine when major geological events on Earth happened. As part of our series on time, host Aaron Scott talks to science correspondent Nell Greenfieldboyce about why this mi...
Jan 10, 2023•12 min•Ep 822•Transcript available on Metacast When Dr. Chloé Schmidt was a PhD student in Winnepeg, Canada, she was studying wildlife in urban areas. She and her advisor Dr. Colin Garroway came across a 2020 paper that posed a hypothesis: If the echos of systemic racism affect the human residents of neighborhoods and cities, then it should affect the wildlife as well. Short Wave Scientist in Residence Regina G. Barber talks to Chloé and Colin about their findings of how redlining and biodiversity are intertwined. Learn more about sponsor me...
Jan 09, 2023•14 min•Ep 821•Transcript available on Metacast From space, it looks almost elegant: a narrow plume cascading off the Pacific Ocean, spilling gently over the California coast. But from the ground, it looks like trouble: flash flooding, landslides and power outages. California is enduring the effects of an atmospheric river, a meteorological phenomenon where converging air systems funnel wet air into a long, riverine flow that dumps large amounts of rain when it makes landfall. "Atmospheric rivers can transport volumes of water many times that...
Jan 06, 2023•12 min•Ep 820•Transcript available on Metacast Every month, 1.8 billion people menstruate globally. For those people, managing periods is essential for strong reproductive and emotional health, social wellbeing and bodily autonomy. But a lot of people haven't been educated about periods or the menstrual cycle since they were kids — if at all. This episode, a period manual in four parts: How periods work, the different stages of the menstrual cycle, how to know when something's wrong, and whether to have a period in the first place. Learn mor...
Jan 05, 2023•13 min•Ep 819•Transcript available on Metacast Speaking to Short Wave from about 250 miles above the Earth, Josh Cassada outlined his typical day at work: "Today, I actually started out by taking my own blood," he said. The astronauts aboard the International Space Station are themselves research subjects, as well as conductors of all sorts of science experiments: Gardening in microgravity , trapping frigid atoms, examining neutron stars . Then, there's the joy of walks into the yawning void of space. Speaking from orbit, Cassada told fellow...
Jan 04, 2023•12 min•Ep 818•Transcript available on Metacast Time is woven into our personal memories. If you recall a childhood fall from a bike, your brain replays the entire episode in excruciating detail: The glimpse of wet leaves on the road ahead, that moment of weightless dread and then the painful impact. This exact sequence has been embedded into your memory thanks to some special neurons known as time cells. Science correspondent Jon Hamilton talks to Emily about these cells — and why the label "time" cells is kind of a misnomer. Concerned about...
Jan 03, 2023•13 min•Ep 817•Transcript available on Metacast 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
Jan 02, 2023•7 min•Ep 816•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Dec 30, 2022•15 min•Ep 815•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Dec 29, 2022•13 min•Ep 814•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Dec 28, 2022•14 min•Ep 813•Transcript available on Metacast 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
Dec 27, 2022•14 min•Ep 812•Transcript available on Metacast 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
Dec 26, 2022•5 min•Ep 811•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Dec 23, 2022•12 min•Ep 810•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Dec 22, 2022•15 min•Ep 809•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Dec 21, 2022•11 min•Ep 808•Transcript available on Metacast 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, ...
Dec 20, 2022•13 min•Ep 807•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Dec 19, 2022•10 min•Ep 806•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Dec 16, 2022•12 min•Ep 805•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Dec 15, 2022•8 min•Ep 804•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Dec 14, 2022•12 min•Ep 803•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Dec 13, 2022•14 min•Ep 802•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Dec 12, 2022•14 min•Ep 801•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Dec 09, 2022•14 min•Ep 800•Transcript available on Metacast 
