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...
Dec 08, 2022•15 min•Ep 799•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Dec 07, 2022•12 min•Ep 798•Transcript available on Metacast 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 ...
Dec 06, 2022•12 min•Ep 797•Transcript available on Metacast 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....
Dec 05, 2022•12 min•Ep 796•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Dec 02, 2022•13 min•Ep 795•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Dec 01, 2022•14 min•Ep 794•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Nov 30, 2022•13 min•Ep 793•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Nov 29, 2022•15 min•Ep 792•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Nov 28, 2022•13 min•Ep 791•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Nov 24, 2022•1 min•Ep 790•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Nov 23, 2022•14 min•Ep 789•Transcript available on Metacast 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 ...
Nov 22, 2022•12 min•Ep 788•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Nov 21, 2022•14 min•Ep 787•Transcript available on Metacast The first time Sonia Vallabh understood something was very wrong with her mother Kamni was on the phone on her mom's 52nd birthday. She wasn't herself. By the end of that year, after about six months on life support, Kamni had died. The disease she died from would upend Sonia and her husband Eric's lives, and send them on a careening journey toward a completely new calling: to prevent or cure the disease that's stalking Sonia's family." Sonia Vallabh and Eric Minikel join Short Wave to tell thei...
Nov 18, 2022•14 min•Ep 786•Transcript available on Metacast Prions are biological anomalies – self-replicating, not-alive little particles that can misfold into an unstoppable juggernaut of fatal disease. Prions don't contain genes, and yet they make more of themselves. That has forced scientists to rethink the "central dogma" of molecular biology: that biological information is always passed on through genes. The journey to discovering, describing, and ultimately understanding how prions work began with a medical mystery in a remote part of New Guinea i...
Nov 17, 2022•13 min•Ep 785•Transcript available on Metacast Climate negotiations continue at COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. Tens of thousands of attendees from around the world have gathered in the seaside resort town. They've come to discuss some of the key issues to figure out how to combat climate change, remedy its effects, and to focus on implementing the big changes discussed last year in Glasgow. Correspondent Nathan Rott joins Emily Kwong to walk through the biggest debates at this year's COP, like loss and damage payments . And, he talks about...
Nov 16, 2022•13 min•Ep 784•Transcript available on Metacast Today, we pass the mic to our colleagues at All Things Considered to share the first piece in their series on the impact of climate change, global migration and far-right politics. They begin with the story of Mamadou Thiam, a Senegalese man living in a temporary shelter created by the United Nations. He is from a family of fishermen, but floods have destroyed his home. In the past when there was flooding, people could relocate for a few months and then return. But more flooding means leaving ma...
Nov 15, 2022•15 min•Ep 783•Transcript available on Metacast A pivotal week in Corey Gray's life began with a powwow in Alberta and culminated with a piece of history: the first-ever detection of gravitational waves from the collision of two neutron stars. Corey was on the graveyard shift at LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Observatory in Hanford, Washington, when the historic signal came. Corey tells Short Wave Scientist in Residence Regina G. Barber about the discovery, the "Gravitational Wave Grass Dance Special" that preceded it, and how h...
Nov 14, 2022•14 min•Ep 782•Transcript available on Metacast If Earth heats up beyond 1.5 degrees, the impacts don't get just slightly worse--scientists warn that abrupt changes could be set off, with devastating impacts around the world. As the 27th annual climate negotiations are underway in Egypt and the world is set to blow past that 1.5°C warming threshold , Emily Kwong talks to climate correspondents Rebecca Hersher and Lauren Sommer about three climate tipping points--points of no return that could cause big changes to the Earth's ecosystems. Email...
Nov 11, 2022•13 min•Ep 781•Transcript available on Metacast Researchers are launching a make-or-break study to test the conventional wisdom about what causes Alzheimer's disease. And in a recent small study, the antidepressant effects of ketamine lasted longer when an intravenous dose was followed with computer games featuring smiling faces or words aimed at boosting self-esteem. As science correspondent Jon Hamilton heads to the Society for Neuroscience 's annual meeting, he talks to Aaron Scott about his most recent reporting on depression and Alzheime...
Nov 10, 2022•12 min•Ep 780•Transcript available on Metacast Last month , Short Wave explored the evolutionary purpose of laughter. Now, we're talking tears. From glistening eyeballs to waterworks, what are tears? Why do we shed them? And what makes our species' ability to cry emotional tears so unique? Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
Nov 09, 2022•13 min•Ep 779•Transcript available on Metacast Regina G. Barber talks with Dr. Rosalyn LaPier about ethnobotany--what it is and how traditional plant knowledge is frequently misunderstood in the era of COVID and psychedelics. And, how it's relevant and important for reproductive health today. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
Nov 08, 2022•15 min•Ep 778•Transcript available on Metacast World leaders have gathered in Egypt this week to begin climate talks at the 27th Conference of the Parties. However, there are still outstanding questions about who should pay for climate change losses and damages. Vulnerable countries hit hardest by climate change are asking the wealthier countries most responsible for these damages for compensation. Climate change correspondent Lauren Sommer joins Emily Kwong to talk about this debate — and the case one island nation is making to seek payment...
Nov 07, 2022•12 min•Ep 777•Transcript available on Metacast In 1859, Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species, a book about the evolution of non-human animals by natural selection. In its wake, a political idea arose — eugenics. Reading Darwin's book, Sir Francis Galton proposed that humans should be bred to give more "suitable" characteristics a "better chance of prevailing." Today, producer Rebecca Ramirez talks to Adam Rutherford about his new book, Control: The Dark History and Troubling Present of Eugenics , which traces the inextricable li...
Nov 04, 2022•14 min•Ep 776•Transcript available on Metacast Correspondent Allison Aubrey talks to host Emily Kwong about the pros and cons of adopting permanent Daylight Saving Time or year-round Standard Time. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
Nov 03, 2022•14 min•Ep 775•Transcript available on Metacast Katie Wu is a cat person. She has two of them: twin boys named Calvin and Hobbes. But up until grad school, she couldn't be anywhere close to a cat without her throat tightening and her nose clogging up. In a stroke of luck, Katie's cat allergy suddenly disappeared. The reasons for her night-and-day immune overhaul remain a mystery. In this episode, Katie walks host Aaron Scott through the dynamic world of allergies and what it reveals about our immune systems. Calvin and Hobbes make cameo appea...
Nov 02, 2022•14 min•Ep 774•Transcript available on Metacast Pacific lamprey have lived on Earth for about 450 million years. When humans came along, a deep relationship formed between Pacific lamprey and Native American tribes across the western United States. But in the last few decades, tribal elders noticed that pacific lamprey populations have plummeted, due in part to habitat loss and dams built along the Columbia River. So today, an introduction to Pacific lamprey: its unique biology, cultural legacy in the Pacific Northwest and the people who are ...
Nov 01, 2022•16 min•Ep 773•Transcript available on Metacast Halloween calls to mind graveyards and the walking dead, so, naturally, Short Wave wanted to know what happens when you donate your body to real scientists. Host Aaron Scott talked with journalist Abby Ohlheiser about their reporting trips to a Forensic Osteology Research Station and an anatomy lab to learn how donated bodies help everyone from surgeons to law enforcement to forensic archeologists do their jobs. And while this episode might not be for the squeamish, Abby says these spaces of dea...
Oct 31, 2022•13 min•Ep 772•Transcript available on Metacast The common box turtle is found just about anywhere in the continental United States east of Colorado. For all their ubiquity, it's unclear how many there are or how they're faring in the face of many threats—from lawn mowers to climate change to criminals. So today, science correspondent Nell Greenfieldboyce presents the researchers hunting for turtles—and for answers. They're creating a century-long study to monitor thousands of box turtles in North Carolina. Heard about other ambitious researc...
Oct 28, 2022•14 min•Ep 771•Transcript available on Metacast When Steve Gosser heard the song of a scarlet tanager in the woods, he knew to look for a bright-red bird with black wings. But when he laid eyes on the singer, he saw instead a dark-colored head, black-and-white body, with a splash of red on its chest. "Well, that sort of looks like a first-year male rose-breasted grosbeak," he said. The song of one bird coming out of the body of another suggested this little guy could be a rare hybrid. Gosser enlisted the help of some pros, including biologist...
Oct 27, 2022•13 min•Ep 770•Transcript available on Metacast 
