Short Wave
Episodes
One More Step Toward Solving The Sleep & Alzheimer's Puzzle
29 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We know that people with Alzheimer's often have sleep problems. But does it work the other way? Do problems with sleep set the stage for this degenera...
The Mystery Of The Mummified Twinkie
27 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Happy Hallo-Week! Today we have the story of Twinkies that were left alone for eight years. One grew a moldy spot and another shriveled up in its pack...
Crows: Are They Scary Or Just Super Smart?
26 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Crows have gotten a bad rap throughout history — a group of them is called a "murder," after all. To get some insight into crows and perhaps set the...
Micro Wave: Why Do Leaves Change Color During Fall?
23 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Botanist and founder of #BlackBotanistsWeek Tanisha Williams explains why some leaves change color during fall and what shorter days and colder temper...
Why These Tiny Particles Are A Big Deal
22 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
For much of the pandemic, some scientists had been pushing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to recognize that the coronavirus is spread ...
Randall Munroe's Absurd Scientific Advice For Real-World Problems
20 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Randall Munroe, the cartoonist behind the popular Internet comic xkcd, finds complicated solutions to simple, real-world problems. In the process, he ...
Quantum Mechanics For Beginners
19 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Monika Schleier-Smith, associate professor of physics at Stanford University, studies quantum mechanics, the theory that explains the nature of the it...
The Tricky Business Of Coronavirus Testing On College Campuses
16 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We hit the road with NPR Education Reporter Elissa Nadworny. She's been on a weekslong road trip to get an up-close view of how colleges across the U....
Micro Wave: You Mite Want To Shower After This
15 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Today's episode is about how you're never alone. That's because there are tiny mites that live on your skin — including your face. They come out at ...
Gender Discrimination And Harassment At Sea
13 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Back in December, we brought you two episodes on the MOSAiC expedition. With hundreds of scientists from 20 countries, the German-led polar research m...
Butterflies Have Hearts In Their Wings. You Won't Believe Where They Have Eyes
12 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Adriana Briscoe, a professor of biology and ecology at UC Irvine, studies vision in butterflies. As part of her research, she's trained them to detect...
Micro Wave: Does Talking To Plants Help Them Grow?
09 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Environmental scientist Heidi Appel explains how plants detect sound — and whether talking to yours could help them grow big and strong. Plus, a bit...
What Coronavirus Test Results Do — And Don't — Mean
08 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Even though we've been living with the pandemic for months, there's still lots of confusion about coronavirus tests and what the results do — and do...
The Fattest Bear Wins!
06 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In honor of Fat Bear Week coming to a close, Short Wave is revisiting our episode on black bear hibernation. (Fat Bear Week is the annual tournament c...
The Nobels Overwhelmingly Go to Men — This Year's Prize For Medicine Was No Exception
05 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
From who historically wins the awards, to how they portray the process of science and collaboration, host Maddie Sofia and NPR science correspondent N...
Micro Wave: Why Some Fruits Ripen Faster In A Paper Bag
02 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Pomologist Juan Carlos Melgar explains two key factors to why some fruits ripen faster in a paper bag — and others don't. Plus, a bit of listener ma...
Want To Dismantle Racism In Science? Start In The Classroom
01 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Some of the most prestigious scientists in history advanced racist and eugenicist views. But why is that rarely mentioned in textbooks? Today on the s...
Fueled By Climate Change, Hurricanes Are Causing Industrial Accidents. Who's Liable?
29 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Fueled by climate change, hurricanes are becoming stronger and more frequent. Those storms have repeatedly led to spills and fires at chemical manufac...
The CDC Doesn't Know Enough About Coronavirus In Tribal Nations
28 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A recent CDC report estimates Native Americans and Alaskan Natives are 3.5 times more likely to get COVID-19 than white people, and those under 18 are...
Micro Wave: Mighty Mice, Drugs And Hopes For Space Voyagers
25 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
NPR Science Correspondent Jon Hamilton gives us an update on those mighty mice that went into space this past winter. The results could have big impli...
A Short Wave Guide To Joe Biden's Coronavirus Plan
24 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
With election season underway, we present a Short Wave guide (with some help from our friends at NPR Politics) to Joe Biden's plan to combat the coron...
ICYMI: 200+ Short Wave Episodes Are Waiting For You
23 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In case you missed our announcement last week, Short Wave is temporarily shifting production schedules. We're publishing episodes in your feed four ti...
Preparing For Perimenopause: You Don't Have To Do It Alone
22 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Perimenopause, the period of transition to menopause, is still a largely misunderstood chapter of reproductive life. It brings about both physical and...
How Hackers Could Fool Artificial Intelligence
21 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Artificial intelligence might not be as smart as we think. University and military researchers are studying how attackers could hack into AI systems b...
A Key To Black Infant Survival? Black Doctors
18 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In the United States, Black infants die at over twice the rate of White infants. New research explores one key factor that may contribute to the disp...
How The U.S. Is Caught In A "Pandemic Spiral"
17 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Ed Yong, a science writer for The Atlantic, writes that the U.S. is caught in a "pandemic spiral." He argues some of our intuitions have been misleadi...
Miss an episode? Now's your chance to catch up...
16 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In case you missed our announcement Monday, Short Wave is temporarily shifting production schedules. We're dropping episodes into your feed four times...
Saving Water A Flush At A Time
15 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Flushing toilets can consume a lot of water. So Tak-Sing Wong, a biomedical engineer at Penn State University, is trying to minimize how much is neede...
A Mathematician's Manifesto For Rethinking Gender
14 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In her new book, x+y, mathematician Eugenia Cheng uses her specialty, category theory, to challenge how we think about gender and the traits associate...
Micro Wave: Why Mosquitoes Bite You More Than Your Friends
11 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Asked and answered: why some of you might be more prone to being bitten by mosquitoes* than others. Turns out, some interesting factors could make you...
This Is Not A Typo: One In Four Animals Known To Science Is A Beetle
10 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
NPR science correspondent Nell Greenfieldboyce had to know more when she recently heard this mind-bending fact for the first time: a quarter of all kn...
Managing Wildfire Through Cultural Burning
09 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Fire has always been part of California's landscape. But long before the vast blazes of recent years, Native American tribes held controlled burns tha...
The International Scientists Getting Pushed Out
08 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
About 30% of people in science and engineering jobs in the U.S. were born outside the country. So when the Trump Administration suspended certain work...
SPACE WEEK: An Astrophysicist On The End Of Everything
04 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
*Astrophysically speaking. That's the subject of Katie Mack's new book: the possible ends to our entire universe. Specifically, she breaks down some f...
SPACE WEEK: Is Space Junk Cluttering Up The Final Frontier?
03 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Since the dawn of Sputnik in 1957, space-faring nations have been filling Earth's orbit with satellites. Think GPS, weather forecasting, telecommunica...
SPACE WEEK: What Would It Be Like To Fall Into A Black Hole?
02 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Black holes are one of the most beguiling objects in our universe. What are they exactly? How do they affect the universe? And what would it be like t...
SPACE WEEK: Every Moon, Ranked
01 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Science writer Jennifer Leman did it. She ranked all 158 moons in our solar system. The criteria? Interviews with NASA scientists, astronomers, and he...
SPACE WEEK: The Mystery Of Dark Energy
31 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It's Space Week on Short Wave! Today, an encore of our episode on dark energy. This mysterious energy makes up almost 70% of our universe and is belie...
The Arecibo Telescope Is Damaged — And That's A Big Deal
28 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In early August a cable snapped at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, causing substantial damage to one of the largest single dish radio telescop...
The Science Of Wildfire Smoke
27 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Smoke from wildfires can travel huge distances. We've already seen smoke from the fires in California reach all the way to Minnesota. And with all tha...
What Does A Healthy Rainforest Sound Like?
26 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
On a rapidly changing planet, there are many ways to measure the health of an ecosystem. Can sound be one of them? We dive into a new methodology that...
Scorpion Vs Mouse: A Mind-Blowing Desert Showdown
25 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Encore episode. This one doesn't end the way you'd expect. Inspired by the Netflix documentary series "Night On Earth," we learn everything we can abo...
Safely Socializing In The Time Of 'Rona
24 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Socializing is critical for mental and emotional health. You need it. We need it. But what's the safest way to socialize during a pandemic? We propose...
Science Movie Club: 'Arrival'
21 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The 2016 movie 'Arrival,' an adaptation of Ted Chiang's novella 'Story of Your Life,' captured the imaginations of science fiction fans worldwide. Fie...
How The Lack of Fans Is Changing the Psychology of Sports
20 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Professional sports are back - but it's anything but normal. The most obvious difference is the glaring absence of fans in the stands. This has led to...
The Science Behind Storytelling
19 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Encore episode. Storytelling can be a powerful tool to convey information, even in the world of science. It can also shift stereotypes about who scien...
Farming Releases Carbon From The Earth's Soil Into The Air. Can We Put It Back?
18 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Traditional farming depletes the soil and releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. But decades ago, a scientist named Rattan Lal helped start a mo...
The Science Is Simple, So Why Is Opening Schools So Complicated?
17 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
School districts, parents and teachers are all facing big decisions about how to return to the classroom this fall. NPR health correspondent Allison A...
Save The Parasites
14 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Saving endangered species usually brings to mind tigers or whales. But scientists say many parasites are also at risk of extinction. Short Wave's Emil...
How To Know If A Hurricane Is Coming For You
13 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Federal forecasters are predicting a busy hurricane season this year — three to six of them could be major hurricanes. So how do you know if one is ...
1st U.S. Dog With COVID-19 Has Died, And There's A Lot We Still Don't Know
12 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Buddy, an adult German shepherd from Staten Island, was the first dog in the U.S. to test positive for the coronavirus. His death reveals just how lit...
Gene-Altered Squid Could Be The Next Lab Rats
11 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The first genetically altered squid is here. NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce explains how this breakthrough was made and why it's a game changer for scient...
Why Herd Immunity Won't Save Us
10 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Herd immunity. It's the idea that enough people become immune to an infectious disease that it's no longer likely to spread. It makes sense theoretica...
Micro Wave: Spreading Warm Bread With Socks
07 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It's another Micro Wave! Today, what happens in your brain when you notice a semantic or grammatical mistake ... according to neuroscience. Sarah Phil...
Wearing A Mask Could Be Even More Important Than We Thought
06 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A new paper and growing observational evidence suggest that a mask could protect you from developing a serious case of COVID-19 — by cutting down on...
How Gene Therapy Helped Conner Run
05 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Gene therapy has helped a 9-year-old boy regain enough muscle strength to run. If successful in others, it could change the lives of thousands of chil...
The Search For Ancient Civilizations On Earth ... From Space
04 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Encore episode. Sarah Parcak explains how she uses satellite imagery and data to solve one of the biggest challenges in archaeology: where to start di...
Pregnancy And COVID-19: What We Know And How To Protect Yourself
03 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How dangerous is COVID-19 for pregnant women and their babies? The research has been scant and the data spotty. Dr. Laura Riley, the chair of obstetr...
Coronavirus Q&A: Running Outside, Petting Dogs, And More
31 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What's the deal with wiping down groceries? How often should you sanitize your phone? Can you greet other people's dogs? In this episode, an excerpt o...
Butterflies Have Hearts In Their Wings. You'll Never Guess Where They Have Eyes
30 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Adriana Briscoe, a professor of biology and ecology at UC Irvine, studies vision in butterflies. As part of her research, she's trained them to detect...
Mars Is The Place To Go This Summer
29 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The United Arab Emirates launched a mission to Mars earlier this month, followed by China days later. And tomorrow, NASA is scheduled to launch its ow...
The Controversy Around COVID-19 Hospital Data
28 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Data are so more than just a bunch of numbers, especially when it's the data hospitals are reporting about COVID-19. Earlier this month, the Trump Adm...
Eavesdropping On Whales In A Quiet Ocean
27 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The pandemic has led to a drop in ship traffic around the world, which means the oceans are quieter. It could be momentary relief for marine mammals ...
Why Shame Is A Bad Public Health Tool — Especially In A Pandemic
24 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
So much of dealing with the pandemic is about how each of us behaves in public. And it's easy to get mad when we see people not following public healt...
CDC Employees Call Out A 'Toxic Culture Of Racial Aggressions'
23 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Over 1,400 current Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) employees are demanding that the organization "clean its own house" of what they'r...
America's 'Never-Ending Battle Against Flesh-Eating Screw Worms'
22 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Sarah Zhang wrote about it for the Atlantic: a decades-long scientific operation in Central America that keeps flesh-eating screw worms effectively er...
Fat Phobia And Its Racist Past And Present
21 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Where does our preference for thinness really come from? As Sabrina Strings explains in her book, Fearing the Black Body, the answer is much more comp...
The Troubling Link Between Deforestation and Disease
20 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
There's evidence deforestation has gotten worse under the pandemic. It's especially troubling news. Scientists are discovering a strong correlation be...
Micro Wave: The Science Of Microwave Ovens + Listener Mail
17 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Introducing Micro Waves: low-calorie episodes featuring bite-sized science, mail from our listeners, and...maybe other stuff in the future? We'll figu...
Why The Pandemic Is Getting Worse... And How To Think About The Future
16 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Rising cases, not enough testing, and not enough people taking the virus seriously. NPR science correspondent Richard Harris explains why the virus is...
Understanding Unconscious Bias
15 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The human brain can process 11 million bits of information every second. But our conscious minds can handle only 40 to 50 bits of information a second...
Why Do Flying Snakes Wiggle In The Air?
14 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Some snakes can fly, and we don't mean on a plane. Certain snakes that live in South and Southeast Asia can leap off branches, undulating through the ...
How Record Heat In Siberia Is Messing With...Everything
13 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Climate change and this year's weather patterns are behind the record-breaking heat in Siberia. NPR Climate Reporter Rebecca Hersher tells us how it's...
Lightbulbs Strike Back
10 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Encore episode. Humans have a long history of inventions that shape the world around us: electricity, telephones, computers, music — the list goes o...
The Congolese Doctor Who Discovered Ebola
09 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Encore episode. Jean-Jacques Muyembe is a Congolese doctor who headed up the response to the recent Ebola outbreak in Congo. Back in 1976, he was the ...
This NASA Engineer Is Bringing Math And Science To Hip-Hop
08 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Encore episode. NASA engineer Dajae Williams is using hip hop to make math and science more accessible to young people of color. We talk with Dajae ab...
Honeybees Need Your Help
07 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Encore episode. A deadly triangle of factors is killing off U.S. honeybees. Last year, forty percent of honeybee colonies died in the U.S., continuing...
The Importance Of Black Doctors
06 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Though Black Americans make up 13% of the U.S. population, they represent only 5% of physicians. How does that lack of diversity in the physician work...
Typhoid Mary: Lessons From An Infamous Quarantine
03 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A special episode from our colleagues at NPR's history podcast Throughline. When a cook who carried typhoid fever showed no symptoms and refused to st...
Backyard Birding 101
02 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
If you pay attention to what's going on in your own backyard, ornithologist Viviana Ruiz Gutierrez says the birds among us have been putting on a grea...
One Way To Slow Coronavirus Outbreaks At Meatpacking Plants? A Lot Of Testing
01 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Meatpacking plants have been some of the biggest COVID-19 hot spots in the country. Thousands of workers have been infected, dozens have died. As plan...
Octocopter Set to Explore Titan, Saturn's Very Cool Moon
30 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
NASA is on a mission to explore Titan — the largest moon of Saturn. To do that, scientists are building a nuclear-powered, self-driving drone (techn...
Meet The Climate Scientist Trying to Fly Less for Work
29 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A few years ago, climate scientist Kim Cobb had a brutal realization about how much she was flying for conferences and meetings. Those flights were ad...
A COVID-19 Vaccine: What You Need To Know
26 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Approximately 200 COVID-19 vaccines are being actively developed, a process that health officials are expediting to help end the pandemic. Today on th...
Minneapolis' Bold Plan To Tackle Racial Inequity And Climate Change
25 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Racial discrimination shaped the map of Minneapolis. Then city zoning locked many of those patterns into place. Maddie talks with NPR climate reporter...
The Science Behind That Fresh Rain Smell
24 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Scientists have known for decades that one of the main causes of the smell of fresh rain is geosmin: a chemical compound produced by soil-dwelling bac...
Tech Companies Are Limiting Police Use of Facial Recognition. Here's Why
23 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Earlier this month, IBM said it was getting out of the facial recognition business. Then Amazon and Microsoft announced prohibitions on law enforcemen...
There Is No 'Second Wave'
22 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
America is still stuck in the first one. Maddie and Emily examine how the idea of a 'second wave' of coronavirus might have taken hold. NPR science co...
A Kazoo And The Evolution Of Speech
19 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Encore episode. Researchers discovered that this simple instrument could offer insights into the evolution of human speech. Short Wave reporter Emily ...
The Inseparable Link Between Climate Change And Racial Justice
18 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Marine biologist Ayana Elizabeth Johnson wrote a Washington Post op-ed about the ways the fight around climate change and racial justice go hand in ha...
How Many People Transmit The Coronavirus Without Ever Feeling Sick?
17 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It's called asymptomatic spread. Recently a scientist with the World Health Organization created confusion when she seemed to suggest it was "very rar...
We Don't Know Enough About Coronavirus Immunity
16 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Does getting the coronavirus once make you immune to it or could you get it again? Many are looking to antibody tests for answers. The logic is: if I ...
The Fight Over A Weedkiller, In The Fields And In The Courts
15 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A federal court recently ordered farmers to stop spraying one of the country's most widely used herbicides, dicamba. NPR's food and agriculture corres...
Coronavirus 'Long-Haulers' Have Been Sick For Months. Why?
12 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
That's what they call themselves: long-haulers. They've been sick for months. Many have never had a positive test. Doctors cannot explain their illnes...
Spinosaurus Makes Waves
11 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We chat with National Geographic Explorer and paleontologist Nizar Ibrahim about his team's discovery of the Spinosaurus, the first known swimming din...
How Tear Gas Affects The Body
10 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In protests around the country, law enforcement agencies have used tear gas to disperse crowds. But is it safe? ProPublica environment reporter Lisa S...
People Are Volunteering To Be Exposed To The Coronavirus...For Science
09 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Maddie Sofia talks with Invisibilia's Alix Spiegel about the bioethics of conducting human challenge trials with the aim of producing...
Science Is For Everyone — Until It's Not
08 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Encore episode. Brandon Taylor's story has a happy ending. Today he's a successful writer whose debut novel 'Real Life' received glowing reviews earli...
Code Switch: A Decade Of Watching Black People Die
06 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The last few weeks have been filled with devastating news — stories about the police killing black people. So today, we're turning the mic over to o...
Coronavirus And Racism Are Dual Public Health Emergencies
05 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Across the country, demonstrators are protesting the death of George Floyd and the ongoing systemic racism that is woven into the fabric of the United...