Short Wave

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...

#BlackBirdersWeek Seeks To Make The Great Outdoors Open To All

04 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Happy #BlackBirdersWeek! This week, black birders around the world are rallying around Christian Cooper, a black man and avid birder, who was harassed...

Meet The 'Glacier Mice.' Scientists Can't Figure Out Why They Move.

03 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In 2006, while hiking around the Root Glacier in Alaska, glaciologist Tim Bartholomaus encountered something strange and unexpected on the ice — do...

The Key To Coronavirus Testing Is Community

02 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In San Francisco, the coronavirus has disproportionately affected Hispanic and Latinx communities. This is especially true in the Mission District —...

The World Is Constantly Running Out Of Helium

01 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Encore episode. Helium is the second-most common element in the cosmos, but it's far rarer on planet Earth. As part of our celebration of the periodic...

What We Will ⁠— And Won't ⁠— Remember About The Pandemic

29 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

There's no doubt we're living through a Big Historic Event, but that doesn't necessarily mean we'll remember it all that well. Shayla Love, a senior s...

The Pandemic Cut Down Car Traffic. Why Not Air Pollution?

28 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

An NPR analysis of a key air pollutant showed levels have not changed dramatically since the pandemic curbed car traffic in the U.S. NPR science repor...

What Would It Be Like To Fall Into A Black Hole?

27 May 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 Launch! (It's Tomorrow And It's Historic.)

26 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Tomorrow, two NASA astronauts are set to head up into space on a brand new spacecraft, built by the company SpaceX. The last time NASA sent a crew up ...

A Short Wave Mad Lib

25 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

We're off for Memorial Day, so Maddie and Emily have a special Short Wave mad lib for you. Back with a new episode tomorrow. Email the show at shortwa...

How to Correct Misinformation, According to Science.

22 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The World Health Organization has called the spread of misinformation around the coronavirus an "infodemic." So what do you do when it's somebody you ...

Science Movie Club: 'Contact'

21 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Yes, there actually are astronomers looking for intelligent life in space. The 1997 film adaptation of Carl Sagan's 'Contact' got a lot of things righ...

What You Flush Is Helping Track The Coronavirus

20 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

More than 100 cities are monitoring sewage for the presence of the coronavirus, and public health officials think wastewater could provide an early wa...

The Squishy, Slimey Science Of ASMR

19 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Encore episode. The science is nascent and a little squishy, but researchers like Giulia Poerio are trying to better understand ASMR — a feeling tri...

The Pandemic Time Warp

18 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The pandemic has upended every aspect of our lives, including the disorienting way many of us have been perceiving time. It might feel like a day drag...

What Did Earth Look Like 3.2 Billion Years Ago?

15 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The surface of the Earth is constantly recycled through the motion of plate tectonics. So how do researchers study what it used to look like? Planetar...

The Coronavirus Is Mutating. Here's What That Means.

14 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Ed Yong of The Atlantic explains how a viral article led to headlines about a possible coronavirus mutation. All viruses mutate — it doesn't necessa...

Kids' Books Where Science Is The Adventure

13 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Maddie talks with author and neuroscientist Theanne Griffith about her new children's book series, The Magnificent Makers, which follows two intrepid ...

Making Music Out Of The Coronavirus

12 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

When Markus Buehler heard about the coronavirus, he wanted to know what it sounded like. Today on the show, Maddie speaks with Short Wave reporter Emi...

We Need More Coronavirus Testing. Are Antigen Tests The Answer?

11 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

There's a difference between diagnostic, antibody, and antigen tests. All provide different levels of reliability and speed.NPR health correspondent R...

Here's The Deal With 'Murder Hornets'

08 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Reports of so-called 'murder hornets' have been all over the news this week. (Even though they were first spotted in the United States late last year....

What We're Missing, By Missing Strangers Now

07 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

With a lot of us stuck at home, trying to physically distance from each other, one part of daily life has largely disappeared: bumping into strangers....

Scientists Think The Coronavirus Transmitted Naturally, Not In A Lab. Here's Why.

06 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The Trump administration has advanced the theory the coronavirus began as a lab accident, but scientists who research bat-borne coronaviruses disagree...

What Is Dark Energy? Physicists Aren't Even Sure

05 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Dark energy makes up almost 70% of our universe and is believed to be the reason the universe is expanding. Yet very, very little is known about it. T...

Letters From The 1918 Pandemic

04 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The 1918 flu outbreak was one of the most devastating pandemics in world history, infecting one third of the world's population and killing an estimat...

How An Early Plan To Spot The Virus Fell Weeks Behind

01 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In several major cities, public health officials work every year to monitor the flu. It's called sentinel surveillance. And as early as mid-February,...

How Bears Come Out Of Hibernation Jacked

30 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Spring is in the air — and so are black bears coming out of hibernation. Rae Wynn-Grant, a large carnivore biologist, explains there's a lot more go...