Short Wave

How To Bake Pi, Mathematically (And Deliciously)

14 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This March 14, Short Wave is celebrating pi ... and pie! We do that with the help of mathematician Eugenia Cheng, Scientist In Residence at the School...

How Well Does A New Alzheimer's Drug Work For Those Most At Risk?

13 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

A new drug for Alzheimer's disease, called lecanemab, got a lot of attention earlier this year for getting fast-tracked approval based on a clinical t...

Ocean World Tour: Whale Vocal Fry, Fossilizing Plankton and A Treaty

10 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Reading the science headlines this week, we have A LOT of questions. Why are more animals than just humans saddled — er, blessed — with vocal fry?...

'Are You A Model?': Crickets Are So Hot Right Now

09 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Have you ever wondered how biologists choose what animal to use in their research? Since scientists can't do a lot of basic research on people, they s...

The Race To Save A Tree Species

08 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The whitebark pine is a hardy tree that grows in an area stretching from British Columbia, Canada south to parts of California and east to Montana. It...

The $20 Billion Deal To Get Indonesia Off Coal

07 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Indonesia is the world's largest exporter of coal for electricity. And it's also an emerging economy trying to address climate change. The country re...

Rome wasn't built in a day, but they sure had strong concrete

06 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Roman Colosseum is a giant, oval amphitheater built almost two thousand years ago. Despite its age and a 14th century earthquake that knocked down...

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein's Disordered Cosmos

03 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein is a theoretical physicist at the University of New Hampshire. It's her job to ask deep questions about how we — and the re...

Honoring The 'Hidden Figures' Of Black Gardening

02 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

When Abra Lee became the landscape manager at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, she sought some advice about how to best do the job. T...

This Navy vet helped discover a new, super-heavy element

01 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

As a kid, Clarice Phelps dreamed of being an astronaut, or maybe an explorer like the characters on Star Trek. Her path to a career in science turned ...

What DNA kits leave out: race, ancestry and 'scientific sankofa'

28 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Population geneticist Dr. Janina Jeff is the host and executive producer of In Those Genes, a hip-hop inspired podcast that uses genetics to uncover t...

Measuring Health Risks After A Chemical Spill

27 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This week, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will hold a public hearing about its remediation plan for cleaning up chemicals in and around Eas...

Ancient Seeds: A Possible Key To Climate Adaptation

24 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the Bekaa Valley region of Lebanon, there is a giant walk-in fridge housing tens of thousands of seeds. They belong to the International Center for...

Seriously...what IS life?

23 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In this Back To School episode we consider the "List of Life": the criteria that define what it is to be a living thing. Some are easy calls: A kitten...

Understanding Earthquake Aftershocks

22 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Monday another earthquake struck southeastern Turkey, near the Syrian border. This time, the quake registered as a magnitude 6.3 — an order lower th...

The Fungal Science Behind HBO's 'The Last of Us'

21 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The video game series that spawned the new hit HBO drama, The Last of Us, is the zombie genre with a twist. Instead of the standard viral pandemic or ...

Life Kit: Help Save The North American Bird Population

20 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Many of us are off today for President's Day. In the meantime, we want to share this episode from our friends at NPR's Life Kit podcast. In it, they d...

News Round Up: Chocolate, A Solar Valentine And Fly Pheromones

17 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

After reading the science headlines this week, we have A LOT of questions. Is chocolate really that good for your health? How do solar flares affect l...

The Science Fueling Disney's 'Strange World'

16 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Disney's new animated feature 'Strange World,' a band of multigenerational explorers journeys to the center of their fantastical homeland. Along th...

Congrats! It's A Tomato

15 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

A few years ago, a team of scientists set out on a field expedition in the rugged, dry Northern Territory of Australia. There, they found a plant that...

Mix Up LOVE, And You Get V-O-L-E

14 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

You may have heard of the "love hormone," or oxytocin. But you may not know that scientists have relied on cuddly rodents like the prairie vole to hel...

Meet One Engineer Fixing A Racially Biased Medical Device

13 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

During the COVID-19 pandemic, one measurement became more important than almost any other: blood oxygen saturation. It was the one concrete number tha...

Lightning Protection: Lasers, Rockets or Rods?

10 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Every year, lightning is estimated to cause up to 24,000 deaths globally. It starts forest fires, burns buildings and crops, and causes disruptive pow...

The Social Cost of Carbon Is An Ethics Nightmare

09 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

One of the most important tools the federal government has for cracking down on greenhouse gas emissions is a single number: the social cost of carbon...

Why Can't We Predict Earthquakes?

08 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the wake of the massive earthquake in Turkey and Syria, many scientists have been saying this area was "overdue" for a major quake. But no one knew...

Who Gets The First Peek At The Secrets Of The Universe?

07 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The James Webb Space Telescope is by far the most powerful space-based telescope ever deployed by the United States. But it is only one instrument, an...

Can You See What I See?

06 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Everyone sees the world differently. Exactly which colors you see and which of your eyes is doing more work than the other as you read this text is di...

A Dirty Snowball, Cancer-Sniffing Ants And A Stressed Out Moon

03 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

A green comet, cancer-sniffing ants, stealthy moons ... hang out with us as we dish on some of the coolest science stories in the news! Today, Short W...

A Fatal Virus With Pandemic Potential

02 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Nipah virus is on the World Health Organization's short list of diseases that have pandemic potential and therefore pose the greatest public healt...

The Ancient Night Sky And The Earliest Astronomers

01 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Moiya McTier says the night sky has been fueling humans' stories about the universe for a very long time, and informing how they explain the natural w...

Can you teach a computer common sense?

31 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Over the past decade, AI has moved right into our houses - onto our phones and smart speakers - and grown in sophistication. But many AI systems lack ...

Gas Stoves: Sorting Fact From Fiction

30 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Gas stoves are found in around 40% of homes in the United States, and they've been getting a lot of attention lately. A recent interview with Richard ...

Meet The Bony-Eared Assfish And Its Deep Sea Friends

27 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Yi-Kai Tea, a biodiversity research fellow at the Australian Museum in Sydney, has amassed a social media following as @KaiTheFishGuy for his sassy wr...

6 Doctors Swallow Lego Heads ... What Comes Out?

26 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

As an emergency physician at Western Health, in Melbourne, Australia, Dr. Andy Tagg says he meets a lot of anxious parents whose children have swallow...

The Math And Science Powering 'Everything Everywhere All At Once'

25 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Film directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (collectively: Daniels) reimagined the multiverse movie in their breakout film Everything Everywhere A...

Our Perception Of Time Shapes The Way We Think About Climate Change

24 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Most people are focused on the present: today, tomorrow, maybe next year. Fixing your flat tire is more pressing than figuring out if you should buy a...

Fossil CSI: Cracking The Case Of An Ancient Reptile Graveyard

23 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This mystery begins in 1952, in the Nevada desert, when a self-taught geologist came across the skeleton of a massive creature that looked like a cros...

New Tech Targets Epilepsy With Lasers, Robots

20 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

About three million people in the United States have epilepsy, including about a million who can't rely on medication to control their seizures. For y...

What Cities Should Learn From California's Flooding

19 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Winter storms have flooded parts of California, broken levees and forced thousands to evacuate. Climate change is altering the historic weather patter...

Time Is So Much Weirder Than It Seems

18 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

A Course Correction In Managing Drying Rivers

17 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

How You Can Support Scientific Research

16 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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 podcas...

Things Could Be Better

13 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Are humans ever satisfied? Two social psychologists, Ethan Ludwin-Peery and Adam Mastroianni, fell down a research rabbit hole accidentally answering ...

Behold! The Mysterious Ice Worm

12 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Inside the mountaintop glaciers of the Pacific Northwest lives a mysterious, and often, overlooked creature. They're small, black, thread-like worms t...

How Glaciers Move

11 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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 kno...

Zircon: The Keeper Of Earth's Time

10 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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 to...

Redlining's Ripple Effects Go Beyond Humans

09 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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 a...

An Atmospheric River Runs Through It

06 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

From space, it looks almost elegant: a narrow plume cascading off the Pacific Ocean, spilling gently over the California coast. But from the ground, i...

The Period Talk (For Adults)

05 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Every month, 1.8 billion people menstruate globally. For those people, managing periods is essential for strong reproductive and emotional health, soc...

Houston, We Have Short Wave On The Line

04 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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 m...

Time Cells Don't Really Care About Time

03 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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: Th...

A New Year's Mad Lib!

02 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

To ring in the new year, producer Berly McCoy brings host Emily Kwong this homemade science mad lib!Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastc...

I'm Crying Cuz... I'm Human

30 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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 Em...

The Woman Behind A Mystery That Changed Astronomy

29 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 1967, Jocelyn Bell Burnell made a discovery that revolutionized astronomy. She detected the radio signals emitted by certain dying stars called pul...

Pumpkin Toadlet: Neither Pumpkin, Nor Toad

28 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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...

TikTok's favorite zoologist quizzes us on the most dangerous animals

27 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Mamadou Ndiaye uses comedy to teach animal facts, but there's nothing funny about these deadly ones.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastc...

A Holiday Fact Exchange!

26 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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 s...

Climate Change Stresses Out These Chipmunks. Why Are Their Cousins So Chill?

23 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Kwasi Wrensford describes the subjects of his research as "elfin": skittish little squirrel-cousins with angular faces, pointy ears and narrow, furry ...

Can COP 15 Save Our Planet's Biodiversity?

22 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

Brain Scientists Are Tripping Out Over Psychedelics

21 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Psychedelic drugs – like LSD, salvia, ayahuasca, Ibogaine, MDMA (AKA ecstasy), or psilocybin (AKA 'magic mushrooms' or 'shrooms') – are experienci...

Confessions Of A Math Convert

20 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Math is a complex, beautiful language that can help people understand the world. And sometimes math is hard! Science communicator Sadie Witkowski says...

Your Multivitamin Won't Save You

19 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Dietary supplements — the vitamins, herbs and botanicals that you'll find in most grocery stores — are everywhere. More than half of U.S. adults o...

The Hope For Slowing Amazon Deforestation

16 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Brazil's president-elect, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, is renewing calls to protect the Amazon and rein in the deforestation. Climate scientists are enc...

A Step Closer To Nuclear Fusion Energy

15 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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 pe...

From Scientific Exile To Gene Editing Pioneer

14 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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 worr...

You Know That Gut Feeling You Have?...

13 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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 B...

The Myth of Plastic Recycling

12 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

For many, recycling feels like a tangible way to personally combat climate change and to positively affect the environment. But after a years long inv...

DART: The Impacts Of Slamming A Spacecraft Into An Asteroid

09 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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? Wo...

The Biologist Who Talks With Cells

08 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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 molecule...

What Makes Hawaii's Erupting Volcanoes Special

07 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Just after Thanksgiving, for the first time in almost 40 years, Hawaii's Mauna Loa volcano erupted. It's one of several ongoing eruptions – includin...

'One Mississippi...' How Lightning Shapes The Climate

06 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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....

Don't Call It Dirt: The Science Of Soil

05 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

Arts Week: Physics Meets The Circus

02 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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 acroba...

Arts Week: The Life Cycle Of A Neuron

01 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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. I...

Arts Week: The Literary Magazine Dissecting Health And Healing

30 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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 m...

Arts Week: How Art Can Heal The Brain

29 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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...

Arts Week: Harnessing Bacteria For Art

28 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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...

Happy Thanksgiving, All!

24 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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 c...

Three Takeaways From The COP27 Climate Conference

23 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The climate meeting known as COP27 has wrapped. Representatives from almost 200 countries attended to talk about how to tackle climate change and how ...

A Taste Of Lab-Grown Meat

22 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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, w...

A Deeply Personal Race Against A Fatal Brain Disease

21 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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...

Science Couldn't Save Her, So She Became A Scientist

18 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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...

Killer Proteins: The Science Of Prions

17 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Prions are biological anomalies – self-replicating, not-alive little particles that can misfold into an unstoppable juggernaut of fatal disease. Pri...

Where Do Climate Negotiations Stand At COP27?

16 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Climate negotiations continue at COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. Tens of thousands of attendees from around the world have gathered in the seaside re...

Searching For A New Life

15 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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 mig...

Corey Gray Is Picking Up Cosmic Vibrations

14 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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 w...

Climate Tipping Points And The Damage That Could Follow

11 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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 devastatin...

Depression And Alzheimer's Treatments At A Crossroads

10 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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, th...

Why Do We Cry?

09 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Last month, Short Wave explored the evolutionary purpose of laughter. Now, we're talking tears. From glistening eyeballs to waterworks, what are tears...

Traditional Plant Knowledge Is Not A Quick Fix

08 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Regina G. Barber talks with Dr. Rosalyn LaPier about ethnobotany--what it is and how traditional plant knowledge is frequently misunderstood in the er...

COP-out: Who's Liable For Climate Change Destruction?

07 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

World leaders have gathered in Egypt this week to begin climate talks at the 27th Conference of the Parties. However, there are still outstanding ques...

Control: Eugenics And The Corruption Of Science

04 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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 poli...

Should Daylight Saving Time Be Permanent?

03 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Correspondent Allison Aubrey talks to host Emily Kwong about the pros and cons of adopting permanent Daylight Saving Time or year-round Standard Time....

Allergic To Cats? There's Hope Yet!

02 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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 wi...

Saving The Pacific Lamprey

01 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Pacific lamprey have lived on Earth for about 450 million years. When humans came along, a deep relationship formed between Pacific lamprey and Native...

Donate Your Body To Science?

31 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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 scien...

100 Years Of Box Turtles

28 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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 th...

He Had His Father's Voice: Tracking A Rare Bird Hybrid

27 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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 t...

The Tigray Medical System Collapse

26 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The civil war in Ethiopia is destroying the medical system in the northern Tigray region, which serves nearly 7 million people. Doctors are operating ...

When Autumn Leaves Start To Fall

25 Oct 2022

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...