Short Wave

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 just when: No scientist has "ever predicted a major earthquake," the U.S. Geological Survey says. Even the most promising earthquake models can only offer seconds of warning. In this episode, host Emily Kwong talks to geologist Wendy Bohon and NPR s...

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, and scientists all over the world have to share. The JWST's managers received more than 1,600 research proposals for what the telescope should look at. When an astronomer or a team does get some much-coveted telescope time, they currently get exclusive...

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 different for everyone. Also different? Our blind spots – both physical and social. As we continue celebrating Black History Month, today we're featuring Exploratorium Staff Physicist Educator Desiré Whitmore . She shines a light on human eyesight – ho...

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 Wave co-hosts Emily Kwong and Aaron Scott are joined by editor Gabriel Spitzer . Together, they round up headlines in this first installment of what will be regular newsy get-togethers in your feed. Have suggestions for what we should cover in our nex...

The Nipah virus is on the World Health Organization 's short list of diseases that have pandemic potential and therefore pose the greatest public health risk. With a fatality rate at about 70%, it is one of the most deadly respiratory diseases health officials have ever seen. But as regular outbreaks began in the early 2000s in Bangladesh, researchers were left scratching their heads. Initially, t...

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 world. In fact, Moiya sees astronomy and folklore as two sides of the same coin. "To me, science is any rigorous attempt at understanding and explaining the world around you," she explained to Short Wave's Aaron Scott. "You can see that they knew enou...

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 something we humans take for granted: common sense. In this episode Emily talks to MacArthur Fellowship-winner Yejin Choi, one of the leading thinkers on natural language processing, about how she's teaching machines to make inferences about the real...

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 Trumka, the commissioner of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), quickly became fodder for outrage, viral disinformation and political fundraising after he proposed regulating the appliance. The proposal stems from a growing body of re...

Yi-Kai Tea , a biodiversity research fellow at the Australian Museum in Sydney, has amassed a social media following as @KaiTheFishGuy for his sassy writing and gorgeous photos of fish and other wildlife. Kai recently returned from an expedition aboard an Australian research ship to explore the deep seas surrounding a new marine park in the Indian Ocean. Led by the Museums Victoria Research Instit...

As an emergency physician at Western Health, in Melbourne, Australia, Dr. Andy Tagg says he meets a lot of anxious parents whose children have swallowed Lego pieces. Much like Andy so many years ago, the vast majority of kids simply pass the object through their stool within a day or so. But Andy and five other pediatricians wondered, is there a way to give parents extra reassurance ... through sc...

Film directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (collectively: Daniels) reimagined the multiverse movie in their breakout film Everything Everywhere All At Once. Tuesday, the film received 11 Oscar nominations for the 95th Academy Awards, including best picture and best director. This episode, the Daniels share how science played a starring role. Curious about the science behind other pop culture?...

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 an electric car. Living by the beach is a lot more fun than figuring out when your house might be flooded by rising sea levels. That basic human relationship with time makes climate change a tricky problem. Host Emily Kwong talks to climate correspond...

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 cross between a whale and a crocodile. It turned out to be just the beginning. Ichthyosaurs were bus-sized marine reptiles that lived during the age of dinosaurs, when this area of Nevada was underwater. Yet paleontologists found few other animals here,...

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 years, those patients had very limited options. But now, in 2023, advancements in diagnosing and treating epilepsy are showing great promise for many patients, even those who had been told there was nothing that could be done. Using precise lasers, mi...

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 co...

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 S...

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 scientist...

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. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy

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 ask...

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...

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...

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 se...

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...

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 amount...

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 c...