Short Wave - Why we should all be 'bookmaxxing'

Episode Date: September 19, 2026

Remember your mom, dad and teachers telling you to read because it’s good for you? Well, a compilation of the latest research shows they were right. “Reading is one of the simplest and most accessible activities for actually supporting cognitive performance, brain health, mental health, but also overall wellbeing throughout our lives,” said Christelle Langley, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Cambridge and co-author of review, published in the journal Psychological Medicine. The review looked specifically at recreational reading — reading for fun — and found broad benefits for children, adolescents and older adults. This episode, we dive deep into the joys and health benefits of bookmaxxing. Interested in the science of reading? Email us your question at [e-mail] public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org. 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

You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. Were either of you two big readers as kids? Oh, absolutely. I feel like I always had a book in my hand. I was not. No? I did not. I was in front of the TV.

TV was my first friend. Okay. Yeah. What were you reading, Wana? A lot of babysitters club, a lot of goosebumps. Like, love a choose-your-own adventure book. Okay. I did read goosebumps.

I will say that. I will say that. I love goosebumps. They gave me nightmares. I still love goosebumps. R. L. Stein really had his finger on the pulse of the kids. He did. He helped us non-readers read. Different drugs for different folks, right? But Gina, you're actually more of the norm now, because I was talking to this assistant professor at Cambridge University, Christel Langley, recently.

And she's one of the authors of this new review. Here's what she says. Our reading rates are among children and young people are on the decline and actually at the lowest levels since they started taking records. So Christel is talking specifically about reading. rates where she lives in the UK, but reading rates and comprehension are also really, really low in the U.S. too. Yeah, it does make sense. It's really based on how, like, you're raised. My dad specifically, he's kind of a reader, but, I mean, looking back when people asked me if there were, like, bookshelves in my house as a kid, the answer was no. Well, I was very lucky because my mom was an English teacher and a librarian, so I had no choice. It's lucky. Oh, yeah.

And I was a big fantasy stand. Still am. Star Wars, Expanded Universe. Dragonlands, you name it. Wana, do you still read a lot? Oh, yeah, I read a ton, but it's mostly romance novels these days. Got to be honest. I love a good romance fiction. I've got all the tropes. Yeah, I think I'm reading the most I've ever read in my entire life this year. Wow. Why do you think that is? Dungeon crawler Carl. Ah, of course, of course. The key to unlock readers.

No, I was reading before that, actually, a lot of stuff. But what about you, Nate? Ah, man, I am on book 13 of 14 in the Wheel of Time series. No. I could never get into that. I tried. It's a journey. And it's the thing that I do to, you know, escape reality. As you both know, working in news. It can be somewhat depressing at time. So it's really nice to read something that's not, I mean, Wheel of Time is still kind of depressing. It is. A little bit. But I also want to just say, if anybody here is listening to this and they are reading the Wheel of Time or have read the Wheel of Time, please write a letter to me or write in email.

Right into NPR. Yes. I am desperate to talk to something. somebody about it. And I don't know anybody else. Nate needs book, friends. Help him out, y'all. I do. My best friends live so far away. Like, I basically have, like, pen pals. But I do understand the escapism. Like, there's some research out that details the benefits of sitting down in, like, a cozy corner and reading a book. And that's one of the science stories we're going to talk to you about today, Wana. All right, buckle up. I'm excited. I get to take a little break from my day job and just soak in all the science news. Yeah, Wanda Summers, for those that don't know, is one of the

of all things considered. The host. The host. She took over the whole show. Y'all are going to get me in trouble. Well, Wana, we've got more for you because today on the show, we've also got super solar flares and a couple of discoveries about one of my favorite dinosaurs, Tyrodosaurus Rex. I'm Nate Rot. And I'm Regina Barber.

You're listening to Shortwave, the science podcast from NPR. All right, Wana. Where do you want to start? Let's start with reading science. Okay, so the big takeaway from all this science we're going to talk about is not going to be all that surprising. Readings? Good for you. Specifically, reading for fun. Yes, Mom was right about everything. But what's really cool about this new research compiled in the journal's psychological medicine is how specific it gets in looking at some of the benefits of reading. Specifically reading for fun.

I love reading for fun, particularly a good romance book or two. Yeah, I mean, that counts. Graphic novels count. history books, newspapers. What's important, Wanda, is that you're choosing to do it for some kind of satisfaction. Which, like we alluded to earlier, is increasingly rare. Oh, that's interesting, but like, what are the consequences of that? What are the benefits that people are missing out on by not reading? Yeah, so studies, they looked at focused on two age groups, youth and adolescent readers, and then older readers. Yeah, one study which looked at more than 10,000 young people in the U.S. found that children who began reading for pleasure earlier in life had better attention spans,

memory, executive function as adolescents. They also had better sleeping habits and mental health. I could go on and on. Got to say, that's a pretty compelling list there. Yeah, and with older people, they found that recreational reading might help keep the brain from aging and help us cut the risk of Alzheimer's disease and dementia. Yeah, Crystal says that one study that really stood out to her was one that looked at grandparents reading to their grandchildren.

It's very cute, specifically looking at a part. part of the brain that's really important for learning in memory, the hippocampus. What the study found was that the hippocampus actually enlarged as the grandparents were reading to their grandchildren. And this might be one of the reasons why it seems to be protective of brain aging. Okay, all you grandparents out there listening, read to your grandchildren. It is important. Yes. All right. Let's move on now to solar flares. I have a question. What is a super flare? And should I be worried here? Yeah, let's talk about a normal flare first. that's a sudden brightening of a star.

When this happens on our sun that can sometimes shoot a lot of energy towards Earth, this happened in May 2024 and caused like irregularities and power grids, disrupted some radio communications. It also created northern lights that could be seen in southern U.S. Yeah, which were super pretty. So imagine, though, a solar flare that is 10 to 100 times greater than that. That is a super flare, which could have more disastrous effects. And these super flares have been coming from other stars.

So the question is, could our sun make them two? Can it? Possibly. So a new study published by the Royal Society looked at solar activity dating back millennia. Now, some of that data was recorded by humans, like old drawings of sunspots, which are associated with solar flares. But other data came from prehistoric material all over the earth. We have things in the ice. We have things in tree rings.

We have rocks. We have all this geological evidence for what the sun is doing. That is astronomer James Davenport at the University of Washington. who is not a part of this new study, and he says we're lucky to have all this data about the sun's past. It's the only star that we have that kind of historical record for that we'll never get for other stars. You know, all these lines of evidence the scientists behind this study say maybe the sun could produce these super flares like other stars do. Okay, so what do we do if our son makes one of these super flares? Well, first, Juana, it's not guaranteed.

Just because our son can doesn't mean it will. And just because a flare happens doesn't mean it will hit Earth. Earth orbits the sun, the sun rotates, the geometry has to be just right. Yeah, but I hear you, Juana. I have the same concern. What if, right? So we asked James what would happen, and here's what he said. It wouldn't send us back to the Stone Age.

It wouldn't permanently knock out our technology, but it would disrupt everything, and we may all lose power for a while. And if we do, well, time to pick up a book, right? Hey, listen, I would not complain about time to just sit and be away from this screen. To the sun. All right, guys. Last topic, dinosaur tracks. Yes, every six-year-old's favorite extinct group of animals. So this study has a really cool origin story, Wana.

Yeah, it starts with a high school teacher from Colorado. His name is Kent Huppes. He was in North Dakota visiting this area called the Hell Creek Formation, which is really famous for fossils. I kind of looked to my left, and I thought, oh, my God, that looks like a track. And I got really excited because I know that the tracks in the Hell Creek are in incredibly rare. Kent is also an associate at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, so he spent a lot of time hunting for fossils, and he says finding these tracks. To find that really is like a pinnacle in your life for your career. It really is. And were these the prehistoric footprints of a T-Rex? Yeah, exactly. So what was remarkable about this finding is that, as he says, T-Rex tracks are really rare. This is the only trackway of an adult D.R.X. Ever. covered, even though we found tons of fossilized skeletons of these animals.

And one of these footprints, there's at least four of them. They're huge. About three and a half feet long or the size of boulders. And by measuring the space between the tracks, the scientists were able to determine how fast the T-Rex was walking, a leisurely three or four miles an hour, like a fast hiking speed. Here's Kent's colleague Tyler Leeson. I expected more out of T-Rex, to be honest.

They were no hurry when they were walking around. Okay, like I love the movie Jurassic Park, and remember they looked like they were running pretty fast in this, but it sounds like I might actually be able to outrun one of these. No, unfortunately not, Wanda. The scientists think they could run at about 20 miles per hour. I don't know. Maybe you can run that fast. Definitely not. So, yeah, they could still catch you for dinner.

But this T-Rex was just walking, chilling, according to this study in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. Tyler said next, they're going to helicopter these giant stone footprints back to the museum to take a closer look. I really hope that there's skin impressions preserved on these tracks. I think there's a pretty reasonable chance that we will find scales. So I think that's what I am most excited about. We have a lot more dinosaur skeletons in skin impressions. So finding scales would give us a better idea what the animals actually look like. Ooh, T-Rex scales, that sounds fun.

And Wana, there's another bonus fact about T-Rexes out in a different journal this week, which looked at a T-Rex tooth and determined T-Rexes were probably the same temperate. temperature as us, 97 degrees Fahrenheit. Which is surprising because people tend to think dinosaurs were like today's reptiles, you know, cold-blooded, but this shows they were actually warm-blooded and active. I was saying when I walked into the studio, I was not expecting to get a full-blown dinosaur education, but thanks for that. Yeah, no worries. Welcome anytime. Well, Wana, thanks, as always, for kicking it with us. It's shortwave. Always a pleasure. Enjoyed it. You are always welcome.

If you want to hear Wana be a rock star doing her regular job hosting general news, check out, consider this. NPR's afternoon podcast about what the news means for you. This episode was produced by Juan Diego Ramirez and Jordan Marie Smith. It was edited by Rebecca Ramirez and Christopher in Taliana. Tyler Jones checked the facts. Jimmy Keely and Tiffany Vera Castro were the audio engineers. I'm Regina Barber. And I'm Nate Rod.

Thanks for listening to Shortwave, Science Podcast from NPR. Dinosaurs.