New discoveries, everyday mysteries, and the science behind the headlines — in just under 15 minutes. It's science for everyone, using a lot of creativity and a little humor. Join hosts Emily Kwong and Regina Barber for science on a different wavelength.If you're hooked, try Short Wave Plus. Your subscription supports the show and unlocks a sponsor-free feed. Learn more at plus.npr.org/shortwave
1425 episodes transcribedJust in time for the return of the school year, we're going "Back To School" by revisiting a classic at-home experiment that turns lemons into batteri...
From Indonesia to Wisconsin, farmers all over the world struggle with a huge problem: pests. On top of that, it's tough for farmers to identify where...
At first glance, the whole narrative of aquatic invasive species may seem straightforward: A bad non-native species comes into a new ecosystem and ove...
Human beings are hardwired for social connection – so much so that we think of even the most basic objects as having feelings or experiences. (Yup, we...
New York: The city that never sleeps, the concrete jungle where dreams are made of and more recently ... home to a mysterious ant spreading across the...
Have you ever scrolled through a TikTok without finishing it? Switched between YouTube videos halfway through one or the other? Pressed "fast forward"...
U.S. health officials now say COVID-19 is an endemic disease. That means it's here to stay – circulating fairly regularly like the flu. Even though th...
All summer long, we've been on a 10-episode odyssey through the changing universe (check out the series). But there was one big set of objects that we...
For blind and low vision adults, the ability to read braille can be life-changing. Braille literacy is directly linked to higher rates of academic suc...
Over the next week, forecasts project extreme heat across much of the South, Midwest and parts of the West. So, this episode, health correspondent Pie...
Today, we're bringing you the final installment of our space summer series ... with the end ... of EVERYTHING. Will the universe end in a huge cosmic...
Grizzly bears in the contiguous United States have been taken off — then put back on — the endangered species list twice since they were first labeled...
We at Short Wave have been following all things Olympics, from the medals and new records to the ugly accusations that two women boxers aren't really...
How do you study unmapped areas of the ocean and identify critical habitat for an endangered species? You include the study animal in the scientific p...
In the last week, we've seen swimmers diving headfirst into the 2024 Paris Olympics pool, limbs gracefully slicing through the water. And yet, world a...
The Big Bang: The moment when our universe — everything in existence — began....Right? Turns out, it's not quite that simple. Today, when scientists t...
Rates of depression and anxiety have risen among teens over the last decade. Amid this ongoing mental health crisis, the American Psychological Associ...
Another Olympics, another set of stellar performances by the U.S. women's artistic gymnastics team. Thursday, the team won two medals in the women's a...
The Rubik's Cube was created 50 years ago by Hungarian inventor Ernő Rubik. Since then, over 500 million of them have been sold. We dive into this glo...
Black holes are one of the most mysterious cosmological phenomena out there. Astrophysicist Priya Natarajan calls them "the point where all known laws...
