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 transcribedAre people ever satisfied? Two social psychologists, Ethan Ludwin-Peery and Adam Mastroianni, fell down a research rabbit hole accidentally answering...
Would you survive as a doctor in The Sims 4? What's an appropriate amount of free food to take from a public sample station before it's greedy? And ho...
LED light bulbs are the future. They're better for the environment and the pocket book. But for some people, certain LEDs lights — particularly holida...
Millions of people in the U.S. are bird watchers. But a couple of years ago a satirical conspiracy theory gained popularity because of an absurd claim...
For the first time in its history, the United Nations climate conference concluded with a call to transition away from fossil fuels. But not all of th...
Does thinking about the trajectory of the climate make you have a panic spiral? If so, we have the perfect podcast for you: The Anti-Dread Climate Pod...
A team of conservation biologists from Italy recently found that current emoji options are sorely lacking when it comes to life outside of vertebrates...
Artificial intelligence is increasingly being used throughout the world to predict the future. Banks use it to predict whether customers will pay back...
Malls are designed to overwhelm our brains. Add the stress of holiday shopping, and a quick trip to pick up presents could turn into an hours-long sho...
Soon after the sun sets on winter nights, if you live in the northern hemisphere you can look into the sky and find the Orion constellation near the e...
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...
Sleep. It's an essential biological function that has long intrigued scientists. Researchers have studied everything from mice to fruit flies in the l...
In which we meet the pioneers of one of the most exciting — and controversial — fields of biomedical research: in vitro gametogenesis, or IVG. The goa...
As kids, some of us dream of multiple careers: being an astronaut AND the next president. Or digging up dinosaurs AND selling out concert stadiums. As...
Walking into Karen Chin's office at the University of Colorado, Boulder, one of the first things you might notice is that petrified poops are everywhe...
Turkey is the usual centerpiece of the Thanksgiving dinner, but it's all too easy to end up with a dry, tough, flavorless bird. For NPR science corres...
Every five years, the United States government releases the National Climate Assessment, a comprehensive analysis of how climate change is affecting t...
How much salt is too much salt? Most likely, the amount you're consuming. A new study published this week in the journal JAMA found that cutting one t...
Saturday, the entire coastal town of Grindavik, Iceland was evacuated. That's because over the weekend, the country experienced nearly 2,000 earthquak...
In the 18th century the world was focused on Venus. Expeditions were launched in pursuit of exact measurements of Venus as it passed between Earth and...
