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 transcribedAnother week comes by, and luckily so does our roundup of science news. This time, we've got some questions about better understanding our health: Why...
A doctor's job is to help patients. With that help, often comes lots and lots of paperwork. That's where some startups are betting artificial intellig...
Today on the show, next-generation energy innovators Bill David and Serena Cussen challenged us to think about the future of clean energy storage. The...
California's wet winter has devastated many local communities. It has also benefited some of the state's endangered ecosystems. Those benefits are on...
In the toxic waters of Sulphur Cave in Steamboat Springs, Colo. live blood-red worm blobs that have attracted international scientific interest. We do...
It's our latest roundup of science news! This time, with Ailsa Chang of NPR's All Things Considered, who joins us to discuss three stories that take u...
In the Arctic Ocean, sea ice is shrinking as the climate heats up. In the Western U.S., wildfires are getting increasingly destructive. Those two phen...
Melting glaciers are leaving behind large, unstable lakes that can cause dangerous flash floods. Millions of people downstream are threatened. In toda...
Endangered North Atlantic right whales are disappearing from their native waters, a serious danger for a species with only 340 animals left. The myste...
This week, New York City crowned Kathleen Corradi its first rat czar. The new position is part of a multipronged approach from city officials. Reporte...
When Tove Danovich decided to dabble in backyard chicken keeping, she embraced a tried and true journalistic practice — reading everything there is t...
In 1957, the Space Age began with the launch of Sputnik, the first artificial satellite. Since then, the number of objects humans have hurled toward t...
In this Friday round up of science news we can't let go, not everything is as it seems. Meatballs are not made of fresh meat from the cattle range. Ro...
Katie Wu is a bona fide cat person. She has two of them: twin boys named Calvin and Hobbes. Every night, they curl up in bed with her, bonking their l...
The phenomenon of zoonotic spillover — of viruses jumping from animals to people — is incredibly common. The question is: which one will start the ne...
Today, most climate science is done with satellites, sensors and complicated computer models. But it all started with a pioneering female physicist an...
To really understand the human brain, scientists say you'd have to map its wiring. The only problem: there are more than 100 trillion different connec...
Rice is arguably the world's most important staple crop. About half of the global population depends on it for sustenance. But, like other staples suc...
After reading the science headlines this week, we have A LOT of questions. Why did the Virgin Islands declare a state of emergency over a large blob o...
A few weeks ago, raw data gathered in Janaury 2020 from Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China — the early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic...
