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PODCAST

Short Wave

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. Support public media by joining NPR+ at plus.npr.org. You’ll get perks for over 25 NPR podcasts, including sponsor-free listening for Short Wave.

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All Episodes

14:13

Will GMOs Bring Back The American Chestnut Tree?

Short Wave ·

2024/12/25

In the early 20th century, a blight fungus wiped out most of the 4 billion American chestnut trees on the eastern seaboard. The loss was ecologically devastating. Short Wave host Emily Kwong dives deep into how scientists are trying to resurrect the American chestnut tree — and recent controversy over a plan to plant genetically modified chestnuts in the wild. Want to hear about more efforts to recover endangered or lost species? Let us know by emailing shortwave@npr.org!Learn more about sponsor

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10:07

Hear Christmas Carols And Talk To Santa On Ham Radio

Short Wave ·

2024/12/24

On Christmas Eve, scientists at field stations across Antarctica sing carols to one another...via shortwave. On today's episode, the Short Wave podcast explores shortwave radio. We speak with space physicist and electrical engineer Nathaniel Frissell about this Antarctic Christmas Carol tradition and his use of shortwave radio for community science.Read more about Santa Net, which connects children (known in the shortwave radio community as "little harmonics") with Santa.Want more tech stories? Let

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15:10

How Does An Airplane Stay In The Air?

Short Wave ·

2024/12/23

There are many statistics out there that prove that flying on a commercial airplane is safe, that plane crashes are overall pretty unlikely. Still, up to an estimated 40% of Americans feel some fear at the thought of flying. So, amid the travel rush of the holiday season, we ask MIT aeronautical engineer Mark Drela: How does a plane lift off and stay up in the air? Interested in more stories on physics? Email us at shortwave@npr.org. We'd love to hear from you!Listen to every episode of Short Wave

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14:22

The First Woman To Get A New Kind Of Kidney Transplant

Short Wave ·

2024/12/20

Towana Looney became the first living person in the world to get a kidney from a new kind of genetically modified pig last month. Health correspondent Rob Stein got exclusive access to be in the operating room.Towana is a 53-year-old grandmother from Gadsden, Ala. She's been on dialysis for four hours a day, three days a week since 2016. Her immune system would reject a human kidney. So the Food and Drug Administration made an exception to its usual clinical study requirements to allow Looney this

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13:47

This Huge Mining Pit Is About To Be A Lake

Short Wave ·

2024/12/18

Old mines leave behind a a pressing problem: Huge holes that make the landscape look like a chunk of swiss cheese. But in Germany, some scientists and city planners are turning these into lakes. The largest one will be the biggest artificial lake in Germany when it's done, with a shoreline of 26 kilometers or about 16 miles all around. But it's not as easy as simply filling the holes with water. It takes a LOT of research to get this science right. Interested in more environmental stories? Email us

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14:27

Why Big Tech Wants Nuclear Power

Short Wave ·

2024/12/17

AI uses a lot of power. Some of the next generation data centers may use as much power as one million U.S. households. Technology companies like Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Meta hope nuclear power will offer a climate solution for this energy use. Nuclear power plants can deliver hundreds of megawatts of power without producing greenhouse gas emissions. But some long-time watchers of the nuclear industry are skeptical that it's the right investment for big tech companies to make. Read more of

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14:23

How Racism – And Silence – Could Hurt Your Health

Short Wave ·

2024/12/16

Racism is often covered as a political, cultural, or news story. But how is it affecting people's health? That's the question Cara Anthony, a KFF News reporter, wanted to answer: not just on an individual scale, but on a community-wide one. So for the past few years, she's been reporting on a small town in the Midwest that illustrates that health issue: Sikeston, Missouri. Today on the show, Cara walks host Emily Kwong through Sikeston's history — and what locals and medical experts have to say

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9:18

What's A Weather Forecast Worth?

Short Wave ·

2024/12/14

The federal government has been tracking the weather for more than 150 years. Yet over the last few decades, the rise of the Internet and big tech have made weather forecasting a more crowded space. Today, our colleagues at NPR's daily economics podcast The Indicator report on the value of an accurate forecast and the debate over who should control weather data. Follow The Indicator on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by

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8:49

Conan The Bacterium's Superpower: Resisting Radiation

Short Wave ·

2024/12/13

In the 1950s, scientists exposed a tin of meat to a dose of radiation that they expected would kill all forms of life. But one organism defied the odds and lived: Conan The Bacterium. Turns out this microorganism, known to science as Deinococcus radiodurans, is capable of surviving extreme levels of radiation — thousands of times the amount that would kill a human. So what's Conan's secret?Want more stories about the microbial world? Let us know by emailing us at shortwave@npr.org!Learn more about

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13:34

In The Club, We All ... Archaea?

Short Wave ·

2024/12/11

Thor. Loki. Heimdall. They're not just Norse gods or Marvel characters. They're also the names of various Asgard archaea. These microscopic organisms are found all over the world, from marine sediment to mud volcanoes to hydrothermal vents. A growing body of research suggests we owe them an evolutionary debt. This episode, Emily and guest host Jon Hamilton explore the wild world of archaea: Where are they from? What do they do? And what can they tell us about the origins of life on earth? Interested

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13:39

Grape Growers' Next Collaborators? Robots

Short Wave ·

2024/12/10

If you crossed WALL-E with a floor lamp, it might look a little like the PhytoPatholoBot. These robots aren't roving through space or decorating a living room — they're monitoring the stems, leaves and fruit of Cornell AgriTech's vineyards, rolling down each row and scanning for mildew.In this episode, host Emily Kwong and producer Hannah Chinn take a trip to Cornell to check out these new robots. How do they work? How effective are they? And what do local grape farmers – and neighbors – think about

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12:12

Who Does Science? Under Trump, That Could Change

Short Wave ·

2024/12/09

The next four years may be challenging for foreign-born scientists who want to work in the United States. Foreign-born workers account for about half of the doctoral-level scientists and engineers working in the U.S., but the incoming Trump administration wants to make it harder for them to get H-1B visas. Some scientists worry a scarcity of H-1B visas may prompt top foreign researchers to work in other countries. If you liked this episode, consider checking out some more episodes on the brain,

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14:56

The Comeback Of The Southwest Peach

Short Wave ·

2024/12/06

Centuries ago, Southwest tribal nations tended vast orchards of peach trees. But in 1863, thousands of those trees were cut down by the United States government when it ordered the Diné to leave their land as part of the Long Walk. Horticulturalist Reagan Wtysalucy wants to bring that those Southwest peaches back. Want to hear more Indigenous science? Email us at shortwave@npr.org to let us know!Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short

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14:30

The Ambitious Quest To Genetically Map All Known...

Short Wave ·

2024/12/04

The Vertebrate Genomes Project: It's an ambitious effort by an international group of scientists to create a "Genome Ark" by sequencing the genomes of about 70,000 animal species. The hope is that through all of this gene sequencing, scientists will be able to answer some basic but important questions like: What makes a bird, well, a bird? What makes a mammal a mammal? Plus, with so many species on the verge of extinction, can scientists record their genetic information before they go extinct – or

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15:00

These Rats Can Drive. What's Happening In Their Brains?

Short Wave ·

2024/12/03

In neuroscientist Kelly Lambert's lab at the University of Richmond, rats hop into cars, rev their engines and skid across the floor of an arena. Researchers taught these tiny rodents to drive — and turns out, they really like it. But why?Host Regina G. Barber talks with Kelly about her driving rats, and what they tell us about anticipation, neuroplasticity, and decision making. Plus, why optimism might be good for rats, and for humans too.Want to hear more fun animal stories? Let us know at

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14:14

Why Your Brain Loves Sales

Short Wave ·

2024/12/02

This Cyber Monday, a meditation on holiday sales. A quick trip to pick up presents can turn into an hours-long shopping spree thanks to all the ways stores use research from fields like consumer neuroscience and neuromarketing to entice you. Retailers create urgency and scarcity to push you to give into the emotional part of your brain, motivated by the release of dopamine. But with the help of NPR business correspondent Alina Selyukh, we get into the psychology of sales and discounts: Why it's SO

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10:21

This Hazelnut May Help The Land Back Movement In Canada

Short Wave ·

2024/11/29

Beaked hazelnuts are a wild food native to North America. Indigenous peoples in British Columbia have passed down stories of these hazelnuts as a vital food source their ancestors planted and cultivated. These stories motivated Chelsea Geralda Armstrong of Simon Fraser University to look more deeply at the genetics of the beaked hazelnut and determine just how widely it was cultivated. Indigenous rights attorney Jack Woodward hopes research like this can make a difference in the Land Back movement,

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14:28

This COP29, It's All About The Numbers

Short Wave ·

2024/11/27

This year's United Nations climate talks, COP29, wrapped Saturday. Throughout the talks, it was all about the numbers. With the help of NPR climate reporters Julia Simon and Alejandra Borunda, we home in on two. First, $300 billion. That's the amount of money wealthy countries agreed to give developing countries to help them adapt to climate change and reduce pollution. Second, 1.5C. That's a warming limit countries agreed to try not to breach, but that is creeping closer every year. Want to hear

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13:14

How Do You Save An Endangered Language?

Short Wave ·

2024/11/26

By the end of the century, more than 40% of the world's estimated 7,000 languages are in danger of disappearing. Those include indigenous languages in the Amazon. The United Nations also estimates that an Indigenous language dies every two weeks. Today, we focus on two endangered languages spoken in the Vaupés region of northwest Amazonia: Desano and Siriano. Linguist Wilson de Lima Silva at the University of Arizona has been working with the community for a decade in an effort to document the

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15:25

The Battle To Save Monarch Butterflies

Short Wave ·

2024/11/25

Monarch butterfly populations have plummeted due to habitat loss, pesticide use and climate change. In early December, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is going to decide whether the monarch should be listed under the Endangered Species Act. If that comes to pass, the migratory butterfly would be one of the most widespread species to receive this listing. Want to hear more on the animals that surround us? Email us your ideas to shortwave@npr.org — we'd love to hear from you!Listen to every episode

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