Category: ScienceNews

Last week, the website covid.gov looked very different, containing information on coping with covid and US research. This week it leads you to a White House webpage outlining the lab-leak hypothesis – that the pandemic was the result of dodgy lab work at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The scientific consensus however continues to suggest a zoonotic crossover event. And a preprint recently published by Zach Hensel of ITQB NOVA (NOVA University Lisbon) and Florence Débarre of the Sorbonne, adds new early sequences to the evidence base. As they suggest, it doesn’t seal the debate, but it certainly doesn’t surprise the scientists.

As the Trump administration continues to rattle swords with US science, we speak with Lisa Fazio of Vanderbuilt University who found out abruptly her funding from the National Science Foundation is ending, and Don Ingber, founding director of Harvard University’s Wyss Institute about the impacts they are feeling from the federal belt tightening.

Finally we learn this week of an eerie species of Hawai’ian caterpillar moth. Not only is it carnivorous, but it ties small pieces of the indigestible remains of insects and bugs found in spider webs to its case, like a gruesome, camouflaged suit of armour. Why? As Dan Rubinoff of Hawai’i describes, it protects it from the hungry host spider, making it appear as the leftovers of yesterday’s dinner, or perhaps the shed exoskeleton of the spider itself.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Alex Mansfield Production Coordinator: Josie Hardy

(Image: The view of Huanan seafood market on February 9, 2021 in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China. Credit: Getty Images)

A fish walks into a pharmacy ... well, not exactly. Fish aren't being prescribed anti-anxiety drugs. But they are experiencing the effects. Researchers have found more than 900 different pharmaceutical ingredients in rivers and streams around the world, though they're not yet sure how this could change the behavior of fish and other aquatic animals in the wild.
"We can't, you know, dump a bunch of pharmaceuticals into the river," says Jack Brand, biologist at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. Instead, Jack's team did the next best thing – with some surprising results.

This episode was reported by NPR science correspondent Jon Lambert. Check out more of his reporting.

Want to hear more stories about animal behavior? Email us and let us know at shortwave@npr.org.

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Welcome!! This is the first episode of Nature Quest, a monthly Short Wave segment that answers listener questions about your local environment. This month, we hear from a listener in California who's concerned that the flowers in his neighborhood are blooming way, way earlier. Is that normal? And is climate change the culprit? Short Wavers Emily Kwong and Hannah Chinn investigate.

Got a question about changes in your local environment? Send a voice memo to shortwave@npr.org with your name, where you live and your question. We might make it into our next Nature Quest episode!

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As global warming continues and space technology improves, there is more and more talk about the growing possibility of a sci-fi future in which humans become a multiplanetary species. Specifically, that we could live on Mars.

Biologist Kelly Weinersmith and cartoonist Zach Weinersmith have spent four years researching what life on Mars would look like if we did it anytime soon. In their book A City On Mars, they get into all sorts of questions: How would we have babies in space? How would we have enough food? They join host Regina G. Barber and explain why it might be best to stay on Earth.

Check out Kelly and Zach Weinersmith's book A City On Mars.

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After more than a decade of mapping billions of stars across the Milky Way and beyond, a groundbreaking spacecraft is retiring. The European Space Agency’s space-based observatory known as Gaia is leaving behind a legacy of stunning discoveries that changed what we know about the universe. John Yang reports. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders

For years, Black women have used synthetic braids to help style their hair. But a recent study by Consumer Reports found that these fake hair strands can contain dangerous chemicals that pose a health threat. Ali Rogin reports on the history of braiding in Black culture and speaks with Adana Llanos, co-leader of the Cancer Population Science Program at Columbia University, to learn more. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders

CrowdScience listener Sid is running late, and he’s turning to science to find an excuse. He and his partner Steffi in Singapore have very different attitudes to timekeeping. They wonder if this is down to their different cultural upbringings, or if they just had very different brains to start with.

Presenter Chhavi Sachdev puts her own time perception skills to the test to try to understand how subjective our sense of time can be. And we discover how the language we grow up speaking can influence the way we think about punctuality.

Presenter: Chhavi Sachdev Producer: Emily Bird Editor: Cathy Edwards Production Co-ordinator: Ishmael Soriano Studio Manager: Jackie Margerum

This week is the Christian celebration of Easter, which sent the Unexpected Elements team scrambling for egg-related stories.

First up, we find out about the rise of a vegan egg substitute.

Next, we discover how to cook the perfect boiled egg, according to science.

We then turn our attention to climate change, and find out how it is affecting the breeding patterns and nesting behaviour of sea turtles.

Plus, we are joined by Dr Luis Welbanks, who tells us about a nearby exoplanet that reeks of rotten eggs.

Finally, we delve into the science behind IVF.

All that, plus many more Unexpected Elements. Presenter: Marnie Chesterton, with Chhavi Sachdev and Sandy Ong Producer: Alice Lipscombe-Southwell, with Debbie Kilbride, Robbie Wojciechowski and William Hornbrook

The male European fiddler crab attracts his mate by performing a courtship dance. New research published in the Journal of Experimental Biology says that dance isn't just notable for its visuals — it's notable for its vibrations, too.
Researchers observed four different stages of the crab's courtship dance, each stage escalating the amount of seismic vibrational output. "It's 'come and find me in my underground house, ladies,'" says Beth Mortimer, a study author and biologist at the University of Oxford.

Interested in more seismic vibration communication? Send us an email at shortwave@npr.org.

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After 60 years of doubling computer complexity every two years, can Moore’s law still predict the future power of the devices we use?

In 1965, electronics pioneer Gordon Moore was asked to predict the next ten years of progress with the then new-fangled silicon integrated circuits. He estimated, based on physics and manufacturing technologies then available what seemed remarkable: that every two years they would double in complexity, and halve in price, until 1975.

60 years on, perhaps the even more remarkable thing is that they just kept doubling.

Can Moore’s law hold into future decades? What are the next technological innovations that might keep it running?

Sri Samavedam is the vice president for silicon technologies at imec in Belgium, whose job it is to think about the practicalities of manufacturing the next generations of chips years before they become real.

Scott Aaronsen of the University of Texas is a thinker in the field of Quantum Computing – could quantum computing keep the rate of growth going? Or does it need to be thought of differently?

One of the limitations on chip miniaturisation is the dissipation of heat from conventional electronic flow. Nick Harris of Lightmatter is looking at using photons rather than electrons to carry info and logic around a circuit with lower power losses.

Stan Williams has spent much of his career thinking about new devices that could be fabricated into integrated circuits to give it all a push forward. And he tells Roland how the memristor could effectively bring the power of analogue computing to bear as we reach some of the limits of the digital age we have been living in.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Alex Mansfield and Gareth Nelson-Davies