Category: ScienceNews

Scientists have discovered the underpinnings of animal emotions. As NPR brain correspondent Jon Hamilton reports, the building blocks of emotions and of emotional disorders can be found across lots of animals. That discovery is helping scientists understand human emotions like fear, anger — and even joy.

Express your joy, fear and fine — even your scientific rage to us. We're at shortwave@npr.org.

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Beavers have long been considered pests by landowners and government agencies. But now, many are starting to embrace them. Today on the show, Host Aaron Scott tells Host Emily Kwong how these furry ecosystem engineers are showing scientists a way to save threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead.

Watch the video Aaron filmed with Oregon Field Guide about beavers and stream restoration. For more videos check out Oregon Field Guide.

You can follow Aaron on Twitter @AaronScottNPR and Emily @EmilyKwong1234. Email Short Wave at ShortWave@NPR.org.

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Sheila Jasanoff, the Pforzheimer Professor of Science and Technology Studies at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, is a pioneer in the field of STS. That acronym can be unpacked as either ‘science and technology studies’ or ‘science, technology and society.’ Jasanoff -- who describes herself as a sociologist of knowledge and a constructivist, trained in law, working in the tradition of the interpretive social sciences – is content with either use. “I think that represents two phases of the same field,” she tells interviewer David Edmonds in this Social Science Bites podcast. “First of all, it’s the field that looks in detail at the institutions of science and technology and asks, ‘What are they like?’ ‘What does it feel like to be doing them?’ ‘What do they operate like as social institutions, as cultures, as formations in society?’ The other face of STS – science, technology and society – is more about how science and technology function when they get out into the world at large.”

Amid that expansive view, some areas, of course, particularly interest Jasanoff. “The more interesting turn,” she details, “was the turn that tried to occupy the territory previously given to philosophy of science, and started asking sociological and political questions about it.”

One such question is the eternal “What is truth?” STS, a brash newcomer, took on the inquiry with gusto.

“It took a kind of arrogance, if you will, certainly a bravery, in the 1970s, to say that, ‘Hey, truth isn’t just out there. It’s not just a Platonic thing and we try to approximate it. We can actually study truth as if it was a social production.’ That,” she explains, “was the heartland of science and technology studies.”

In the interview, Jasanoff outlines how science is often presented as a capital-T repository of Truth even in an age where the ‘death of the expert’ has become a common trope.

Citing the pandemic and how scientific advice changed on mask wearing, Jasanoff argues that “people should not be surprised that in crisis mode the way we know things changes and therefore the advice may change. Science has been sold as a bill of goods for so long that it is the Truth, it is reliable, a fact is always fact the moment we assert it, that these sorts of commonsensical things that we ought to understand have become difficult for people to grasp.” (Jasanoff’s own research often looks at cross-national differences in her research, and after looking at mask-wearing in 16 nations she reports that “only in America has it become an article of faith – are you for science or against science” – based on your mask usage.)

Remember, she continues, “The expert is not an embodiment of scientific fact. An expert is a particular kind of person who is qualified in particular ways, and every time we say ‘qualification,’ something about the English language or about language in general, forces us to look at the skills that allow one to be considered qualified.

“In fact, we should look at the external periphery of the qualification; a qualification sets boundaries on what you know, but it also sets boundaries on what you don’t know.” Expertise is this double edged-thing.”

Jasanoff is the founder and director of Harvard’s Program on Science, Technology and Society. She’s the author of several books aimed at both the academy and the public, such as 1990’s The Fifth Branch: Science Advisers as Policymakers, 2012’s Science and Public Reason, and Can Science Make Sense of Life? in 2019.

The University of Bergen, acting for the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research, awarded her the Holberg Prize in March. That was the latest in a slew of honors for her research, including the University of Ghent Sarton Chair and the Reimar Lüst Award from the Alexander von Humboldt and Fritz Thyssen Foundations, a Guggenheim fellowship in 2010, and in 2018 the Albert O. Hirschman Prize from the Social Science Research Council. She is an elected foreign member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, where she served on the board of directors.

When Kasha Patel decided to try out stand-up comedy, she was told to joke about what she knew. For her, that was science. Today on Short Wave, Kasha talks to host Emily Kwong about how she developed her sense of humor, how she infuses science into her comedy and why on Earth she analyzed 500 of her jokes.

Listen to the end for bonus audio!

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Deadly heat has been building over the Indian sub-continent for weeks and this week reached crisis levels. India experienced its hottest March on record and temperatures over 40 degrees Celsius (and in some places approaching 50 degrees) are making it almost impossible for 1.4 billion people to work. It’s damaging crops and it’s just what climate scientists have been warning about. Roland Pease talks to Vimal Mishra of the Indian Institute of Technology in Gandhinagar about the impact and causes of the unprecedented heatwave.

What could be behind the incidence of hepatitis in young children around the world in recent months? Ordinarily, liver disease in childhood is extremely rare. Could a virus normally associated with colds be responsible or is the Covid virus involved? Roland Pease talks to virologist William Irving of Nottingham University.

Also in the programme:

How climate change is increasing the likelihood of animal viruses jumping the species barrier to humans with global change modeller Colin Carlson of Georgetown University.

Myths about the personalities of dog breeds are exploded with new research by Elinor Karlsson of the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

And how do we stay up when we ride a bicycle? Lots of us can do it without even thinking about it, but probably very few of us can say exactly HOW we do it. Well, CrowdScience listener Arif and his children Maryam and Mohammed from India want to understand what’s going on in our heads when we go for a cycle, and how we learn to do it in the first place.

Marnie Chesterton is on the case, tracking down a neuroscientists studying how our brains and bodies work together to keep us balanced whether we’re walking or trying to ride a bicycle. She learns about the quirks of bicycle engineering from researchers in the Netherlands who are part of a lab entirely devoted to answering this question. In the process falling off of some unusual bicycles and uncovering the surprising truth that physics might not yet have a proper answer. And we peer deeper into our brains to find out why some memories last longer than others, whether some people can learn quicker than others and the best way to learn a new skill.

(Photo: Woman cooling herself in India heatwave Credit: Debajyoti Chakraborty/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Presenters: Roland Pease and Marnie Chesterton Producers: Andrew Luck-Baker and Emily Bird for BBC World Service

How do we stay up when we ride a bicycle? Lots of us can do it without even thinking about it, but probably very few of us can say exactly HOW we do it. Well, CrowdScience listener Arif and his children Maryam and Mohammed from India want to understand what’s going on in our heads when go for a cycle, and how we learn to do it in the first place.

Presenter Marnie Chesterton is on the case, tracking down a neuroscientist studying how our brains and bodies work together to keep us balanced whether we’re walking or trying to ride a bicycle. She learns about the quirks of bicycle engineering from researchers in the Netherlands who are part of a lab entirely devoted to answering this question. In the process falling off of some unusual bicycles and uncovering the surprising truth that physics might not yet have a proper answer. And we peer deeper into our brains to find out why some memories last longer than others, whether some people can learn quicker than others and the best way to learn a new skill.

Presented by Marnie Chesterton and Produced by Emily Bird for the BBC World Service.

Featuring: Kathleen Cullen, Johns Hopkins University, USA Jason Moore, University of Technology Delft, The Netherlands Lara Boyd, University of British Columbia, Canada Rado Dukalski, University of Technology Delft, The Netherlands Josie and Freesia, Pedal Power

Climbing enthusiast and producer Thomas Lu has long wondered what makes knots such a powerful tool. Today, Thomas digs into the research with the help of Matt Berry, Quality Assurance Manager at the outdoor gear company Black Diamond Equipment, and researcher Vishal Patil.

Reach the show by emailing shortwave@npr.org.

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Deadly heat has been building over the Indian sub-continent for weeks and this week reached crisis levels. India experienced its hottest March on record and temperatures over 40 degrees Celsius (and in some places approaching 50 degrees) are making it almost impossible for 1.4 billion people to work. It’s damaging crops and it’s just what climate scientists have been warning about. Roland Pease talks to Vimal Mishra of the Indian Institute of Technology in Gandhinagar about the impact and causes of the unprecedented heatwave.

What could be behind the incidence of hepatitis in young children around the world in recent months? Ordinarily, liver disease in childhood is extremely rare. Could a virus normally associated with colds be responsible or is the Covid virus involved? Roland Pease talks to virologist William Irving of Nottingham University.

Also in the programme: how climate change is increasing the likelihood of animal viruses jumping the species barrier to humans with global change modeller Colin Carlson of Georgetown University, and myths about the personalities of dog breeds are exploded with new research by Elinor Karlsson of the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

(Photo: Woman cooling herself in India heatwave Credit: Debajyoti Chakraborty/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Andrew Luck-Baker

Probes to Uranus and to one of Jupiter's moons where conditions might support life; a better plan high-quality science on the moon--those are some of the recommendations in a new 700 page report to NASA. NPR science correspondent Nell Greenfieldboyce has looked at that report and talked to the experts. Today, she sifts through all the juicy details of where NASA is headed the next few decades.

Read the decadal survey.

Probe the Short Wave minds by emailing shortwave@npr.org.

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COVID cases are up due to the Omicron sub-variants and masking is likely to remain optional as the courts wrangle with the transportation mask mandate that a Federal judge struck down last week. NPR correspondent Allison Aubrey talks about both of these issues with host Emily Kwong, and updates listeners on what to expect with children and the vaccine.

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