Category: ScienceNews

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.

Have another space story you want us to cover on a future episode? Email us at shortwave@npr.org — we'd love to hear from you!

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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

A recent series of studies suggests that the brains of birds, reptiles and mammals all evolved independently — even though they share a common ancestor. That means evolution has found more than one way to make a complex brain, and human brains may not be quite as special as we think. To learn more about this, we talk to Fernando García-Moreno about this series of studies he co-authored that came out in Science in February.

Want to hear more about the complex road of evolution? Send us an email at shortwave@npr.org.

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Plants are blooming right now – and so are people's allergies. And if it feels like those pesky symptoms are getting worse ... you're probably right. Wednesday, a review published in the journal The Laryngoscope looked at the link between climate change and increasing rates of allergic rhinitis, or hay fever. So today, we turn back to a classic Short Wave episode from Brit Hanson and Maddie Sofia, who spoke to allergy expert Dr. Juanita Mora about some quick tips for managing seasonal allergies.

Want more of the science behind your health questions? Send us an email at shortwave@npr.org.

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