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 Biologysays 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.
Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave.
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.
Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave.
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.
Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave.
As the world races to curb climate change, scientists are taking aim at cows, a surprisingly potent source of greenhouse gases. Science correspondent Miles O’Brien traveled from California to Mexico and Australia to explore a bold idea that could make a big impact. It's part of our series, Tipping Point. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders
Did you know there's an insect that can fling its pee 40 times faster than a cheetah accelerates? We did — thanks to a comic from the Bhamla Lab at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Since 2020, principal investigator Saad Bhamla has been leading the charge to make science more accessible by publishing comics alongside every paper his lab publishes. Today, he introduces Emily to two of the most popular characters — Sheriff Sharpshooter and Captain Cicada — and shares why a comic about butt-flicking insects is a valuable way to take science beyond the lab.
Want to hear more about nature's superpowers? Send us an email at shortwave@npr.org.
Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave.
What would you discover inside the stomach of a sea lion? CrowdScience listener Robyn found out first-hand when she volunteered at her local museum in Adelaide, Australia. The team dissecting the specimen removed around 30 rocks from the animal’s stomach, and Robyn wants the Crowdscience team to find out how and why they got there.
Presenter Anand Jagatia uncovers a whole world of rock-munching creatures, from ostriches to ichthyosaurs. In search of answers we investigate Canadian sea lion research, and rummage through the vaults at the Natural History Museum in Bamberg, Germany.
Presented by Anand Jagatia
Produced by Emily Bird
Image: Australian Sea Lion (Neophoca cinerea), Hopkins Island, South Australia
Credit: Stephen Frink via Getty Images
The Aurora Borealis – also known as the Northern Lights – won’t be at their peak activity much longer, and the Unexpected Elements team dreams of going north to see them. And that has got us looking at the science of navigating our way north!
We hear about how humans have been using the sky to navigate for millennia, and we learn about how relying on GPS may be impacting our memory ability.
And while humans use maps to get around, how do animals know where to go on their long migrations? To find the answer, we speak to Dr Kayla Goforth at Texas A&M University who studies exactly how sea turtles and monarch butterflies innately know how to navigate the world around them.
We also learn why polar bears keep themselves ice-free, and we hear old records of the first men to reach the North Pole.
All that, plus many more Unexpected Elements.
Presenter: Caroline Steel, with Andrada Fiscutean and Phillys Mwatee
Producer: Imaan Moin, with Alice Lipscombe-Southwell, Noa Dowling and William Hornbrook
Dune. Star Wars. Alien. Science fiction movies love alien worlds, and so do we. But how do scientists find planets outside our solar system in real life? One way is by looking for the stars that wiggle. Historically, astronomers have measured those wiggles via the Doppler method, carefully analyzing how the star's light shifts. Thanks to new data from the GAIA telescope, scientists have a much better picture of distant stars' wiggles — and the exoplanets that cause them.
Want to hear more about exoplanet discoveries? Send us an email at shortwave@npr.org.
Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave.
