Category: ScienceNews

We at Short Wave have been following all things Olympics, from the medals and new records to the ugly accusations that two women boxers aren't really women. Last year, the boxers failed gender tests, according to the International Boxing Association. The IBA claims the women have a "hormonal imbalance" that gives them women an unfair advantage. The International Olympic Committee has condemned these claims and defended the boxers' right to compete in the women's category. But this Olympics is far from the first time the gender of athletes has been questioned.

NPR's Embedded podcast has a new series called Tested that gets into this history of sex testing in elite sports – in particular, track and field. In this excerpt, host Rose Eveleth digs deep on a big question: What constitutes an "unfair" advantage on the track?

Listen to the full Tested series now.

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When listener Watum heard about the Titan submersible implosion in the news in 2023, a question popped up in his mind: if a machine that we specifically built for this purpose cannot sustain the water pressure of the deep ocean, how do fish survive down there?

In this episode, we travel with marine biologist Alan Jamieson to the second deepest place in our oceans: the Tonga trench. Meanwhile, presenter Caroline Steel speaks to Edie Widder about the creatures that illuminate our oceans, and travels to Copenhagen to take a closer look one of the strangest deep sea creatures and its deep sea adaptations.

But even fish have their limits! Scientist Paul Yancey correctly predicted the deepest point that fish can live, and it all comes down to one particular molecule.

So is there anything living beyond these depths? Well, there is only one way to find out…

Contributors: Prof Alan Jamieson, University of Western Australia Luke Siebermaier, Submersible Team Leader, Inkfish Dr Edie Widder, Ocean Research & Conservation Association Peter Rask Møller, Natural History Museum of Denmark Prof Paul Yancey, Whitman College

Presenter: Caroline Steel Producer: Florian Bohr Editor: Martin Smith & Cathy Edwards Production Co-ordinator: Ishmael Soriano Studio Manager: Steve Greenwood

(Image: Deep-sea fish - stock photo, Credit: superjoseph via Getty Images)

This week we’re inspired by the price of a lobster dinner fit for a king. The recently revealed price tag for President Macron’s banquet back at the end of 2023, about half a million dollars, kickstarts an Unexpected Elements challenge – can the team create something similar and manage to save not only cash, but an Italian ecosystem from an American invader?

And waste not want not as we discover how the bits of a crustacean dinner you’d usually throw in the bin may be the key to a new generation of rechargeable batteries.

We’ll also be exploring the science of spices with Dr Stuart Farrimond and singing the praises of a blue-blooded crab that’s really a giant spider, which has been helping out the medical industry for decades.

That plus many other Unexpected Elements.

Bon appétit!

How do you study unmapped areas of the ocean and identify critical habitat for an endangered species? You include the study animal in the scientific process! Researchers from the University of Adelaide fitted endangered Australian sea lions with cameras and tracking devices to better understand where they spent their time. The information could help scientists protect critical sea lion habitat and could give researchers a new tool for mapping the ocean.

Interested in more underwater science? Email us at shortwave@npr.org.

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Cases of bird flu in farm workers in the US may be going underreported, due to supposed poor surveillance and lack of testing. We hear from Amy Maxmen of KFF Health News who has been reporting on a study in Texas.

We hear from Bradley Moore, Professor of Marine Chemical Biology at University of California, San Diego about marine algae using massive enzymes, dubbed PKZILLAs to biosynthesize fish-killing toxins.

BBC Science Correspondent Jonathan Amos gives us the latest on the two American astronauts who blasted off on a test mission to the International Space Station on 5 June, expecting to be back home in a matter of days. But the pair are still there, floating high above the Earth two months later - stuck indefinitely - now facing the sudden prospect of missing the summer entirely and even spending Christmas and New Year in space.

And sea lion camera crews are helping researchers explore previously unmapped ocean habitats in southern Australia. Nathan Angelakis of the University of Adelaide tells us about working with the animal camera operators and what we can learn from viewing their movements.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Jonathan Blackwell Production co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth

(Image: Young Farmer and Cows on Dairy Farm. Credit: EyeJoy via Getty Images)

In the last week, we've seen swimmers diving headfirst into the 2024 Paris Olympics pool, limbs gracefully slicing through the water. And yet, world and Olympic records weren't broken at quite the rate some expected, leading many on social media to speculate: Was the pool the culprit? With the help of NPR correspondents Bill Chappell and Brian Mann, we investigate.

Read Bill Chappell's full story about this here.

Want us to cover the science behind more Olympic sports? Email us at shortwave@npr.org. We'd love to hear from you!

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The Big Bang: The moment when our universe — everything in existence — began....Right?

Turns out, it's not quite that simple.

Today, when scientists talk about the Big Bang, they mean a period of time – closer to an era than to a specific moment. Host Regina Barber talks with two cosmologists about the cosmic microwave background, its implications for the universe's origins and the discovery that started it all.

Interested in more space science? Email us at shortwave@npr.org.

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Rates of depression and anxiety have risen among teens over the last decade. Amid this ongoing mental health crisis, the American Psychological Association issued guidelines for parents to increase protection for teens online. In this encore episode, NPR science correspondent Michaeleen Doucleff looks into the data on how that change has impacted the mental health of teenagers. In her reporting, she found that the seismic shift of smartphones and social media has re-defined how teens socialize, communicate and even sleep. In 2009, about half of teens said they were using social media daily, reported psychologist Jean Twenge. And by 2022, 95% of teens said they used some social media, and about a third said they use it constantly.

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CrowdScience listener Azeddine from Algeria has had bad handwriting since he was a child. In fact, it was so untidy that, when he later became a chemistry lecturer, his university students complained that they could not read his lecture notes. That was when he decided he had to do something about it. And it got him wondering… why do some of us have very neat handwriting while other people’s is almost unreadable? Why do his sisters all write beautifully when his natural style is quite the opposite? Presenter Alex Lathbridge sets out to answer Azeddine’s question. He explores the different factors which determine how well we write. How much of it is inherited? What part does family and education play? And what is actually going on in our brains when we apply pen to paper? Alex talks to anthropologist Monika Saini of the National Institute of Health and Family Welfare, Delhi, who has analysed writing styles within families and in different regions across India. She tells him about the genetic and cultural factors which seem to influence our handwriting. We also hear from neuroscientist Marieke Longcamp of Aix Marseille Université, France, who uses MRI scanning to find out which parts of our brains are involved when we write by hand. She has looked at what is happening in the brains of people who write in more than one script – for example in French and Arabic, like Azeddine. Another neuroscientist, Karin Harman James, from Indiana University, USA ,has been looking at the link between learning something by writing it down compared to typing it on a tablet or laptop. And Alex meets handwriting tutor Cherrell Avery to find out if it’s possible to improve your writing – even as an adult. Presenter: Alex Lathbridge Producer: Jeremy Grange Editor: Cathy Edwards Production Co-ordinator: Ishmael Soriano Studio Manager: Emma Harth

Champagne has been discovered in a 100+ year old shipwreck. It's an amazing find. But can you drink it? Speaking of bubbly, we learn more about the physics of bubbles, and why understanding it is crucial for the climate. Also on the show, a 2,000 year-old mystery about a navigation device that persists up to the present day.