This week on the show that brings you the science behind the news, inspired by COP28, we’re talking about meetings. Honestly, it’s way more interesting than it sounds.
Come to hear about blackworm blobs – a wormy meeting that only happens in stressful situations - and how scientists are taking inspiration from it to design robots. Stay for the stories from nature where species are missing crucial pollination meetings thanks to that global stressful situation that is climate change. And what’s better for the planet, a big meeting that everyone flies to or a telephone conference with no video?
In ‘Ask the Unexpected’ we answer a listener’s question about antibiotics - if there are good bacteria in the body, how do they know which ones to attack?
Also, OMG it’s the OMG particle – we hear about the tiny but powerful particles that pound the planet from time to time.
All that plus your emails about toilets and the rules of Cricket.
Presented by Marnie Chesterton, with Chhavi Sachdev and Tristan Ahtone.
Produced by Ben Motley, with Alex Mansfield and Dan Welsh.
In which we meet the pioneers of one of the most exciting — and controversial — fields of biomedical research: in vitro gametogenesis, or IVG. The goal of IVG is to make unlimited supplies of what Hayashi calls "artificial" eggs and sperm from any cell in the human body. That could let anyone — older, infertile, single, gay, trans — have their own genetically related babies. As such, the field opens up a slew of ethical concerns.
But that isn't stopping researchers from pressing forward.
So, this episode NPR science correspondent Rob Stein gives us a glimpse into the global race to create the first artificial human embryos to see how the competition is unfolding.
Want to hear more cutting-edge technology? Email the show at shortwave@npr.org.
As kids, some of us dream of multiple careers: being an astronaut AND the next president. Or digging up dinosaurs AND selling out concert stadiums. As we get older, there's pressure to pick one path. But what if we didn't have to?
After all, John Urschel didn't. He's a mathematician and professor at MIT. But before that, he played football for the Baltimore Ravens. Today on the show, Monday night football! Host Regina G. Barber talks to Urschel about linear algebra and following his dream of becoming a mathematician while living the dream as a NFL player.
CrowdScience listener Michael wants to know whether the brain responds differently if we listen to books instead of reading them. Do we retain information in the same way? And is there a difference between fiction and non-fiction?
Anand Jagatia finds out whether curling up with a good book is better than putting on his headphones. She is speaks to Prof Fatma Deniz from the Technical University of Berlin; Prof Naomi Baron from American University, Washington DC; Prof Patrick Nunn from the University of Sunshine Coast, Queensland and The Guesthouse Storytellers.
Presenter: Anand Jagatia
Producer: Jo Glanville
Editor: Richard Collings
Production co-ordinator: Jonathan Harrison
Sound engineer: Andrew Garratt
(Photo: Senior man wearing headphones listening to an audiobook. Credit: pixdeluxe/Getty Images)
Walking into Karen Chin's office at the University of Colorado, Boulder, one of the first things you might notice is that petrified poops are everywhere. They're in shallow boxes covering every surface and filling up shelves, cabinets and drawers. She's a leading expert in the fossils, known as coprolites. They delight her because of what they reveal about the ancient eating habits and food webs of dinosaurs — rare insights for the paleontology world. This episode, she talks with Short Wave co-host Aaron Scott about the lessons scientists can learn from ancient poopetrators.
Interested in learning more ancient or scatological mysteries of science? Email us at shortwave@npr.org — we might cover it on a future episode!
This month, Brazil has seen some of its highest recorded temperatures. The country’s Pantanal wetlands, the largest tropical wetlands in the world, have been scorched by wildfires. The region is home to vibrant wildlife, including jaguars, anacondas and various birds.
Professor Letícia Couto Garcia, leader of the Intervention Ecology Lab at Mato Grosso Federal University in the South, Brazil, talks about some of the challenges she’s experienced.
Staying with extreme temperatures, Dr Robert Rohde of the independent non-profit, Berkeley Earth, reveals what the recently recorded excess of 2°C means.
This week, we learned that an extremely energetic particle had been detected. Dr Toshihiro Fujii of Osaka Municipal University tells us how he first made the discovery after trawling through some data. We then hear from Dr Yvette Cendes, an astronomer who specialises in high-energy physics, to find out more about the origins of this particle.
Finally, Science in Action visits the South African Astronomical Observatory, to learn about the projects that could bring more diverse voices to our understanding of the night sky.
Presenter: Roland Pease
Producer: Alice Lipscombe-Southwell
Editor: Martin Smith
Production Co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth
(Image: Firefighters tackle forest fires in the Pantanal wetland near Porto Jofre, Mato Grosso State, Brazil, on November 13, 2023. Credit: ROGERIO FLORENTINO/AFP via Getty Images)
The cricket world cup has us looking at the science of spitting on cricket balls, particle accelerators, and insect sound engineers.
Also on the program, how AI is breaking into e-commerce, why do we get in the middle of the night, and is a fat flightless parrot the world's greatest bird?
Turkey is the usual centerpiece of the Thanksgiving dinner, but it's all too easy to end up with a dry, tough, flavorless bird. For NPR science correspondent Maria Godoy, it got so bad that several years ago, her family decided to abandon the turkey tradition altogether. Can science help her make a better bird this year? That's what she hopes as she seeks expert advice from food science writers and cookbook authors Nik Sharma and Kenji López-Alt.
Want to know what other delectable food secrets science has to offer? Email shortwave@npr.org and we just might find out for you!
Every five years, the United States government releases the National Climate Assessment, a comprehensive analysis of how climate change is affecting the country. The fifth assessment was recently released. It's the first to include includes standalone chapters about climate change's toll on the U.S. economy, as well as the complex social factors driving climate change and the nation's responses. Climate reporters Rebecca Hersher and Alejandra Borunda walk us through three major takeaways from the report: the economics, the negative human health effects and the unequal burden people face. Plus, a silver lining: All the ways the U.S. is making progress to slow the effects of climate change.
Lying is something all humans do. We find it in every culture around the world. It’s in the world of work, in our relationships and online. It’s all pervasive and hard to escape.
Our question this week is from listener Anthony from Cambodia. He asked us to find out why we lie, and wants to know how conscious we are of the lies that we tell?
CrowdScience’s Caroline Steel is in the hot seat, on a journey where she will attempt to untangle the complex story behind lying.
It’s a subject scientists and psychologists have been studying for a long time. It’s also something writers, philosophers and theologists have been interpreting for thousands of years. But we’re only now really starting to get to grips with how it works as a human behaviour.
There are lies in our folklore, lies in the media and also lies in everyday conversation. It’s something we’ve all had to learn to navigate at some point in our lives. In this episode the CrowdScience team unravels the mysteries surrounding the behaviour and the art of lying.
Our journey will take us to meet the world’s ‘second best liar’, an award she picked up at West Virginia’s Liar Contest. We’ll also meet a comedian who’s proud of the down-to-earth plain honesty of Dutch people.
An academic who has studied thousands of children’s brains will explain when we first start learning to lie. And we’ll hear about new research using magnetic resonance imaging, commonly known as MRI scans, which is helping to show how the more we actually lie, the less our brain reacts telling us not to.
Caroline looks at how lying changes from culture to culture. Do we really all lie? And do we lie in the same way?
The surprising and intriguing answer is found in how early it develops in us as a human behaviour.
Contributors:
Prof Kang Lee, Professor in Applied Psychology and Human Development at Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto
Prof Tali Sharot, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London
Ian Leslie, journalist and author of ‘Born Liars’
Ariana Kincaid, Champion Liar at West Virginia Liars Contest
Derek Scott Mitchell, actor and comedian | @letsdoubledutch on Instagram
Readings by Kitty O'Sullivan
Presenter: Caroline Steel
Producer: Robbie Wojciechowski
Editor: Richard Collings
Production Co-ordinator: Jonathan Harris
Studio Managers: Emma Harth, Donald MacDonald, Andrew Garratt
(Photo: Young Businessman Interviews for new job. Credit: Andrew Rich/ Getty Images)
