Imagine spending six months of every year living in total shade. That’s what life is like for residents of the Norwegian town of Rjukan, set so low in a valley that they see no direct sunshine at all from October to March. Marnie Chesterton heads there to hear about an ingenious solution: giant mirrors that beam rays down into the town square, where locals gather to feel the reflected heat. The man behind the project was motivated by a need for winter sun – but how much difference does it really make to our health and happiness? That’s the question posed by this week’s CrowdScience listener Michael, who has noticed living in the rainy Australian city of Melbourne is taking its toll. Many pensioners claim sunshine relieves achiness as well as conditions like arthritis but one of the biggest scientific studies found temperature actually has no impact on reported pain levels, while factors like air pressure and humidity may play a role. When it comes to our mood, it seems that spending time outside is more important than feeling the heat and the optimum temperature for wellbeing is around a cool 19 degrees centigrade, while excessive warm weather has been linked to an increase in violence and crime.
Contributors:
Dr Anna Beukenhorst, University of Manchester
Professor Oscar Ybarra, University of Illinois
Professor Solomon Hsiang, University of California, Berkeley
Martin Andersen, artist
(Image: Man with smoke coming out of ears. Credit: Getty Images)
Ever felt like you were watching yourself and the rest of the world from outside of your body? Or floating above yourself? Well, scientists finally know what part of your brain is causing that sensation. NPR science correspondent Jon Hamilton shares the tale of the discovery with host Aaron Scott. Plus, they talk about why it may be helpful to occasionally venture outside of your bodily self.
Science in Action returns to H5N1, the fast spreading strain of bird flu which has caused devastation in the sky, sea, and land over the last few months, with no end in sight.
Roland visits Skomer Island and the coast of Wales where sea bird colonies are threatened and hundreds of guillemots have washed ashore dead, struck down by bird flu.
We also hear of outbreaks on Finnish fur farms where controversial plans are in progress for culls of wild birds, of mysterious infections of domestic cats in Poland, and bird flu causing brain swelling in grey seals.
Plus, we get an update on efforts to vaccinate condors in California against the disease.
The World Cup has us looking at why women get more ACL injuries, how to avoid cracking under pressure, and why some animals play dead.
Also on the program we consider the pros and cons of Artificial Intelligence in Africa, whether the continent is turning to nuclear power, and if banana skins are hallucinogenic.
For decades, humans have harvested the blood of horseshoe crabs, which is used to test whether many of our vaccines and medicines are contaminated with harmful bacterial toxins. But the horseshoe crab harvesting industry has few regulations and a lot of secrecy. NPR investigative reporter Chiara Eisner talks to us about expansion of this industry and why synthetic alternatives to the blood aren't being widely used in the United States.
While it seems intuitively obvious that good management is important to the success of an organization, perhaps that obvious point needs some evidence given how so many institutions seem to muddle through regardless. Enter Raffaela Sadun, the Charles E. Wilson Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and co-leader of the Digital Reskilling Lab there. Working through several managerial mega-projects she co-founded, Sadun can both identify traits of successful management and even put a quantitative value to what good management can bring to a firm (spoiler alert – as Sadun will explain, it’s a big number).
In this Social Science Bites podcast, Sadun discusses her research findings with host David Edmonds, who open his inquiry with a very basic question: What, exactly, do we mean by ‘management’?
“It's a complicated answer,” Sadun replies. “I think that management is the consistent application of processes that relate to both the operations of the organization as well as the management of human resources. And at the end of the day, management is not that difficult. It’s being able to implement these processes and update them and sort of adapt them to the context of the organization.”
In a practical sense, that involves things like monitoring workers, solving problems and coordinating disparate activities, activities that ultimately require someone “to be in charge.” But not just anyone, Sadun details, and not just someone who happens to be higher up. “The most effective managers are the ones that are able to empower and get information and reliable information from their team, which is fundamentally a bottom-up approach rather than a top-down approach.”
If that sounds a little different from the adversarial relationship many expect between workers and managers, well, good management is a little different, she continues. “I can see how you can think of this as being a trade-off (profit versus well-being of workers), but if you look at the type of practices that we measure, as I said, they're not exploitations, but they are ways to get people engaged and empowered to sort of participate into the work. It’s always possible that there are organizations that push so much on one side of the equation that make people very unhappy. In my experience, these type of situations are not sustainable.”
Good people – the ones employers prize -- won’t put up with too much garbage. “Talented people are attracted--to the extent that they want to work for somebody else—they're attracted to places where their life is not miserable.”
Sadun came to her conclusions through projects like the World Management Survey, which she co-founded two decades ago. “We spoke with more than 20,000 managers to date—around 35 countries, [and ..] collected typically [by] talking with middle managers.” Other big projects include the Executive Time Use Study, and MOPS-H, the first large-scale management survey in hospitals and one conducted in partnership with the US Census Bureau. In her native Italy, Sadun was an economic adviser to the Italian government in the early 2020s, earning the highest honor possible from the government, the Grande Ufficiale dell'Ordine "Al Merito della Repubblica Italiana." In the United States, serves as director of the National Bureau of Economic Research Working Group in Organizational Economics, and is faculty co-chair of the Harvard Project on the Workforce.
Would you survive as a doctor in The Sims 4? What's the appropriate amount of free food to take from a public sample station before it's considered greedy? And how much of an impact do clock towers have on sleep?
These are the hard-hitting questions that researchers ask and answer in the Christmas issue of The BMJ, formerly known as the British Medical Journal. What started in 1982 as an experimental roundup of fun research for the holidays has since grown into one of The BMJ's most highly anticipated issues each year. In honor of the July 31 research submission deadline, Short Wave talks to two of its editors about what makes the cut.
What science story do you want to hear next on Short Wave? Email us at shortwave@npr.org — we'd love to know!
In this special episode, we hear from the high school grand prize winner of NPR's Student Podcast Challenge: Georgianna McKenny. A rising senior at the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science, the 17-year-old rings an alarm on the water crisis in Jackson, through the lens of young people. Emily, who was one of the judges of this year's contest, talks to Georgianna about her winning podcast and their shared love for storytelling.
CrowdScience investigates the link between music and emotion to try and understand why certain songs can have such a profound impact on our mood.
From breakup songs to upbeat holiday hits, many of us have made playlists that reflect how we feel, whether that’s down in the dumps or high as a kite. This week CrowdScience investigates the link between music and emotion to try and understand why certain songs can have such a profound impact on our mood.
Presenter Anand Jagatia is surprised to learn that newborn babies are more likely to fall asleep when listening to fast tempo happy tunes than soothing sad lullabies, which may be because they’re attuned to multiple auditory stimuli after months in the womb.
But later in life we actually seek out sad songs to make us feel better. The so-called ‘sadness paradox’ has been studied for many centuries. But what is it about melancholy music that might be good for us?
Some scientists believe more empathetic people enjoy listening to these types of tune because they elicit a feeling of compassion towards others, which can be rewarding.
A film composer tells us how scoring suspense isn’t simply about minor or major chords, or even what instruments you use – it all comes down to keeping the audience guessing about what’s coming next.
(Photo: young woman listening to headphones looking sad. Credit: Getty Images)
Presenter: Anand Jagatia
Producer: Marijke Peters
Production co-ordinator: Jonathan Harris
Editor: Richard Collings
Studio Technician: Phil Lander
Contributors:
Alex Heffes
Professor Stefan Koelsch
Dr Emese Nagy
Associate Professor Jonna Vuoskoski
Dr Scott Bannister
For most infants, introducing peanuts early can help prevent allergies later on — but a new study reveals most caregivers don't know that. Why? Plus — some summertime advice for keeping pets cool in the heat, and avoiding beaches contaminated with poop. (A lot of them are.) All Things Considered host Mary Louise Kelly joins Regina G. Barber and Aaron Scott to discuss those stories in our science news roundup.
Have questions about science in the news? Email us at shortwave@npr.org.
