Short Wave

Short Wave

New discoveries, everyday mysteries, and the science behind the headlines — in just under 15 minutes. It's science for everyone, using a lot of creativity and a little humor. Join hosts Emily Kwong and Regina Barber for science on a different wavelength. If you're hooked, try Short Wave Plus. Your subscription supports the show and unlocks a sponsor-free feed. Learn more at plus.npr.org/shortwave

Episodes

Aha! The Power Of A Short Rest

June 27, 2025 • 8 mins
Since 2004, scientific research has shown that a full night of sleep may lend itself to a burst of insight in the morning. But what about the earlier stages of sleep? And what about just a nap? A research team based in Germany found that even a 20-minute nap could deliver a "eureka" moment, and published their findings in the journal PLOS Biology this week.

Have a question about sleep? Email us at shortwave@npr.org — we'd...
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When Eavesdropping Pays Off

June 25, 2025 • 11 mins
Why did the ornithologist strap a taxidermy badger to a remote controlled car and drive it around the prairie? To interrogate the secret world of animal eavesdropping in the grasslands, of course! Today on the show, we travel to the most imperiled ecosystem on the planet to unravel a prairie mystery and find out why prairie dogs are grassland engineers worth keeping tabs on.

Special thanks to Andrew Spencer and the Cornell L...
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Does It Feel Like Mosquitoes Are Getting Worse?

June 24, 2025 • 13 mins
Mosquitoes are the deadliest animal on the planet, and some of them may be on the rise. At least in listener Abigail Krich-Starr's area, that's due to warmer, wetter weather — which, yes, is linked to climate change. But it doesn't stop there: Ecologists and entomologists say increased heat could also alter mosquito behavior, shift their natural habitat, and even change how pathogens incubate and spread inside their bodies.
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The Power Grid Problem

June 23, 2025 • 11 mins
The U.S.'s power grid — a nearly 100-year-old network of electrical circuits — is facing increased demand and weather-related stress. What will it take to modernize? We interrogate that question today with the help of Anjan Bose, an electrical engineer at Washington State University.

Interested in more stories about electricity? Email us at shortwave@npr.org.

Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free a...
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What Makes South Korea's 'Super Divers' Special?

June 20, 2025 • 10 mins
For generations, the all-female Haenyeo divers have routinely dove into frigid waters off the coast of South Korea, holding their breath for minutes at a time, as they collect seafood to eat and sell. These women start diving as girls and continue well into old age. And recent research suggests that it's not just years of training that makes this feat possible – it's also a set of special genetic adaptations. Science reporter Ari D...
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Why Emotions Run High For Sports Fans

June 18, 2025 • 12 mins
We are in the thick of multiple sports seasons: the NBA finals are happening, and baseball and soccer are in full swing. For devoted fans, emotions can run pretty high during a game. Cognitive anthropologist Dimitris Xygalatas has long been fascinated by that intensity — and how uniform it can be across fans. So, he and fellow researchers at the University of Connecticut decided to look into what exactly makes fans so deeply connec...
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Trump Wants A Missile Defense System Like Israel's

June 17, 2025 • 13 mins
Since last week, Israel has been attacking Iran's nuclear facilities, along with many other targets around the country. Iran has fired hundreds of missiles in response. NPR correspondent Geoff Brumfiel has been watching all of this very closely because Israel's missile defenses have been a focus of the Trump White House. This year, President Trump requested funding from Congress for a "Golden Dome for America" — a missile defense s...
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Why Weed's Signature Scent Has Changed Over Time

June 16, 2025 • 10 mins
The skunky smell of cannabis may be going out of style. NPR's science correspondent Pien Huang visited the grow facility for District Cannabis, which sells weed in Washington D.C. and Maryland. On her tour, she learned why cannabis smells the way it does. Plus, how many strains have been bred — to smells like lavender, citrus and even cookies.

Read more of science correspondent Pien Huang's reporting on this topic here, o...
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Your Breathing Pattern Is Like A Fingerprint

June 13, 2025 • 8 mins
Take a big inhale through your nose. Now, exhale. Breathing may seem simple, but it's controlled by a complex brain network. Each inhale gives the human brain information about the external world. And now, a new research paper in the journal Current Biology suggests that humans have unique breathing patterns, almost like nasal "fingerprints." Not only that: These unique breathing patterns seem to say a lot about people's physical a...
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Wanna Save Money? Climate-Proof Your Home

June 11, 2025 • 12 mins
Homeowners' insurance isn't just getting more expensive ... it's also getting harder to secure in the first place. Across the country, an increase in climate-related disasters like heat waves, wildfires and hurricanes is creating challenges for both insurers and their customers. One successful strategy taking hold in Alabama and other states: Climate-proofing houses — and incentivizing it with insurance discounts.

Still, n...
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Living With OCD

June 10, 2025 • 14 mins
Roughly 163 million people experience obsessive-compulsive disorder and its associated cycles of obsessions and compulsions. They have unwanted intrusive thoughts, images or urges; they also do certain behaviors to decrease the distress caused by these thoughts. In movies and TV, characters with OCD are often depicted washing their hands or obsessing about symmetry. Dr. Carolyn Rodriguez says these are often symptoms of OCD, but th...
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Helping Dogs and Their Pawrents Live Healthier, Longer

June 9, 2025 • 13 mins
The Dog Aging Project is a long-term nationwide survey on the health and lifestyles of U.S. dogs that launched in 2019. Today, the project has more than 50,000 canines and counting. Today, hear what researchers have learned from one of the largest dog health data sets and what it could tell us both about increasing the lifespan of our furry friends and us.

For more information about signing your pup up for the Dog Aging Pr...
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Unveiling Olo — A Color Out of Oz!

June 6, 2025 • 13 mins
"Olo" does not exist in nature, nor can it be found among paint cans. But for a very select few, olo can be seen — through the intervention of careful computing and lasers. A team led by vision scientist Austin Roorda and computer scientist Ren Ng at UC Berkeley figured out a method for stimulating only one specific subset of cones of the retina. It's the only way to view this spectacular teal. Creating the color is helping push th...
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Anglerfish Ancestors Once Roamed The Seafloor

June 4, 2025 • 13 mins
There are over 200 species of deep-sea anglerfish; some are long and thin, some are squat and round, some have fins that they use to "walk" along the sea floor, and others have huge eyes set far back into their heads. But how did all this morphological diversity first come to be? Thanks to a new anglerfish family tree, now we know.

Scientists built this evolutionary tree using genetic information from hundreds of samples ...
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Can AI Crack The Biology Code?

June 3, 2025 • 14 mins
As artificial intelligence seeps into some realms of society, it rushes into others. One area it's making a big difference is protein science — as in the "building blocks of life," proteins! Producer Berly McCoy talks to host Emily Kwong about the newest advance in protein science: AlphaFold3, an AI program from Google DeepMind. Plus, they talk about the wider field of AI protein science and why researchers hope it will solve a ran...
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Solving A Centuries Old Maritime Mystery

June 2, 2025 • 13 mins
For hundreds of years sailors have told stories about miles of glowing ocean during moonless nights. This phenomenon is known as "milky seas," but the only scientific sample was collected in 1985. So atmospheric scientist Justin Hudson, a PhD candidate at Colorado State University, used accounts spanning 400 years to create a database of milky seas. By also using satellite images to visually confirm the tales, Justin hopes his rese...
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Why Daylight Boosts Immunity

May 30, 2025 • 8 mins
Depending on what time it is, your body responds differently to an injury or infection. During the day, you're likely to heal faster and fight infection better than at night. And historically, scientists weren't entirely sure why. That picture is starting to clear up thanks to a new study published last week in the journal Science Immunology. The research finds a missing piece of the puzzle in neutrophils, powerful immune cells tha...
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Unpacking Bipolar Disorder

May 28, 2025 • 13 mins
Around 40 million people around the world have bipolar disorder, which involves cyclical swings between moods: from depression to mania. Kay Redfield Jamison is one of those people. She's also a professor of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and has written extensively about the topic, from medical textbooks to personal memoirs. Today on Short Wave, she joins us to talk about the diagnosis process, treating and man...
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Nature Quest: The Climate-Kid Question

May 27, 2025 • 13 mins
Gen Z and younger millennials are the most climate literate generations the world has ever seen. They learned about climate change in school; now, it's part of how they plan for the future, including for jobs, housing ... and kids.

So, what do experts say about how to navigate the kid question? In this installment of Nature Quest, Short Wave speaks to climate journalist Alessandra Ram about the future she sees for her newb...
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The Great Space Race ... With Clocks

May 26, 2025 • 14 mins
It's Memorial Day, Short Wavers. This holiday, we bring you a meditation on time ... and clocks. There are hundreds of atomic clocks in orbit right now, perched on satellites all over Earth. We depend on them for GPS location, Internet timing, stock trading and even space navigation. In today's encore episode, hosts Emily Kwong and Regina G. Barber learn how to build a better clock. In order to do that, they ask: How do atomic cloc...
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