Short Wave

This March 14, Short Wave is celebrating pi ... and pie! We do that with the help of mathematician Eugenia Cheng, Scientist In Residence at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and author of the book How to Bake Pi. We start with a recipe for clotted cream and end, deliciously, at how math is so much more expansive than grade school tests.

Click through to our episode page for the recipes mentioned in this episode.

Plus, Eugenia's been on Short Wave before! To hear more, check out our episode, A Mathematician's Manifesto For Rethinking Gender.

Curious about other math magic? Email us at [email protected].

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The Biden administration has announced that customers of Silicon Valley Bank will have full access to their deposits, an extraordinary move by federal officials to backstop billions of dollars in uninsured money. In remarks Monday morning, the president indicated he was confident in the banking system after a few high-profile bank closures last week.

This episode: White House correspondent Tamara Keith, national political correspondent Mara Liasson, and chief economics correspondent Scott Horsley.

The podcast is produced by Elena Moore and Casey Morell. It is edited by Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Research and fact-checking by Devin Speak.

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A new drug for Alzheimer's disease, called lecanemab, got a lot of attention earlier this year for getting fast-tracked approval based on a clinical trial that included nearly 1,800 people. It was the most diverse trial for an Alzheimer's treatment to date, but still not enough to definitively say if the drug is effective for Black people. "[In] the world's most diverse Alzheimer's trial, a giant trial of 1,800 people that lasted for a much longer time than most trials did, we're still not sure that all of the groups that are at highest risk of Alzheimer's disease actually see any kind of benefit," says Dr. Jonathan Jackson, Assistant Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School.

On today's episode, Jonathan and Short Wave co-host Emily Kwong delve into how drug developers can overlook those hardest hit by the disease they're trying to treat.

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President Biden wants to raise income taxes on households earning more than $400,000 a year to shore up the social safety net, make community college and childcare less expensive, and boost investment in strategic industries in order to counter China. But, like all presidents' budgets, it is more a statement of principles than a concrete plan to be taken up by Congress.

And more people who have been convicted of felonies are getting their right to vote back — an expanding policy trend that defies typical partisan splits.

This episode: White House correspondent Scott Detrow, White House correspondent Tamara Keith, senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro, and voting correspondent Ashley Lopez.

This episode was produced by Elena Moore and Casey Morell. It was edited by Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Research and fact-checking by Devin Speak.

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Reading the science headlines this week, we have A LOT of questions. Why are more animals than just humans saddled — er, blessed — with vocal fry? Why should we care if 8 million year old plankton fossils are in different locations than plankton living today? And is humanity finally united on protecting the Earth's seas with the creation of the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction treaty? Luckily, it's the job of the Short Wave team to decipher the science behind the headlines. This week, that deciphering comes from co-hosts Emily Kwong and Aaron Scott, with the help of NPR climate correspondent Lauren Sommer. Hang out with us as we dish on some of the coolest science stories in this ocean-themed installment of our regular newsy get-togethers!

Have suggestions for what we should cover in our next news round up? Email us at [email protected].

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In principle, Democratic lawmakers support the local Washington, D.C., government's power to make laws for the city's residents — who don't have voting representation in Congress.

But, facing the political risk of seeming weak on crime, a huge majority Senate Democrats voted to overturn a local criminal code reform that was unanimously approved by the elected city council.

This episode: White House correspondent Scott Detrow, political correspondent Susan Davis, and national political correspondent Mara Liasson.

This episode was produced by Elena Moore and Casey Morell. It was edited by Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Research and fact-checking by Devin Speak.

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Have you ever wondered how biologists choose what animal to use in their research? Since scientists can't do a lot of basic research on people, they study animals to shed light on everything from human health to ecosystems to genetics. And yet, just a handful of critters appear over and over again. Why the mouse? Or the fruit fly? Or the zebrafish?

Cassandra Extavour, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard, talked with Short Wave co-host Aaron Scott about her favorite new model critter on the block: crickets. (Well, "favorite" might be a strong word. As Cassandra concedes, "to be honest, my opinion about crickets is sort of neutral to slightly grossed out.")

On today's episode we leave the mouse to its maze, and instead consider the cricket and all the amazing things it can teach us.

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A billion-dollar defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems against the broadcaster is tied to the outlet's full-throated embrace of former president Donald Trump's election lies and conspiracy theories — deceptions that forced one former Dominion executive into hiding.

This episode: White House correspondent Scott Detrow, media correspondent David Folkenflik, and Colorado Public Radio reporter Bente Birkeland.

This episode was produced by Elena Moore and Casey Morell. It was edited by Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Research and fact-checking by Devin Speak.

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The whitebark pine is a hardy tree that grows in an area stretching from British Columbia, Canada south to parts of California and east to Montana. It's a keystone species in its subalpine and timberline ecosystems and plays an outsized role in its interactions with other species and the land — feeding and providing habitat for other animals, and providing shade to slow glacial melt to the valleys below. But it's increasingly threatened — by more intense fires, by mountain pine beetle infestations and by a deadly fungus called blister rust. Today, producer Berly McCoy takes the microphone to share the ongoing efforts by reforestation forester ShiNaasha Pete and others to save this important species.

Check out the Headwaters Podcast: https://glacier.org/headwaters/

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Black farmers have long struggled with discrimination, inequities that persist today despite federal efforts to address them. Now, the USDA is out with a new equity report with a number of recommendations.

This episode: White House correspondent Scott Detrow, political reporter Ximena Bustillo, and congressional correspondent Claudia Grisales.

This episode was produced by Elena Moore and Casey Morell. It was edited by Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Research and fact-checking by Devin Speak.

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