Short Wave

In 1928, a chance contaminant in Scottish physician Alexander Fleming’s lab experiment led to a discovery that would change the field of medicine forever: penicillin. Since then, penicillin and other antibiotics have saved millions of lives. With one problem: the growing threat of antibiotic resistance. Today on Short Wave, host Regina G. Barber talks to biophysicist Nathalie Balaban from Hebrew University about the conundrum — and a discovery her lab has made in bacteria that could turn the tides.


Check out our episodes on extreme bacteria in Yellowstone and the last universal common ancestor. 


Interested in more science behind our medicines? Email us your question at [email protected].


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This episode was produced by Berly McCoy, edited by our showrunner Rebecca Ramirez and fact checked by Tyler Jones. Jimmy Keeley was the audio engineer.

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Rhythm is everywhere. Even if you don’t think you have it, it’s fundamental to humans’ biological systems. Our heartbeat is rhythmic. Speech is rhythmic. Even as babies, humans can track basic rhythm. Researchers wanted to find out if there were more layers to this: Could babies also track melody and more complicated rhythms? So they played Bach for a bunch of sleeping newborns and monitored the babies’ brains to see if they could predict the next note. What they found offers clues about whether melody and rhythm are hard-wired in the human brain or learned over time. We also get into what powers the eating habits of some snakes and chameleons, and insights into the role of sleep in problem-solving.


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This episode was produced by Jordan-Marie Smith and Rachel Carlson. It was edited by Rebecca Ramirez and Christopher Intagliata. Tyler Jones checked the facts. The audio engineers were Jimmy Keeley and Hannah Gluvna. 

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Olympic sliding sports – bobsled, luge and skeleton – are known for their speed. Athletes chase medals down a track of ice at up to 80 or 90 mph. With this thrill comes the risk of “sled head.” Athletes use the term to explain the dizziness, nausea, exhaustion and even blackouts that can follow a brain-rattling run. Untreated, this can turn into concussions and subconcussions. But there’s still a lot more to learn about this condition. So today, host Emily Kwong speaks with two experts about the medical research into sled head – and how the sport would need to change to protect athletes’ brain health.

Check out more of NPR’s Olympics coverage.

Interested in more Olympic science? Email us your question at [email protected].

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Autism has a long history of misinformation that continues to today. The Trump administration has perpetuated some of this misinformation in the last year. Among other things, officials have claimed certain groups of people don’t get the condition and that taking Tylenol while pregnant causes autism to later develop in children. Today, NPR Science Correspondent Jon Hamilton sets the record straight with host Emily Kwong on what scientists do and don’t know about autism. 


If you liked this episode, check out our episodes on an Autism researcher’s take on Trump’s claims about Tylenol and a Fragile X treatment that may be on the horizon.


Interested in more science in the news? Email us your question at [email protected].


Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave.

This episode was produced by Berly McCoy. It was edited by Rebecca Ramirez. Tyler Jones checked the facts. The audio engineer was Damian Herring.

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PFAS make pans nonstick, clothes waterproof and furniture stain resistant. They're so ubiquitous, they're even inside of us. Now, researchers are looking for more insights in firefighters' blood.

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On Jan. 28, 1986, NASA’s 25th space shuttle mission, Challenger, left the launchpad in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Seventy-three seconds into flight, Challenger exploded over the Atlantic Ocean as millions of people watched. All seven people on board died. Now, forty years later, journalist Adam Higginbotham chronicles what went wrong. His book Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space pieces together stories from key officials, engineers and the families of those killed in the explosion – and details how its legacy still haunts spaceflight today. 


Consider checking out our episode speaking to an astronaut while she’s in space.


Have a scientific question you want us to answer? Email us at [email protected].


Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave.


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This past weekend, Winter Storm Fern struck the States. Sleet, snow and ice battered Americans all the way from New Mexico to New York. Scientists predicted its arrival in mid-January, and in anticipation of the storm, more than 20 state governors issued emergency declarations. But how did scientists know so much, so early, about the approaching storm? NPR climate reporter Rebecca Hersher says it has to do with our weather models… and the data we put into them. Which begs the question: Will we continue to invest in them?

Interested in more science behind the weather? Check out our episodes on better storm prediction in the tropics and how the Santa Ana winds impact the fire season this time of year. 


Have a question we haven’t covered? Email us at [email protected]. We’d love to consider it for a future episode! 


Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave.


This episode was produced by Hannah Chinn. It was edited by our showrunner Rebecca Ramirez. Tyler Jones and Rebecca Hersher checked the facts. The audio engineer was Robert Rodriguez. 

News clips were from CBS Boston, Fox Weather, Fox 4 Dallas-Fort Worth, and PBS Newshour.

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Listener Shabnam Khan has a problem: Every time she works in her garden, she’s visited by lizards and frogs. Shabnam has lived in the metro Atlanta area for decades, and she says this number of scaly, clammy visitors has exploded over the past few years. Frogs croak at night; lizards sun on the cement. And she wants to know, where did all of these animals come from? It turns out, there are a number of potential answers – from small-scale environmental changes like natural plants and new water sources to large-scale shifts like urbanization and development displacing local wildlife. On this month’s Nature Quest, host Emily Kwong and producer Hannah Chinn discuss the possibilities – and impacts – of these changes.

If you live in the Atlanta area and are interested in volunteering with MAAMP (the Metro Atlanta Amphibian Monitoring Program), you can sign up for training here.

This episode is part of Nature Quest, our monthly segment that brings you a question from a fellow listener who is noticing a change in the world around them.

Send a voice memo to [email protected] telling us your name, location and a question about a change you’re seeing in nature – it could be our next Nature Quest episode!

Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave.

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There’s an ongoing, near-total blackout of the internet in Iran. The shutdown is part of a response by the government to ongoing protests against rising inflation and the value of the nation’s currency plummeting. Since protests began more than two weeks ago, only an estimated 3% of Iranians have stayed online through the satellite internet system Starlink. Doing so is a crime. So, today on the show: Iran offline. We get into how the internet works, how a government can shut it down and how scientists are monitoring the nation’s connectivity from afar.

Check out more of NPR's coverage of Iran: 

- Iran Protests Explained

- There's an internet blackout in Iran. How are videos and images getting out?

- Iran blocked the internet amid deadly protests. Some voices are still getting through

Interested in more science behind the headlines? Email us your question at [email protected] – we may tackle it in a future episode!

Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave.

This episode was produced by Berly McCoy, edited by Rebecca Ramirez and fact checked by Tyler Jones. Robert Rodriguez was the audio engineer.

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A new study shows penguins are breeding earlier than ever in the Antarctic Peninsula. This region is one of the fastest-warming areas of the world due to climate change, and penguins time their breeding period to environmental conditions. That’s everything from the temperature outside and whether there’s ice on the ground to what food is available. Changes in those conditions could contribute to mating changes. Plus, answers to a debate about how ice melts and how dirty diapers train parents in the art of disgust. 


Have a scientific question you want us to answer? Email us at [email protected].


Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave.


Listen to Short Wave on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. 


This episode was produced by Jason Fuller and Rachel Carlson. It was edited by Rebecca Ramirez and Christopher Intagliata. Tyler Jones checked the facts. The audio engineers were Kwesi Lee and Hannah Gluvna.

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