From starfish and sea slugs to jellyfish and sponges, the ocean's invertebrates are some of the most ancient and diverse critters on Earth. And so are their superpowers, as marine biologist Drew Harvell calls their unique abilities. In her new book, The Ocean's Menagerie, she chronicles the amazing abilities of some of these spineless creatures and showcases how they've inspired our science and medicine.

Listen to our past episode on nudibranchs — the potent slugs of the sea — HERE.

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Some scientists are convinced that beyond Neptune, there's a planet they've yet to see. This so-called "Planet 9" is so far away, it would be a faint object. The stretch of sky researchers would have to search is huge. But a new astronomical facility on a mountaintop in Chile could help tackle the search. The NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory has been under construction for years. Now, scientists are finetuning its instruments so the telescope can begin its 10-year mission of taking images of almost the entire southern sky.

Read more of science correspondent Nell Greenfieldboyce's reporting here.

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A fish walks into a pharmacy ... well, not exactly. Fish aren't being prescribed anti-anxiety drugs. But they are experiencing the effects. Researchers have found more than 900 different pharmaceutical ingredients in rivers and streams around the world, though they're not yet sure how this could change the behavior of fish and other aquatic animals in the wild.
"We can't, you know, dump a bunch of pharmaceuticals into the river," says Jack Brand, biologist at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. Instead, Jack's team did the next best thing – with some surprising results.

This episode was reported by NPR science correspondent Jon Lambert. Check out more of his reporting.

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Welcome!! This is the first episode of Nature Quest, a monthly Short Wave segment that answers listener questions about your local environment. This month, we hear from a listener in California who's concerned that the flowers in his neighborhood are blooming way, way earlier. Is that normal? And is climate change the culprit? Short Wavers Emily Kwong and Hannah Chinn investigate.

Got a question about changes in your local environment? Send a voice memo to [email protected] with your name, where you live and your question. We might make it into our next Nature Quest episode!

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As global warming continues and space technology improves, there is more and more talk about the growing possibility of a sci-fi future in which humans become a multiplanetary species. Specifically, that we could live on Mars.

Biologist Kelly Weinersmith and cartoonist Zach Weinersmith have spent four years researching what life on Mars would look like if we did it anytime soon. In their book A City On Mars, they get into all sorts of questions: How would we have babies in space? How would we have enough food? They join host Regina G. Barber and explain why it might be best to stay on Earth.

Check out Kelly and Zach Weinersmith's book A City On Mars.

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The male European fiddler crab attracts his mate by performing a courtship dance. New research published in the Journal of Experimental Biology says that dance isn't just notable for its visuals — it's notable for its vibrations, too.
Researchers observed four different stages of the crab's courtship dance, each stage escalating the amount of seismic vibrational output. "It's 'come and find me in my underground house, ladies,'" says Beth Mortimer, a study author and biologist at the University of Oxford.

Interested in more seismic vibration communication? Send us an email at [email protected].

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A recent series of studies suggests that the brains of birds, reptiles and mammals all evolved independently — even though they share a common ancestor. That means evolution has found more than one way to make a complex brain, and human brains may not be quite as special as we think. To learn more about this, we talk to Fernando García-Moreno about this series of studies he co-authored that came out in Science in February.

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Plants are blooming right now – and so are people's allergies. And if it feels like those pesky symptoms are getting worse ... you're probably right. Wednesday, a review published in the journal The Laryngoscope looked at the link between climate change and increasing rates of allergic rhinitis, or hay fever. So today, we turn back to a classic Short Wave episode from Brit Hanson and Maddie Sofia, who spoke to allergy expert Dr. Juanita Mora about some quick tips for managing seasonal allergies.

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Did you know there's an insect that can fling its pee 40 times faster than a cheetah accelerates? We did — thanks to a comic from the Bhamla Lab at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Since 2020, principal investigator Saad Bhamla has been leading the charge to make science more accessible by publishing comics alongside every paper his lab publishes. Today, he introduces Emily to two of the most popular characters — Sheriff Sharpshooter and Captain Cicada — and shares why a comic about butt-flicking insects is a valuable way to take science beyond the lab.

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Dune. Star Wars. Alien. Science fiction movies love alien worlds, and so do we. But how do scientists find planets outside our solar system in real life? One way is by looking for the stars that wiggle. Historically, astronomers have measured those wiggles via the Doppler method, carefully analyzing how the star's light shifts. Thanks to new data from the GAIA telescope, scientists have a much better picture of distant stars' wiggles — and the exoplanets that cause them.

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