Would you survive as a doctor in The Sims 4? What's an appropriate amount of free food to take from a public sample station before it's greedy? And how much do clock towers affect sleep? These are the types of questions answered in the Christmas issue of The BMJ — one of the journal's most highly anticipated issues each year. And we find out the answers in this very episode. So, sit back, relax and prepare to be amused by this ghost of Christmas Past (encore).

Check out what's been published so far in the 2023 issue. (We particularly like the research about the associated health risks and benefits of various Great British Bakeoff Ingredients.)

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This Holiday, Dig Into Some Of The Hilarious Science Of Christmas BMJs Past

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.

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Ten years ago, Flint, Mich. switched water sources to the Flint River. The lack of corrosion control in the pipes caused lead to leach into the water supply of tens of thousands of residents. Pediatrician Mona Hanna-Attisha recognized a public health crisis in the making and gathered data proving the negative health impact on Flint's young children. In doing so, she and community organizers in Flint sparked a national conversation about lead in the U.S. water system that persists today. 

Today on the show, host Emily Kwong and science correspondent Pien Huang talk about the state of Flint and other cities with lead pipes. Efforts to replace these pipes hinge on proposed changes to the EPA's Lead and Copper Rule. 

Have questions or comments for us to consider for a future episode? Email us at shortwave@npr.org — we'd love to hear from you!

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10 Years After Flint, The Fight To Replace Lead Pipes Continues

NPR's Tom Dreisbach is back in the host chair for a day. This time, he reports on a story very close to home: The years-long battle his parents have been locked in with the local wild beaver population. Each night, the beavers would dam the culverts along the Dreisbachs' property, threatening to make their home inaccessible. Each morning, Tom's parents deconstructed those dams — until the annual winter freeze hit and left them all in a temporary stalemate.

As beaver populations have increased, so have these kinds of conflicts with people...like Tom's parents. But the solution may not be to chase away the beavers. They're a keystone species that scientists believe could play an important role in cleaning water supplies, creating healthy ecosystems and alleviating some of the effects of climate change. So, today, Tom calls up Jakob Shockey, the executive director of the non-profit Project Beaver. Jakob offers a bit of perspective to Tom and his parents, and the Dreisbachs contemplate what a peaceful coexistence with these furry neighbors might look like.

Have questions or comments for us to consider for a future episode? Email us at shortwave@npr.org — we'd love to hear from you!

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Beavers Can Help With Climate Change. So How Do We Get Along?

Roughly 196 million tons of fish were harvested in 2020, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The organization also notes that the number of overfished stocks worldwide has tripled in the last century.  All of this overfishing has led to the decline of entire species, like Atlantic cod.  

Enter the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch. It and other free guides give consumers an overview of the world of fish and seafood, helping people to figure out the most sustainable fish available to them. With the help of Life Kit's Clare Marie Schneider, we figure out how to make informed decisions about what we eating – whether that's at a restaurant or the local supermarket.

Check out more from Life Kit on sustainable seafood.

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Sustainable Seafood Is All Around You — If You Know Where To Look

When the dinosaurs walked the Earth, massive marine reptiles swam. Among them, a species of Ichthyosaur that measured over 80 feet long. Today, we look into how a chance discovery by a father-daughter duo of fossil hunters furthered paleontologist's understanding of the "giant fish lizard of the Severn." Currently, it is the largest marine reptile known to scientists.

Read more about this specimen in the study published in the journal PLOS One. 

Have another ancient animal or scientific revelation you want us to cover? Email us at shortwave@npr.org — we might talk about it on a future episode!

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An 11-Year-old Unearthed Fossils Of The Largest Known Marine Reptile

500 million years ago, the world was a very different place. During this period of time, known as the Cambrian period, basically all life was in the water. The ocean was brimming with animals that looked pretty different from the ones we recognize today — including a group of predatory worms with a throat covered in teeth and spines. 

Researchers thought these tiny terrors died out at the end of the Cambrian period. But a paper published recently in the journal Biology Letters showed examples of a new species of this worm in the fossil record 25 million years after scientists thought they'd vanished from the Earth. One of the authors of the paper, Karma Nanglu, tells us how this finding may change how scientists understand the boundaries of time. 

Curious about other weird wonders of the ancient Earth? Email us at shortwave@npr.org.

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This Holiday, Dig Into Some Of The Hilarious Science Of Christmas BMJs Past

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