Short Wave

Ahead of Election Day tomorrow, millions of ballots are being cast in statewide, local and special elections. So, today, we're revisiting an episode asking: What would happen if the rules of our elect...

Happy Halloween, Short Wavers! In today’s news round-up, we’ve got only treats. Hosts Regina Barber and Emily Kwong fill in NPR’s Ailsa Chang on a debate in spider web architecture, how the details sh...

Like haunted houses? Scientists do! That’s because they’re an excellent place to study how humans respond to – and even actively seek out – fear. In an immersive threat setting, as opposed to a carefu...

In the face of floods, wildfires and other natural disasters, when should a community relocate to avoid potential harm? Listener Molly Magid asks that very question. Molly wanted to know how other com...

People may think of hair loss as a guy thing. But by some estimates, half of all women experience hair loss in their lifetime. And when your social media algorithm gets a whiff? Good. Luck. There are ...

Parasites have roamed the Earth for a long time. They were here before the dinosaurs: The oldest fossils are more than 500 million years old. Today on the show, Regina G. Barber speaks with paleontolo...

Around this time of year, every night, a quiet exodus is occurring. Hundreds of millions of birds are migrating thousands of miles south for the winter. One of the biggest dangers for these tiny trave...

Tuberculosis – the world’s deadliest infectious disease – could be dormant in your system for years before you realize you have it. In the U.S., it’s relatively rare; provisional data shows that there...

Some scientists looking to preserve vulnerable species have turned to a controversial technique: synthetic biology. This catchall term often means genetic engineering – introducing new genes to an org...

The rate of smoking cigarettes has steadily declined since the 1960s – when Congress required warnings on cigarette boxes. Research shows that people are more likely to try to quit smoking when they’r...