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.

Want to hear more about the complex road of evolution? Send us an email 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.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

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.

Want more of the science behind your health questions? Send us an email 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.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

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.

Want to hear more about nature's superpowers? Send us an email 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.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

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.

Want to hear more about exoplanet discoveries? Send us an email 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.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

This week, we've heard from researchers trying to untangle the effects of the "trip" that often comes with psychedelics and ketamine from the ways these drugs might change the human brain. For part three of our series on psychedelic drug research, we get a glimpse into why some researchers are taking the "trip" out of these drugs altogether. You don't need to have heard the previous two episodes to understand this episode on what could be next for psychedelic medicine.

Catch the rest of this series on psychedelics and related drugs this week by following us on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. They're the previous two episodes in our podcast feed.

Have other questions about psychedelics and the brain? Let us know by emailing [email protected]!

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

What if you could get all the potential benefits of ketamine without the "trip"? For part two of our series on psychedelics, we look at how some researchers are trying to disentangle the "trip" from the drugs' effects on the brain — and why the answer could help direct the future of psychedelic research. (Spoiler alert: People generally know if they're tripping or not.) This episode: a researcher navigating this challenge by putting his patients to sleep.

Catch the rest of this series on psychedelics and related drugs this week by following us on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Have other questions about psychedelics and the brain? Let us know by emailing [email protected]!

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

Researchers are studying psychedelics as a possible treatment for conditions like depression, PTSD and substance use disorders. But they don't know exactly how these drugs work.

Getting the answer to this question is especially difficult when people often take psychedelics like LSD and psilocybin for the "trip."

This week on Short Wave, we're talking to researchers about how they're trying to untangle the effects of this "trip" from the ways psychedelics might change the human brain ... and why the answer could help direct the future of psychedelic research.

Catch the rest of this series on psychedelics and related drugs this week by following us on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Have other questions about psychedelics and the brain? Let us know by emailing [email protected]!

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

Running an entire marathon takes a lot of energy. Neuroscientist Carlos Matute knows this: he's run 18 of them. He wondered how runners' bodies get the energy they need to make it to the finish line.

His new research in the journal Nature Metabolism may be the first step in answering the question – and suggests their brains might be (temporarily) depleting a fatty substance that coats nerve cells called myelin.

Have other questions about the brain? Let us know by emailing [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.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

Each year, the United States has about 1,200 tornadoes. Many of them happen in tornado alley, a very broad swath of the U.S. that shifts seasonally. This area gets at least ten times more tornadoes than the rest of the world. Science writer Sushmita Pathak says that huge difference can be chalked up to one word: geography. But there's a slice of South America with similar geographical features that gets comparatively fewer tornadoes, so what gives? Sushmita wades into the research weeds with guest host Berly McCoy, one of Short Wave's producers.

Read Sushmita's full article on tornadoes that she wrote for the publication Eos.

Have other science weather stories you think we should cover on the show? Let us know by emailing [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.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

Most iguanas are indigenous to the Americas. So how did the Fijian species end up on the island, nearly 5000 miles away in the South Pacific? According to a new study in the journal PNAS, it was probably via raft ... that is, on clump of floating trees.

And this rafting hypothesis isn't entirely unprecedented. After hurricanes Luis and Marilyn hit the Caribbean in the 1990s, researchers found that a group of iguanas had floated over 180 miles away from Guadeloupe to the territory of Anguilla.

Want to hear more about iguanas? Or rafts? Or evolutionary biology? 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.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

It seems like artificial intelligence is everywhere in our virtual lives. It's in our search results and our phones. But what happens when AI moves out of the chat and into the real world? NPR science editor and correspondent Geoff Brumfiel took a trip to the Intelligence through Robotic Interaction at Scale Lab at Stanford University to see how scientists are using AI to power robots and the large hurdles that exist for them to perform even simple tasks.

Read Geoff's full story.

Interested in more AI stories? Email us your ideas at [email protected].

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy