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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.

If you're hooked, try Short Wave Plus. Your subscription supports the show and unlocks a sponsor-free feed. Learn more at plus.npr.org/shortwave

Short Wave

The next four years may be challenging for foreign-born scientists who want to work in the United States. Foreign-born workers account for about half of the doctoral-level scientists and engineers working in the U.S., but the incoming Trump administration wants to make it harder for them to get H-1B visas. Some scientists worry a scarcity of H-1B visas may prompt top foreign researchers to work in other countries. 

If you liked this episode, consider checking out some more episodes on the brain, including the neuroscience of disagreements, fear and fruit flies. 

Questions or ideas you want us to consider for a future episode? Email us at shortwave@npr.org. We'd love to hear from you!

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Who Does Science? Under Trump, That Could Change

If you crossed WALL-E with a floor lamp, it might look a little like the PhytoPatholoBot. These robots aren't roving through space or decorating a living room — they're monitoring the stems, leaves and fruit of Cornell AgriTech's vineyards, rolling down each row and scanning for mildew.

In this episode, host Emily Kwong and producer Hannah Chinn take a trip to Cornell to check out these new robots. How do they work? How effective are they? And what do local grape farmers – and neighbors – think about them? 

Interested in more robotics stories? Email us at shortwave@npr.org. We'd love to hear from you!

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Grape Growers' Next Collaborators? Robots

Thor. Loki. Heimdall. They're not just Norse gods or Marvel characters. They're also the names of various Asgard archaea. These microscopic organisms are found all over the world, from marine sediment to mud volcanoes to hydrothermal vents. A growing body of research suggests we owe them an evolutionary debt. This episode, Emily and guest host Jon Hamilton explore the wild world of archaea: Where are they from? What do they do? And what can they tell us about the origins of life on earth? 

Interested in more stories about life's origins? Email us at shortwave@npr.org. We'd love to hear from you!

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In The Club, We All ... Archaea?

In the 1950s, scientists exposed a tin of meat to a dose of radiation that they expected would kill all forms of life. But one organism defied the odds and lived: Conan The Bacterium. Turns out this microorganism, known to science as Deinococcus radiodurans, is capable of surviving extreme levels of radiation — thousands of times the amount that would kill a human. So what's Conan's secret?

Want more stories about the microbial world? Let us know by emailing us at shortwave@npr.org!

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Conan The Bacterium's Superpower: Resisting Radiation

The federal government has been tracking the weather for more than 150 years. Yet over the last few decades, the rise of the Internet and big tech have made weather forecasting a more crowded space. Today, our colleagues at NPR's daily economics podcast The Indicator report on the value of an accurate forecast and the debate over who should control weather data. Follow The Indicator on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. 

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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What's A Weather Forecast Worth?

Racism is often covered as a political, cultural, or news story. But how is it affecting people's health? That's the question Cara Anthony, a KFF News reporter, wanted to answer: not just on an individual scale, but on a community-wide one. So for the past few years, she's been reporting on a small town in the Midwest that illustrates that health issue: Sikeston, Missouri. Today on the show, Cara walks host Emily Kwong through Sikeston's history — and what locals and medical experts have to say about how that history continues to shape the present. 

For more of Cara's reporting, you can check out KFF Health News' documentary and four-part podcast series, Silence in Sikeston.

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How Racism – And Silence – Could Hurt Your Health

AI uses a lot of power. Some of the next generation data centers may use as much power as one million U.S. households. Technology companies like Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Meta hope nuclear power will offer a climate solution for this energy use. Nuclear power plants can deliver hundreds of megawatts of power without producing greenhouse gas emissions. But some long-time watchers of the nuclear industry are skeptical that it's the right investment for big tech companies to make. 

Read more of science correspondent Geoff Brumfiel's reporting here. 

Interested in more stories about the future of energy? Email us at shortwave@npr.org. We'd love to hear from you!

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Why Big Tech Wants Nuclear Power

Old mines leave behind a a pressing problem: Huge holes that make the landscape look like a chunk of swiss cheese. But in Germany, some scientists and city planners are turning these into lakes. 

The largest one will be the biggest artificial lake in Germany when it's done, with a shoreline of 26 kilometers or about 16 miles all around. 

But it's not as easy as simply filling the holes with water. It takes a LOT of research to get this science right. 

Interested in more environmental stories? Email us at shortwave@npr.org. We'd love to hear from you!

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This Huge Mining Pit Is About To Be A Lake

Towana Looney became the first living person in the world to get a kidney from a new kind of genetically modified pig last month. Health correspondent Rob Stein got exclusive access to be in the operating room.

Towana is a 53-year-old grandmother from Gadsden, Ala. She's been on dialysis for four hours a day, three days a week since 2016. Her immune system would reject a human kidney. So the Food and Drug Administration made an exception to its usual clinical study requirements to allow Looney this new kind of pig kidney. But the procedure is controversial. 

Interested in more environmental stories? Email us at shortwave@npr.org. We'd love to hear from you!

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The First Woman To Get A New Kind Of Kidney Transplant

There are many statistics out there that prove that flying on a commercial airplane is safe, that plane crashes are overall pretty unlikely. Still, up to an estimated 40% of Americans feel some fear at the thought of flying. So, amid the travel rush of the holiday season, we ask MIT aeronautical engineer Mark Drela: How does a plane lift off and stay up in the air? 

Interested in more stories on physics? Email us at shortwave@npr.org. We'd love to hear from you!

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How Does An Airplane Stay In The Air?

BA.5 is now the dominant SARS-CoV-2 subvariant in the United States. It's driving up COVID cases and hospitalizations across the country. 

It's also causing quicker reinfections. More people appear to be contracting the virus multiple times in relatively quick succession. 

Today, host Emily Kwong talks with science correspondent Allison Aubrey about this dominant subvariant: What it means for mask mandates, "long COVID" — and why infectious disease experts think this wave will be more manageable than last winter's surge.

Got COVID questions? Email the show at shortwave@npr.org.

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BA.5: The Omicron Subvariant Driving Up Cases — And Reinfections

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