Short Wave Folgen

In its first 50 days, the Trump administration made sweeping changes to scientific arms of the government like the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Food and Drug Administration. The president issued executive orders to terminate all work that was related to DEI, environmental justice and gender inclusivity. In response, research was halted and thousands of people were fired — some of which was reversed. It's a lot to keep track of, so we called in reinforcements. Here to recount it all and analyze what these ongoing changes mean for the future of scientific research in the United States are NPR science correspondents Rob Stein, Pien Huang and Jonathan Lambert. Want to hear more about policy changes affecting science? Let us know by emailing shortwave@npr.org! We're also always open to other story ideas you have.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/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Tourists to Antarctica are fueling research on some of the tiniest, most influential organisms on Earth: phytoplankton. These itty bitty critters make their own food and are the base of the food web in most of the ocean, but tracking how well they're doing is historically tricky. So, researchers with the program FjordPhyto are using samples collected by these tourists to understand how the balance of power in the Antarctic food web could be shifting — could ripple across the food web of the entire ocean. Want to hear more community science at work or about polar ecosystems? Let us know by emailing shortwave@npr.org! We're also always open to other story ideas you have. <3 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/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Archeologists know early humans used stone to make tools long before the time of Homo sapiens. But a new discovery out this week in Nature suggests early humans in eastern Africa were also using animal bones – one million years earlier than researchers previously thought. The finding suggests that these early humans were intentionally shaping animal materials – like elephant and hippopotamus bones – to make tools and that it could indicate advancements in early human cognition. Want more on early human history? Email us at shortwave@npr.org. Listen to Short Wave on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy