Short Wave Folgen

Our friends at NPR's TED Radio Hour podcast have been pondering some BIG things — specifically, the connection between our physical, mental, and spiritual health. In this special excerpt, what if you could control a device, not with your hand, but with your mind? Host Manoush Zomorodi talks to physician and entrepreneur Tom Oxley about the implantable brain-computer interface that can change the way we think. Keep an eye on NPR's TED Radio Hour podcast feed the next few weeks, as they unveil the series.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

For the past few winters, researchers have been intentionally flying into snowstorms. And high in those icy clouds, the team collected all the information they could to understand—how exactly do winter storms work? With more accurate data could come more accurate predictions about whether a storm would cause treacherous conditions that shut down schools, close roads and cancel flights. NPR science correspondent Nell Greenfieldboyce recently took to the skies for one of these flights and shares her reporting with us today.Read more of Nell's reporting on this NASA effort: https://n.pr/3lk9utHWant to hear about other storm chasing happening in the name of science? Email us at shortwave@npr.org.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

As a leading expert on paleogenomics, Beth Shapiro has been hearing the same question ever since she started working on ancient DNA: "The only question that we consistently were asked was, how close are we to bringing a mammoth back to life?"In the second part of our conversation (listen to yesterday's episode), Beth tells Short Wave co-host Aaron Scott that actually cloning a mammoth is probably not going to happen. "But there are technologies that will allow us to resurrect extinct traits, to move bits and pieces of genes that might be adapted to a large animal like an elephant living in the Arctic."That is what companies like Colossal Biosciences and Revive and Restore are trying to do, with Beth's help. And she is leading the effort on another iconic extinct species, the dodo. In today's episode, how Beth Shapiro's initial work mapping the dodo genome laid the groundwork to bring back a version of it from extinction, and how the knowledge scientists gain from de-extinction could help protect species under threat now.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy