Short Wave Folgen

The mineral zircon is the oldest known piece of Earth existing on the surface today. The oldest bits date back as far as 4.37 billion years — not too far from the age of Earth itself at about 4.5 billion years old. And, unlike other minerals, zircon is hard to get rid of. This resilience enables scientists to use zircon to determine when major geological events on Earth happened. As part of our series on time, host Aaron Scott talks to science correspondent Nell Greenfieldboyce about why this mineral is often considered a geologic clock and has earned the nickname "Time Lord." This episode is part of our series, "Finding Time — a journey through the fourth dimension to learn what makes us tick." Read more of Nell's reporting on zircon here. Curious about other aspects of our universe? Email us at ShortWave@NPR.org.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

When Dr. Chloé Schmidt was a PhD student in Winnepeg, Canada, she was studying wildlife in urban areas. She and her advisor Dr. Colin Garroway came across a 2020 paper that posed a hypothesis: If the echos of systemic racism affect the human residents of neighborhoods and cities, then it should affect the wildlife as well. Short Wave Scientist in Residence Regina G. Barber talks to Chloé and Colin about their findings of how redlining and biodiversity are intertwined.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

From space, it looks almost elegant: a narrow plume cascading off the Pacific Ocean, spilling gently over the California coast. But from the ground, it looks like trouble: flash flooding, landslides and power outages. California is enduring the effects of an atmospheric river, a meteorological phenomenon where converging air systems funnel wet air into a long, riverine flow that dumps large amounts of rain when it makes landfall. "Atmospheric rivers can transport volumes of water many times that of the Mississippi River," says Dr. Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with UCLA, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and the Nature Conservancy of California. Daniel joined Short Wave's Aaron Scott to explain where these "rivers" of air come from, how climate change is fueling more of them, and why you're a lot more likely to have heard of them if you happen to live on the west coast of almost any continent.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy