Science

United States' Katie Ledecky competes in the women's 800-meter freestyle final at the Summer Olympics.

Can Olympic swimmers blame the pool for fewer records this year?

In the last week, we've seen swimmers diving headfirst into the 2024 Paris Olympics pool, limbs gracefully slicing through the water. And yet, world and Olympic records weren't broken at quite the rate some expected, leading many on social media to speculate: Was the pool the culprit? With the help of NPR correspondents Bill Chappell and Brian Mann, we investigate.

Read Bill Chappell's full story about this here.

Want us to cover the science behind more Olympic sports? Email us at shortwave@npr.org. We'd love to hear from you!

Listen to Short Wave on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
QueueListen Now
The horn antenna in Holmdel, NJ used in the 1960s by Bell Labs scientists Penzias and Wilson, who accidentally discovered the cosmic microwave background (CMB).

What the "background noise of the universe" tells us about spacetime's origins

The Big Bang: The moment when our universe — everything in existence — began....Right?

Turns out, it's not quite that simple.

Today, when scientists talk about the Big Bang, they mean a period of time – closer to an era than to a specific moment. Host Regina Barber talks with two cosmologists about the cosmic microwave background, its implications for the universe's origins and the discovery that started it all.

Interested in more space science? Email us at shortwave@npr.org.
QueueListen Now