Short Wave

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 [email protected]. We'd love to hear from you!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

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 [email protected]. We'd love to hear from you!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

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 [email protected]. We'd love to hear from you!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

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.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy