Emily Kwong
Emily Kwong (she/her) is the reporter for NPR's daily science podcast, Short Wave. The podcast explores new discoveries, everyday mysteries and the science behind the headlines — all in about 10 minutes, Monday through Friday.
Prior to working at NPR, Kwong was a reporter and host at KCAW-Sitka, a community radio station in Sitka, Alaska. She covered local government and politics, culture and general assignments, chasing stories onto fishing boats and up volcanoes. Her work earned multiple awards from the Alaska Press Club and Alaska Broadcasters Association. Prior to that, Kwong produced youth media with WNYC's Radio Rookies and The Modern Story in Hyderabad, India.
Kwong won the "Best New Artist" award in 2013 from the Third Coast/Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Competition for a story about a Maine journalist learning to speak with an electrolarynx. She was the 2018 "Above the Fray" Fellow, reporting a series for NPR on climate change and internal migration in Mongolia.
Kwong earned her bachelor's degree at Columbia University in 2012. She learned the finer points of cutting tape at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies in 2013.
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Early in the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, scientists predicted the SARS-CoV-2 virus would mutate slowly. They were wrong. Hundreds of thousands of viral mutations and multiple seasonal waves later, we now know why. -
It doesn't matter how full you are, you can always fit in a bite or two or three of pie and ice cream. Scientists say it has to due with special neurons in our brain that just can't get enough sugar. -
Move over, TikTokers. It's time to shine a spotlight on some of the earliest influencers around: dinosaurs. When these ecosystem engineers were in their heyday, forest canopies were open and seeds were small. But around the time most dinosaurs were wiped out, paleontologists noticed an interesting shift in the fossil record: Seeds got bigger — much bigger. There was a fruit boom. -
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 — 1 million years earlier than researchers previously thought. -
In this week's roundup of science news, Emily Kwong and Rachel Carlson talk about a newly discovered desert flower, tasting lemonade in virtual reality and prehistoric bone tools used by early humans.
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Producer Berly McCoy reports on the growing field of dog detection conservation that helps science by sniffing out everything from invasive crabs to diseased plants to endangered species. -
This week's Short Wave news roundup covers harvesting drinking water from fog, what elephant seals reveal about fish populations in the deep ocean, and why there's always room for dessert.
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NPR's Ailsa Chang talks with Emily Kwong and Regina Barber of Short Wave about the fluid dynamics of crowds, an early fossil of a modern bird and new data on how people's moods change through the day.
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At the same time as land is being cleared around the world to make room for agriculture, elsewhere farmland is being abandoned for nature to reclaim. But what happens when people let the land return to nature? -
Farts are funny and sometimes smelly. But are they a legitimate topic of research? More than 40% of people worldwide are estimated to suffer from some kind of functional gut disorder — from acid reflux, heartburn, indigestion, constipation and irritable bowel syndrome to inflammatory bowel disease. So, yes, freelance science writer Claire Ainsworth thinks so. Claire speaks with Emily about two teams of scientists studying intestinal gases, who she profiled in a recent New Scientist article — and why understanding people's gut microbiome through a fart-shaped window may help treat these conditions at the source. Read more of Claire's reporting for New Scientist.Have another bodily function you want us to explore or just want to report to us about a funny time you passed gas? Email us at shortwave@npr.org.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.
