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You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.

Hey, Shortwavers, it has been a year.

So many big events have happened.

I mean, recently we went through a whole election.

And back in April, there was a total solar eclipse over the United States for the first time in years.

Then there was the Paris Olympics where athletes from around the

world sought to get as close to define the laws of physics as possible. And then there was the

continued memeification of life, like Mudang, the Pygmy Hippo. The internet is obsessed with,

and honestly, I'm obsessed with too. It was part of my Halloween costume this year. And still,

we realized some of the biggest evolving stories of the year. They're all related to human health. So we're bringing

some of our coolest science reporters around to talk about this year's biggest stories.

One of those stories is what's in our drinking water supply, which we have Ping Wong on deck

to talk through.

Yeah, I mean, there are so many buckets to look into from forever chemicals to lead,

the fluoride. And we'll get to all of them briefly before turning to Will Stone, who we have

here to talk about bird flu, which we might need to know a lot more about next year, right, Will?

Hey there, yeah, unfortunately unfortunately it's looking like it.

Third, we have Sidney Lubkin to talk all things of obesity drugs, which seemed to have gotten

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