The plight of penguins in Antarctica

Short Wave

NPR

Nature, News, Astronomy, Science, Daily News, Life Sciences

4.7 • 6.5K Ratings

🗓️ 23 January 2026

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

A new study shows penguins are breeding earlier than ever in the Antarctic Peninsula. This region is one of the fastest-warming areas of the world due to climate change, and penguins time their breeding period to environmental conditions. That’s everything from the temperature outside and whether there’s ice on the ground to what food is available. Changes in those conditions could contribute to mating changes. Plus, answers to a debate about how ice melts and how dirty diapers train parents in the art of disgust.

Have a scientific question you want us to answer? 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.

Listen to Short Wave on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

This episode was produced by Jason Fuller and Rachel Carlson. It was edited by Rebecca Ramirez and Christopher Intagliata. Tyler Jones checked the facts. The audio engineers were Kwesi Lee and Hannah Gluvna.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.
0:05.7	Hey, Short Waver, is Regina Barber here.
0:07.7	And Emily Kwong with our biweekly Science News Roundup featuring the hosts of all things considered.
0:13.4	And today we have the glamorous, the brilliant Elsa Chang.
0:16.8	Aw, thank you guys.
0:18.8	Hi, Elsa.
0:19.6	So glad to be here.
0:21.5	Okay, so I heard that we are talking about penguins adapting to climate change in the Antarctic today.
0:26.7	Yes.
0:27.3	And we're going to get into a debate about ice skating that may now have an answer.
0:32.2	Huh.
0:32.6	And how dirty diapers train parents in the art of disgust.
0:36.2	Oh, interesting. I can't wait. All of that on this art of disgust. Oh, interesting.
0:38.4	I can't wait.
0:39.6	All of that on this episode of Shortwave, the science podcast from NPR.
0:52.9	Okay, kick us off with the Antarctic penguins.
0:58.4	What's going on with these guys?
0:59.9	So a new study in the Journal of Animal Ecology found that they're breeding earlier than ever in the Antarctic Spring.
1:06.9	Adeli and Chinstrap penguins are breeding an average of 10 days earlier.
1:11.4	And Gen 2 penguins, almost two weeks earlier.
1:13.9	Over the decade, the researchers observe them.
1:16.6	And while two weeks may not seem like a lot of time, researchers say it's actually a radical shift in the penguins' breeding season.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.