2024 was full of science news. There was a total solar eclipse, the Paris Olympics, elections in the United States and elsewhere, technological breakthroughs and many space launches. But perhaps above all, it was a huge year in health. So, today, we're talking through some of 2024's biggest health stories — from what's in our drinking water supply, to bird flu, obesity drugs and this year's record heat. They're also the stories we think will continue to be big in 2025. See you in the new year, Short Wavers! Questions or suggestions for what else we should cover? Email us at [email protected]! 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
Chapter 1: What were the biggest health stories of 2024?
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Hey, short wavers, 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 memification 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 realize 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 Huang on deck to talk through.
Yeah, I mean, there are so many buckets to look into, from forever chemicals to lead to 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, it's looking like it.
Third, we have Sidney Lepkin to talk all things obesity drugs, which seem to have gotten more and more popular ever since we first heard the word ozempic.
Yeah, even though, as we'll get into later, Ozempic is a diabetes drug.
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Chapter 2: What contaminants are in our drinking water supply?
And to their surprise, they discovered it would take just one mutation. They were expecting it would take three.
Oh, gosh.
That's right. So this doesn't mean there's going to be a pandemic tomorrow. There would have to be other changes in the virus to help it spread easily between humans. Scientists have an idea of what some of those can be. Others are kind of unknown at this point.
A big thing we're watching, especially as flu season is underway, is that a person who is infected with seasonal influenza, you know, which humans catch all the time, could also be co-infected with bird flu. And that could lead to a process of genetic mixing known as reassortment. And this has been a key process in previous influenza pandemics. It's possible this could happen in a person.
It's possible it could happen in a pig. These are some of the things we're watching as bird flu stretches into the next year.
Yeah. Oh, OK. Well, we're going to move on to Sydney and we're going to talk about obesity drugs like Wegovi or Ozempic being used off label. Can you help us unpack why it seems like it's everywhere?
I mean, because it kind of is everywhere and there's data to back that up. Brand name Wegovi sales have been increasing, for example, and the companies that make these drugs have been ramping up production to deal with the fact that they initially weren't able to meet this huge demand. And ZocDoc says more patients are trying to book appointments to ask about these drugs than really ever before.
Do you mind just like talking about like how do they work? Like Ozempic started as a diabetes drug. How did it and these other like permutations end up being like effective for weight loss?
Yeah, sure. So that's a fair question. So they work basically by mimicking a hormone in the body that tells the pancreas to make more insulin, and that lowers blood sugar, and that keeps you feeling full, things like that. So it started as a diabetes drug, but it has been super effective at helping people lose weight. Mm-hmm.
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Chapter 3: How is bird flu affecting us in 2024?
And recently we had you on as a kind of like retro what happened at the latest international climate talks negotiation COP 29. In that episode, you mentioned that in the coming year, countries have to submit like a target for how to reach their climate goals or targets. Is that the next big thing on the horizon for you to be reporting on?
Yeah, that's definitely a big thing for 2025. Like you said, next year's annual climate conferences, the COPs, it's going to be a big one. And countries are coming up with new plans for how to cut emissions right now that they'll be rolling out in the next couple of months.
And those new goals, they're going to need to be much more ambitious than the ones that exist already, if there's any hope of keeping warming below 1.5 or even 2 C. And then, of course, there's a really big question mark right now about what the U.S. will do climate-wise. President-elect Trump has said that he'll pull the U.S. back out of the Paris Agreement.
That's something he did during his first term in office, too. And some of the people that Trump has nominated to run federal agencies are saying that they want to eliminate a lot of the climate-focused programs that have been developed in the last couple years. So we'll all be following these efforts at the federal level to de-emphasize climate action.
But at the same time, we also expect there to be a lot more action happening at the state and local level, which is really interesting. Thank you.
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Chapter 4: What role do obesity drugs play in health discussions?
Okay, well, Alejandra, Sydney, Will, Ping, thank you all for coming on the show to recap this big year of science. It's been awesome. Thanks so much.
Yeah, really glad to be here. Thank you so much.
Thanks, guys. This episode was produced by Jessica Young and edited by our showrunner, Rebecca Ramirez, as well as Sadie Babbitts and Scott Hensley. Rebecca and Tyler Jones check the facts. Kweisi Lee was the audio engineer. Beth Donovan is our senior director, and Colin Campbell is our senior vice president of podcasting strategy. I'm Regina Barber.
Thank you for listening to SureWave, the science podcast from NPR. See you next year.