In this week's Short Wave roundup, Berly McCoy and Regina Barber talk about the origins of life on Earth, what bird brains illuminate about human speech and how ADHD is mischaracterized on TikTok.
This week in science: origins of life, birds speech, and how TikTok gets ADHD wrong MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: Time now for our science news roundup from Short Wave. That is NPR's science podcast. I'm joined by two of the show's reporters, Regina Barber and Berly McCoy. Howdy, you two. REGINA BARBER, BYLINE: Hey. BERLY MCCOY, BYLINE: Hey. KELLY: So thank you, once again, for bringing us three science stories that caught your attention this week. What are they? BARBER: The accuracy of TikTok videos about ADHD. MCCOY: How life may have come from little bits of lightning. BARBER: And why neuroscientists are studying parakeets to understand human speech. KELLY: Wow, I can't wait. OK, let's tackle them in order, which means we're starting with ADHD, so attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. I mean, I'll start by asking, is that actually a common topic of discussion on TikTok? MCCOY: Yeah, it's super common. So here's just a little sampling of what you might hear. (SOUNDBITE OF MONTAGE) UNIDENTIFIED TIKTOKKER #1: For those of you who have ADHD, who is your favorite... UNIDENTIFIED TIKTOKKER #2: Five less well-known ADHD behaviors with doodles. Let's go. No. 1... UNIDENTIFIED TIKTOKKER #3: ADHD behaviors you didn't know about, part two. BARBER: Yeah, and researchers wanted to take a closer look at some of these videos to see how accurate they were. KELLY: And how did they go about doing that? MCCOY: So they had clinical psychologists rate the 100 most popular ADHD videos at the time on accuracy, and they found less than half of the claims made in these videos aligned with the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or the DSM. This is a tool that mental health experts use to help diagnose and treat their patients. BARBER: Yeah, and none of the videos got a perfect score from clinicians. Many lacked nuance. Like, just because you listen to a song on repeat or you forget to text your friend back does not necessarily mean you have ADHD.…