The Pulse
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The Pulse
Go on an adventure into unexpected corners of the health and science world each week with award-winning host Maiken Scott. The Pulse takes you behind the doors of operating rooms, into the lab with some of the world's foremost scientists, and back in time to explore life-changing innovations. The Pu...
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When Love Becomes Caregiving: How Illness Changes Relationships
Over 60 million Americans — or one in four adults — currently serve as family caregivers for partners, parents, or other loved ones with illness or di...
Already Forgotten About Your New Year’s Resolution? Here’s Why
The signs are all there — the perfectly packed gym bag is collecting dust in your closet, the kitchen pantry has quietly been refilled with junk food,...
Hello? From Bell’s First Call to Gen Z’s Telephobia: 150 Years of the Telephone
When Alexander Graham Bell made the first-ever phone call on March 10, 1876, he never could have dreamed how the telephone would evolve — not to menti...
Beyond Anthropomorphism: The Science of Animal Emotions
Do animals feel love, anger, or empathy? Researchers have long dismissed such ideas as anthropomorphism, arguing that attributing human emotions to an...
Revenge Feels Great — But the Cost is High
When someone wrongs us, getting revenge can feel like the only right move — the only way for us to balance the scales, to set the world right again. B...
Will My Doctor Be a Bot? AI and the Future of Medicine
Artificial Intelligence is already guiding surgeons in operating rooms; it’s used to read image scans or take notes during your doctor’s visit. And th...
Finding Your Match: The Science of Love and Attraction
For those deep in the dating trenches, love and attraction can feel like uncrackable riddles. How do I make myself attractive to others? How do you kn...
Closing the Gap: Improving Health Outcomes for Black Americans
When it comes to serious health issues like obesity, heart disease, and cancer, Black Americans have higher rates and worse outcomes than most other g...
From Buzz to Burnout: How Alcohol Affects the Brain and Body
At the best of times, alcohol makes us feel great — relaxed and gregarious, warm and fuzzy, happy and confident. But at the worst of times, it can mor...
Challenger at 40: How the Disaster Shaped the Future of NASA
On January 28, 1986, a frigid cold day with an icy blue sky, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded just 73 seconds after launching from Cape Canaveral...
Triumph, Tragedy and Ennui: Three NASA Missions That Shaped the Future of Space Exploration
Space exploration relies heavily on the interest of the public — the voters, and taxpayers, who are ultimately footing the bill. But that support and...
The Weird Menopause Symptoms No One Ever Told You About — And How to Treat Them
If you go by pop culture depictions, menopause seems like no big deal — a few hot flashes, some comical bouts of hormone-fueled rage, and the “big cha...
From Soy to Carbs: How Food can Ease Menopause Symptoms
Capsule wardrobes have become a popular way to streamline and organize your closet — basically, paring it down to a few staple pieces that you can com...
Engineering Happiness into our Daily Lives
Think about the last time you were really happy — where were you? What were you doing? Who were you with? And, most importantly, how can you recreate...
How Noise Affects Our Health
For a lot of us, noise is a constant factor — an inescapable soundtrack playing on loop in the background. Kids screaming, sirens blaring, the roar of...
Inside the Dramatic Race to Decode the Human Genome
Twenty-five years ago, President Bill Clinton stood before a podium in the East Room of the White House, and, in front of an all-star lineup of resear...
When Should Patients Decide for Themselves?
As patients, we often wonder what our role should be when it comes to getting better. Should we research options, get second opinions, and ask lots of...
Searching for the Truth — and Finding Unexpected Answers
In 1973, Stanford psychologist David Rosenhan published a bombshell paper called “On Being Sane in Insane Places.” In the paper, Rosenhan described fa...
Inside the Hidden Wonders of the Shrinking Arctic
Over the course of 20 years, writer Neil Shea explored the awe-inspiring landscape of the Arctic. He saw narwhals poking their tusks above the water,...
Why Nurturing Connection is Good for Your Health
So often, our relationships take a backseat to everything else on our to-do lists — but new research shows that nurturing personal connections plays a...
November 20, 2025
Ahead of Thanksgiving, we do a deep dive into what we actually know about diet, and what we should and shouldn’t be eating. We talk with a nutrition a...
How to 'Engineer' Your Dreams and End Nightmares
How do our dreams connect to health, and how could “dream engineering” help people get over nightmares? Researcher Michelle Carr writes about that in...
How Chatbots Make Us Feel
Chatbots don’t have feelings of their own, but they’ve been stirring plenty of emotions in us humans. On this episode, we explore how AI is making us...
How Veterans Find Healing After War
On this Veterans Day episode, we explore the invisible wounds of war — and the different paths veterans take to heal them. We talk with a Marine Corps...
Cybercrime and How Hackers Prey on Human Nature
Cybercrime has been around for as long as computers have — but over the past 20 years, it's exploded into a global threat, with staggering financial,...
Coca-Cola and a Secret Research Operation Meant to Exonerate Sugar
Coca-Cola is launching a cane sugar version of its classic soda in the U.S. after President Donald Trump urged a switch from high fructose corn syrup....
Searching for Ghosts: The Quest to Prove the Paranormal
Ghosts seem far out of the realm of science. But small groups of investigators remain committed to proving — or disproving — the existence of paranorm...
Inside the Boom of Urgent Care: How It’s Changing American Medicine
If it feels like urgent care centers are everywhere these days — that’s because they are. Over the past decade, they’ve exploded in popularity, offeri...
How David Fajgenbaum Found His Own Treatment & Launched Every Cure
What if treatments or even cures for devastating rare diseases already existed — and were just waiting to be discovered? On this podcast extra, we div...
Finding Focus in the Age of Distraction
We often think of digital distractions, from TikTok to newsfeeds, as a way of giving our brains a break. But in reality, they could be doing the oppos...
The Search for the Golden Toad and Other Adventures in the Wild
Many adventurers and researchers feel the call of the wild — a force tugging them to explore, climb distant mountains, venture into faraway forests, a...
Lessons on Weight Loss from ‘The Biggest Loser’
In its heyday, “The Biggest Loser” was one of the biggest shows on TV. But now, nine years after it went off the air, a Netflix docuseries and new bo...
The Science and Beauty of Muscles
Most of us take our muscles for granted, but they play a bigger role in our physical and mental health than most people realize. On this encore episod...
The Science of Attraction and Dating
When we see surprising couples, like Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson, we can’t help but wonder what brought them together. In this podcast extra, we e...
Mars Mania: How America Became Obsessed with Mars
We think of Martians as belonging to the realm of sci-fi — but in the early 1900s, a radical idea swept the nation, scientists included: that Martians...
Why It’s Time to Rethink Productivity
It seems like we’re all constantly striving to be more productive — to find the right hacks or systems or habits that will allow us to squeeze more fr...
Back to School in a Rapidly Changing World
It’s back-to-school time, which, for millions of families across the country, means a return to bedtimes, shopping for school supplies, and frantic ef...
How Scientists Discovered Legionnaires' Disease
In the summer of 1976, when 2,000 people came to Philadelphia for a national convention of the American Legion, a strange illness gripped hundreds of...
Protecting the People Who Grow Our Food
Farming is a tough gig — physically, and mentally. And it’s only gotten harder in recent years, with the impact of climate change and a shifting poli...