Learning how to be a parent can feel overwhelming, and advice is everywhere. There are the things you’re learning from other parents, the things you’re reading in books, the things you hear from your pediatrician, from influencers, from your great aunt Margaret … and in the meantime, you’re trying to develop your own instincts as a parent.

So who do you listen to? Who’s the real expert? And how much do these decisions ultimately matter to the health and well-being of your kid?

On this episode — navigating parenting advice, and what science can tell us about raising kids. We dig into advice about sleep, food allergies, how much influence parents actually have on their children, and how to raise kids who aren’t a**holes.

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Serum follows the life and work of Dr. Gary Davis, a Black physician from Tulsa, Oklahoma, who was working on a treatment for AIDS in the 1990s. This is episode 3: Red Flags and Green Lights.

Reporter Grant Hill gets in touch with one of the last people to have seen Dr. Davis’ serum in action, a Tulsa photographer named Doug Henderson. The conversation reveals that in 2004, Dr. Davis conducted human trials in Africa — enlisting the help of the photographer and celebrity Bishop Carton Pearson to document and publicize his work. What they witness is both astonishing and shocking: Trials with the doctor’s serum seem to leave participants completely recovered. But soon, things fall apart. Dr. Davis appears panicked and afraid for his life. He disappears. Rumors abound. Back in Oklahoma, the photographer is asked to erase all evidence that any of this ever happened. Then he gets word: The doctor is dead.

Serum, a limited-run podcast, is available wherever you listen to podcasts.

The modern ICU, or Intensive Care Unit, was born out of a time of crisis. It was 1952, and polio was raging in many places — especially the city of Copenhagen. Patients poured into the hospitals, many of them gasping for air, turning blue, and eventually dying. Then a brilliant doctor tried a radically different approach — pumping air directly into patients' lungs. It was an idea that would require intensive manpower, but save many lives. And it led to the birth of a new kind of medicine: intensive care. Seventy years later, ICUs sit at the cutting edge of modern medicine. They're the destination for the sickest patients — including those who're hovering at death's door — and home to some of medicine's most profound interventions. ICUs can be a place of pain and healing, of comfort and dying, a laboratory for innovation, or a sanctuary for grieving families. On this episode, we take a look at intensive care — its roots, what it's like to work there, and how the coronavirus pandemic has changed it.

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Science is all about discovery — tackling the big questions that define our world, and hopefully our future. But some of these questions are as obscure as they are important. The challenges seem endless — with any kind of answer decades or even generations away — but, if answered, these quests could transform life as we know it.

On this episode, we explore some of science’s holy grails — we look into why these questions matter, and how close they are to being answered, and meet the people who are leading the charge.

We hear stories about the search for extraterrestrial life, what fusion power could mean for the fate of our planet, humans’ quest for immortality, and more.

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It’s when a dark alleyway makes the hairs stand up on the back of our neck; when a mother just knows that something’s wrong with her kid; when you meet someone, and can tell they’ll either be your best friend — or your worst nightmare.

On the surface, intuition can seem a bit like magic — this unexplainable knowledge that pops in our heads, based on nothing but a feeling. But scientists say there’s more to intuition than just gut instinct. It’s about how our brains use years of accrued information to make predictions about what’s going to happen next — all on a subconscious level. But if we don’t know exactly how intuition works, how can we trust it — and should we trust it?

On this episode, we explore intuition — what it is, how we can harness it, and when to avoid it. We hear stories about the edge that human doctors have over AI, one woman’s incredible feat of motherly intuition, and why some people call intuitive eating the antidote to diet culture.

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In the fall of 2019, reporter Grant Hill jumped into a cab  — where his driver, Clyde Ashley Sherman, told him the story of a lifetime. Decades before, the driver had worked for a Black physician from Oklahoma named Gary Davis. In the 1990s, Davis developed a treatment for AIDS based on goat antibodies. The physician submitted his research to the FDA, but his clinical trial was shut down right before it was set to start. Frustrated, Davis went abroad to get his treatment off the ground. He got involved with some questionable characters to find financial support — and when he died unexpectedly, lots of questions remained.

Grant Hill spent more than two years on Davis’ trail — discovering a tangled story that spans decades and stretches into the innermost circles of power and fame. On this episode, we’ll hear an excerpt from our new podcast series “Serum,” which tells Davis’ story. We also talk to an infectious disease specialist who has worked on HIV research since the early days of this epidemic, and we’ll meet a couple that found love amid the AIDS crisis.

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Our lives depend on water — not just any water: clean, safe water. We need it for drinking, for cooking, for washing. And very often, we take it for granted. But in many parts of the world — including the U.S. — water is becoming a precious commodity.

The American West is currently experiencing a “megadrought,” which is rapidly draining important water supplies. That’s led one ranching community in Wyoming to seek out ways to protect their water sources. Emerging science is on their side — but the law isn’t.

On this episode, we talk about these and other people who are desperate to shore up and protect their water supply, and the conflicts that mission can bring. We hear stories about an environmental scientist who’s teaching other people how to source their own water, an eco-artist dedicated to empowering communities to know, restore, and preserve their waters, and more.

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Science is constantly propelling athletes to run faster, jump higher, push harder, and break records. Scientific advances have become such a big part of competitions that some critics say innovation is beginning to overshadow athleticism. On this episode, we explore the different ways in which science is shaping sports. We hear stories about high-tech gear and equipment, like running shoes with soles that contain highly-engineered foam, and find out how neuroscientists are trying to get into athletes’ heads to measure their performance. Also, how athletes are harnessing emotions for the win, and a look at the future of “robot umpires.”

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Imagine yourself out in nature — away from all the noise and the distractions of our lives. You can smell the rich scents of the forest, you can hear birds singing, the wind rustling the leaves, insects buzzing. It can feel calming, and invigorating. Now, imagine yourself alone in the forest for days, and weeks, looking for shelter from the elements and food to eat. That probably sounds more unsettling or scary than calming, right?

On this episode, we explore how our experiences in nature affect us — and change us. We hear from wilderness guide and “Alone” winner Jordan Jonas, about his stint in the Canadian wilderness and his legendary battle with a wolverine. We discuss the practice of forest bathing as a medical treatment, and science journalist Ed Yong explores how other animals experience the world around them.

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In 2018, journalist Linda Villarosa wrote an article in The New York Times Magazine that kicked off a national conversation about health disparities. It showed that Black mothers and their babies in the U.S. were dying at more than double the rate of their white peers, and it pulled back the curtain on how those statistics related to racism.

For Villarosa, it had been a long road linking health disparities to racism. In the beginning of her career, she was a big believer in self-help, thinking that better information and more education could close the health gap. But the more she reported on these issues, the more she came to understand how racism, discrimination, and bias affect health experiences and outcomes for Black Americans.

On this episode, we talk with Villarosa about her new book, “Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives and on the Health of Our Nation.”

We also meet a Black midwife in West Virginia and find out how she’s making a difference for her patients, and a med student who’s using TikTok to spread life-saving information.

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