Language is how we connect — to each other, to the past, to the future — how we create culture, communicate ideas, and make decisions. Scientists are keen to discover more about how language works, and how we actually learn to talk. On this episode — why do some species have language, and others don’t? What can bird whistles teach us about the mechanics of language? What happens when the ability to communicate is disrupted? Also, a look at language itself, and how the internet is changing the way we communicate.

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It seems like every week, we hear about new breakthroughs in cancer treatment — new discoveries, new medications, new hopes for a cure. The war on cancer has been a slow and steady grind, with incremental progress that’s been built one study, one breakthrough at a time.

Behind each of those small but meaningful victories are years of unseen work — lifetimes spent studying specific cells, protein structures, gene mutations, and more.

On this episode, we take a look at some of the latest breakthroughs in cancer treatment, and the personal stories behind them. We hear about the tradeoffs with new lung cancer screenings, find out how immunotherapy is advancing, and talk with a veteran of cancer research about the big wins and grating frustrations.

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Left to their own devices, viruses are pretty much helpless. They need cells to infect in order to replicate. But they’re sneaky — many of them also manage to stick around long after we think they’re gone. When the immune system sets out to kill infected cells, many viruses hide and continue to cause problems. This aspect has come into much sharper focus during the pandemic, with thousands of people suffering serious symptoms months after first being diagnosed with COVID-19.

On this episode, we explore viruses — how they affect our bodies, and what happens when they stick around. We hear from a physician who’s treating long-haul COVID-19 patients, and find out from an immunologist how viruses manage to avoid and evade our body’s defense system. We’ll also explore how new research into the after-effects of viruses could benefit many people who are suffering with other little-understood conditions.

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Humans have been obsessed with Mars for thousands of years, but it wasn’t until the mid-20th century that we began to have actual breakthroughs in our journey to Mars. In July of 1965, NASA’s Mariner 4 captured high-definition pictures of Mars. It was at this point that we began to better observe and explore the red planet. But there is a hidden and sinister history of how NASA got here.

Jordan Bimm, historian of science technology and medicine, joins us to talk about Mars jars, the Cold War space race, and the German scientists with Nazi ties who helped the United States in the early days of NASA’s space program.

For thousands of years, humans have obsessed over Mars from afar. At first, maybe it was the fact that Mars stands out in the night sky because of its reddish color. But as we learned more about Mars and the conditions there, it was the possibility of life on this distant planet that captured our collective imagination. At its closest, Mars is nearly 40 million miles away from Earth — and we’ve tried for centuries to bridge that distance, using everything from telescopes to flybys and probes. Mars has inspired wild fantasies about distant civilizations and little green men. It’s put a spell on many observers, who hope to unlock its mysteries. On this special episode of The Pulse, we explore what we are learning about Mars, and when we can expect to actually see humans set foot on the red planet.

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Anxiety can feel like a buzzing electric current that fuels our thoughts and behaviors. There are the well-known symptoms — chest pains, rapid heartbeat, constant fidgeting, shortness of breath, nausea — but anxiety can also be sneaky, rearing its head in all different ways. For instance — maybe it shows up in the way you check your phone constantly, worried that a friend who hasn’t texted back has gotten in a car accident. Or it manifests in your constant chatter at the office, trying to mask the fact that you feel uncomfortable around others. Or it’s the endless doctor’s visits, trying to find some kind of physical reason for why you’re not feeling well.

On this episode, we explore the undercurrent of anxiety so many of us feel, how it impacts our behaviors, and what we can do about it. We hear stories about the unexpected relief from anxiety that some people have felt while working from home during the pandemic, the relationship between anxiety and uncertainty, and advice on how to get through it. We also hear how Maiken Scott attempts to reduce her own over-the-top startle response.

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Our sense of smell can bring us quick bursts of joy, like a whiff of bread baking, that freshly brewed cup of coffee, or your favorite perfume. But it’s also an important alarm system, alerting us to dangers ranging from gas leaks to spoiled food. Even though smell is such an important part of how we experience the world, it’s been studied far less than our other senses. This came into sharper focus during the pandemic, when COVID-19 left millions of people without their sense of smell, and without answers. On this episode, we explore our sense of smell and its connection to our health, emotions, and memory. We talk about the mechanics of smell, and how smell connects to our memories. We investigate whether humans emit pheromones that make them attractive to others. We meet a woman who’s struggled with parosmia — a distorted sense of smell — ever since she contracted COVID-19. And we visit a smell lab that deals with some of the worst smells on Earth — in an effort to contain them in space.

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Plastic gets a bad rap — over the years, it’s become synonymous with environmental destruction, cheap fakery, needless consumption, and mass-produced junk. But there’s a reason plastic is everywhere — it’s inexpensive, strong, and versatile; a shapeshifter that over the past century has revolutionized the way we live, from science and medicine to consumer goods.

So, what exactly is it that makes plastic both a miracle and a menace? On this episode, we explore the science behind the dual nature of plastic. We hear stories about how plastic shaped everything from our homes to women’s bodies; what’s standing in the way of creating greener plastics; and how waxworms and garbage dump bacteria could hold the key to breaking down our plastic waste.

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The United States spends more on health care than any other country in the world — and that spending is going up every year. In some respects, that’s good news, because it means that new treatments, medications, and tests are available, and people are living longer. But it also means that health care and insurance is getting more expensive. There’s always pressure to control or reduce costs and to find inefficiencies, which impacts patient care in so many ways. On this episode, we explore the complicated relationship between medicine and money. We hear about how financial pressures led to the closure of Philadelphia maternity wards — and the surprising results; the lengths one Canadian man goes to to get his life-saving meds; and the complicated financial realities of running a hospital.

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Artificial intelligence has seen huge advances in the last decade, very notably in the technology of natural language processing. NLP has gotten increasingly better at convincingly parroting us back to ourselves, and can sometimes briefly pass for human speech, and even write computer code. But, AI can only work with data that it receives from humans, and when the data is corrupt or biased, the systems will faithfully reproduce the corruption.

(Read the transcript for this episode.)