The Pulse

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The Pulse episodes

March 04, 2022When to Trust Your Intuition
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.
Also heard on this week’s episode:
We talk with David Jaison, who offers us a peek behind the curtain of “mentalism” — a kind of performance art that uses a mix of psychology, showmanship, and intuition to surprise audiences.
Neuroscientist Joel Pearson breaks down the emerging science behind intuition — where it comes from, how it works, and when we should (and shouldn’t) trust our gut feelings. Pearson is the founder and director of Future Minds Lab at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.
Artificial intelligence may not have the best bedside manner, but it’s getting better and better at diagnosing and treating patients. So what does that mean for traditional MDs? Reporter Jad Sleiman explores the edge that human doctors have over AI — at least for now.
When Katie Pratt was 3 years old, she was diagnosed with a Chiari malformation, a rare condition in which the cerebellum bulges through an opening in the skull into the spinal canal. Katie’s mom, Wendy, had a hunch about what the solution would be — but it wasn’t until doctors opened up Katie’s skull that they discovered she was right. Katie interviews her mom about the experience, and her incredible flash of mother’s intuition.
You might’ve heard of intuitive eating, a practice that proponents are calling an antidote to both diet culture and disordered eating. Reporter Liz Tung talks with Elyse Resch, one of the founders of intuitive eating, and one young woman about how intuitive eating changed her relationship with food.
50 min
February 25, 2022How We Process Information
The human brain has an incredible capacity for processing information, from sensory data, to casual conversations, to everything we hear and read — in fractions of seconds. Not only that, our brains make sense of it all, allowing us to learn, work, form relationships, and navigate the world. On this episode, we take a closer look at how this all works — and why it sometimes doesn’t. We hear stories about listening instead of reading — and test the limits of speed listening; we’ll find out why reading comprehension tests in schools may be misguided; and why some people who think they’re hard of hearing might actually have a different issue going on.
Also heard on this week’s episode:
Jayatri Das, Chief Bioscientist at The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, gives us the lowdown on how our brains process information, and the databases we all keep in our heads.
Reporter Jad Sleiman talks to Michael Mena, a PhD candidate who found a hack for all his reading — and in the process, discovered a personal superpower: speed listening.
Find the main idea, define words, spot the synonym — kids in U.S. elementary and middle schools spend a lot of time learning how to extract meaning from what they’re reading, and get tested on these skills frequently. Education journalist Natalie Wexler explains why she thinks comprehension tests in schools are not measuring “a skill or any skills at all” and what would make for better instruction. Wexler is the author of “The Knowledge Gap: The hidden cause of America’s broken education system — and how to fix it.”
48 min
February 18, 2022How Science is Changing Sports
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.”
Also heard on this week’s episode:
In 2019, long-distance runner Eliud Kipchoge accomplished something almost no one thought possible — running a full marathon in under two hours. But in the weeks and months after the run, a growing chorus of voices protested that the feat didn’t truly count. The reason? Kipchoge’s shoes. Reporter Liz Tung looks into Nike’s controversial “super shoes” that have runners smashing world records.
In baseball, umpires make controversial and sometimes game-changing decisions. In 2019, the Atlantic League made headlines when they started using robot umpires – to call balls and strikes. Could robot umps take human error out of these calls? Or would it take the tension — and some of the fun out of the game? Alan Yu looked into it.
We talk with science writer Jennifer Swanson about how high-tech gear continues to transform sports, ranging from tennis to golf. Her book is “The Secret Science of Sports: The Math, Physics, and Mechanical Engineering Behind Every Grand Slam, Triple Axel, and Penalty Kick.”
Taylor Johnson coaches esports athletes, after a career working in the NFL. He says coaching people who compete in video games means analyzing a ton of data from each game, and helping players optimize their focus and reaction times.
Author Zach Schonbrun discusses how neuroscientists are trying to get into athletes’ heads to see what is going on in their brains as they compete. For his book, “The Performance Cortex: How Neuroscience is Redefining Athletic Genius,” Schonbrun observed experiments with baseball players that shed some light on their decision-making process and speed.
49 min
February 11, 2022The Mysteries of Love
If there’s one thing humans can’t get enough of, it’s love. The spark of a first kiss, the warm glow of a happy couple — even if it leads to jealousy, heartache, and pain. We’re obsessed — there are millions of songs, movies, poems, paintings, even scriptures — dedicated to exploring romantic love. And yet, in many ways, love remains mysterious. There’s no formula for love — no predicting who it’ll strike, how it’ll unfold, when it’ll end. But scientists are learning more and more about love, how it affects us, and how technology is changing the way we meet our mates.
In this episode, we hear stories about a scientific cure for heartbreak, the TikTok test that claims to tell if someone’s really into you, and how a glitch in dating algorithms brought one couple together. Also, a rundown from evolutionary anthropologist Anna Machin about how and why love evolved, how it affects our brains, and why “love at first sight” might be a scam.
Also heard on this week’s episode:
We talk with evolutionary anthropologist Anna Machin about all things related to the science of love — from why it evolved, to how it affects our brains, to whether dating apps actually work, and the potential development of “love drugs.” Machin’s book is called “Why We Love: The New Science Behind Our Closest Relationships.”
You know what they say — there’s no cure for a broken heart … except, scientists say there is, at least for voles, a mouse-like rodent that happens to mate for life. Reporter Jad Sleiman dives into what scientists have learned about treating vole heartbreak, and what it could mean for humans.
Call it a crush, call it infatuation, call it obsession — some experts call it limerence. Reporter Grant Hill explains the difference between love and limerence, and what it has to do with “love addiction.”
49 min
February 09, 2022 Finding a Way to Live With Grief
The death of a loved one can be shattering — especially when it's unexpected. It destroys our feeling of safety, warps our sense of reality, and often leaves us feeling lost ... unsure if we'll ever come out on the other side. It's an experience just about everyone goes through at some point in their lives, and yet it can feel profoundly lonely. There's no linear logic or prescribed progression; grief advances stubbornly at its own pace. The wounds can feel both fresh and ancient, stifling and endless, like it's a connection to our loved ones — and a wall that we can never break through. And yet, every day, people do survive their grief — they live with it and through it, and emerge on the other side. On this episode, we hear stories of grief and healing. A mother whose son was murdered at the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012 describes how her grief has changed over the past decade. We will also explore what researchers have learned about grief in the wake of the pandemic — what some have called a "shadow pandemic" of loss. And we'll meet a researcher who is trying to compile the best information to help people who are dealing with grief.

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49 min
February 04, 2022Thank You for Your Feedback
From Amazon to Angie’s List, Google, Facebook, and Yelp, we live in a world driven by feedback. In the best of circumstances, honest critiques can make us better — they can give us new perspectives, improve our work, or just offer some encouragement to keep us going. But feedback is a double-edged sword — it can be both kind and cruel, honest and petty, insightful and downright useless. So how do we navigate this world of reviews and commentary?
How do we know who to listen to? When is feedback helpful, and when does it hurt? And how do we give it in a way that’s both honest and kind?
On this episode, we explore those questions and more. We hear from physicians about the online reviews they receive, the problems with the peer review process, and why it’s time to retire the compliment sandwich. We also step inside a program that’s been built around student feedback — MFA writing programs — and find out what it looks like to try and objectively judge creative work.
Also heard on this week’s episode:
You can find online reviews for just about everything these days — even physicians. But how accurate are those reviews? And do doctors take them to heart? Physician Neda Frayha talks with her fellow docs about how they feel about patient reviews. Frayha is a primary care physician in Maryland, and host of the Primary Care Reviews and Perspectives podcast for Hippo Education.
We talk with researcher and author Marcus Buckingham about reviews of all kinds — when they help, when they hurt, and why employee performance reviews are “worse than useless.” Buckingham is the co-author of “Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real World.”
Before scientific studies get published in respectable journals, they’re supposed to go through a process called peer review — a kind of editing process performed by other scientists. But in the age of COVID-19, that important step has increasingly been pushed back in order to get new data out quicker. We talk with Mark Humphries, a neuroscientist at the University of Nottingham, about the limitations of the peer review process, and what he thinks needs to change.
To be helpful, feedback must be honest — but sometimes honesty can be painful. So how do you offer the unvarnished truth without alienating the other person? We put that question to researcher Taya Cohen, who studies radical honesty. She tells us how three days of honesty affected people’s relationships, what’s wrong with the “compliment sandwich,” and how to give feedback that’s actually helpful. Cohen is a professor of organizational behavior and business ethics at the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University.
Friends can be one of our best resources for honest feedback — if we’re willing to hear it. Psychologist Tasha Eurich makes a case for the “dinner of truth,” and what it taught her about not being annoying. Eurich is the author of “Insight: The Surprising Truth About How Others See Us, How We See Ourselves, and Why the Answers Matter More Than We Think.”
50 min
January 28, 2022 Chasing Sleep
Sleep — we all need it, but most people aren't getting enough of it. Ideally, we spend about a third of our lives asleep. When we're well rested, we feel like we can take on the world. But when we're not, we find ourselves exhausted, cranky, moody, forgetful ... and our overall health takes a hit. Clearly, sleep is important. The question is — why? What happens when we sleep? What makes it such an important part of our survival? And what's stopping us from getting our best rest? On this episode, we look at the anatomy of sleep — why it matters, how we get our best sleep, and what happens when we don't. We hear stories about what happened to one physician when long COVID brought her sleeplessness to a crisis level, why one physical therapist says we're all sleeping wrong, and a look inside our sleeping brains.

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49 min
January 21, 2022Unusual Pets
Americans love their pets — as many as seven out of 10 households are home to cats, dogs, birds… or more unusual animal choices. What defines a pet in the first place? Plenty of people are pushing the boundaries of the kinds of animals we usually think of as pets, blurring the lines between wild and domestic, livestock and companion, pets and pests. On this episode, we look at unusual pets and why people love and keep them — while others find them objectionable.
We hear stories about ferrets and why they’re banned in some parts of the country, how one woman befriended a wild fox, and the chicken that helped a widow cope with her grief.
Also heard on this week’s episode:
We talk with James Serpell, an animal behavior researcher and professor emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania, about his neurotic parrot, treasure-hunting rat, and what defines a pet. Serpell has written “In the Company of Animals: A Study of Human-Animal Relationships.”
Self-described “ferret people” are passionate about these mustelids, and say they’re funny, smart, and interesting pets. But owning ferrets is not permitted in California, New York City, and Hawaii — and these rules have gotten the attention of some of the most prominent politicians of our time. So why the ban on ferrets? Jad Sleiman looked into the backstory.
Catherine Raven tells the story of how she befriended a wild fox — and what made their relationship different from that of owner and pet. Her book is called “Fox and I: An Uncommon Friendship.”
Throughout the episode, we hear stories about people’s best, worst, and strangest pets — from a field mouse thirsting for freedom, to some very fertile gerbils, to some disappointing sea monkeys, and a cat whose love language is scratching.
50 min
January 14, 2022The Generosity Spectrum
When it comes to generosity, there’s a wide spectrum in terms of how far we’ll go for others. There’s buy-your-friends-dinner generosity, donate-to-charities generosity — and then there’s give-your-organ-to-a-perfect-stranger generosity. There’s generosity that makes us feel good, generosity that happens anonymously, generosity that goes viral on social media, generosity that changes someone’s mood, and generosity that changes someone’s life.
On this episode, we explore generosity — what it is, where it comes from, and how it spreads. We talk with Georgetown psychologist and neuroscientist Abigail Marsh, who studies everything from psychopaths to extraordinary altruists. We hear stories about the role of an altruistic family structure in the Black community and find out how the TV show “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” is inspiring random acts of kindness.
Also heard on this week’s episode:
When Kelly Schmidt heard about a stranger who was hanging onto dear life as he waited for a donated kidney, she made a spur-of-the-moment decision to help him — by donating one of her own. She’d been a volunteer for an organization called Gift of Life, and had long felt passionate about organ donation — but this was a huge step beyond her previous volunteer work. What motivated this incredibly generous act? We talk to Kelly and the recipient of her kidney, Roc Hyon.
Georgetown University psychologist and neuroscientist Abigail Marsh has spent years studying the human spectrum of altruism. She explains what brain scans of psychopaths helped her discover about extraordinary altruists, how the desire for gratitude complicates altruistic motives, and how organ donors felt about The New York Times Magazine’s viral story, “Who Is the Bad Art Friend.”
When Sade Boyewa lost her job due to COVID-19, she took it as a blessing in disguise — and started the Harlem Community Fridge, sparking a movement of generosity across New York City and beyond. But can altruism stirred by the pandemic create lasting change?
What would cause strangers who’ve never met to send each other help, money, and gifts? Just one shared interest: “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” Alan Yu reports on a close-knit community that’s sprung up thanks to a Facebook group for fans of a podcast dedicated to the show, “Buffering the Vampire Slayer.”
46 min
January 07, 2022 Talking Therapy
The process of therapy can sometimes seem a bit opaque. What exactly happens in therapy? How does it work? And which approach is right for which issues? On this episode, we get inside the heads of therapists to find out how they ply their craft, and what it takes to really feel better. We hear stories about what happened when a city took a bold step toward providing free, virtual mental health services to its residents. Also: what happens when politics and therapy collide; how Freud's brainchild — psychoanalysis — is still relevant; and what it's like to grow up as the child of two shrinks.

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52 min

About The Pulse

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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…