We’re going to take you from the hottest of the hot, to the coldest of the cold on this episode. We explore how cold can save lives, and we take a trip to the coldest tundra on Earth. Then we heat things up again to figure out the science of sweat, plus what climate change will mean for the summer Olympics. 

Get ready to feel a chill deep in your bones despite the hot summer heat. 

Health and wealth are intrinsically tied together, but how can people fix the things that are making them unhealthy if they don’t have the money to change their ways?  We delve into the world of health and science by the numbers — a $1,000 pill for a deadly disease, a 750-pound safe full of marijuana, and survivor number three of a rare “brain-eating” amoeba. 

Plus, a dark family story stemming from a controversial lobotomy, and fates that are considered worse than death itself. 

Distance makes the heart grow fonder, just ask an astronaut. About 550 people have gone to space. When they return, many report feeling changed — their perceptions of the earth, their relationships, their approach to life are all fundamentally altered from their time away from the planet.

Get ready for takeoff. 

As the Democratic National Convention wraps up in Philadelphia this week, we take a look inside what people are saying about the environment. Then, we take a step back in time to another Philadelphia convention 40 years ago that led to a rash of mysterious deaths and an intense investigation to find the killer. 

Plus, we’ll take you into some unconventional hospital rooms — one is like a spa, and the other is home to a celebratory chemo treatment. 

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This is a great time of year to hit the road, explore the world, and most importantly, take a vacation. But instead of taking you to places that would make you green with envy, we’re going to dig into the science behind the many perils and mishaps involved in traveling. 

At this time, make sure your seat backs and tray tables are in their full upright position and that your seat belt is correctly fastened…it’s going to be a bumpy ride. 

We’re getting to the root of some important questions: why are teeth treated differently than other body parts, when it comes to care and insurance? Why aren’t big research institutions reporting study results? What’s the best way for doctors to ask patients about assault?

Who have you hugged today? Was it a Hollywood hug or a serious bear hug? There’s more to those embraces than just affection! We send our least touchy-feely reporter to meet a woman who has been deemed the supreme hugger. Then we meet a scientist who studied tiny gecko feet to figure out what makes these critters stick, and a physician who didn’t know of a life he had touched until 50 long years later.

What are you hearing right now? Traffic? People? Birds? Maybe a dog barking? All day long, we tune in to and out of the sounds around us. We focus on what we want to hear, and try to not listen to sound that distracts us.

For our show today, we dug around in the archives for some stories that center around the concept of tuning in and out. We’ll hear about a woman whose sense of hearing suddenly became incredibly acute, so much so that she could hear her own eyeballs move. We’ll find out how tuning into soothing harp music can help patients tune out their pain. And, we’ll explore how surgeons fine-tune their focus in the operating room.

On today’s show, we look at the history and future of fabric, find out what happens when a Silicon Valley startup tries to make the world a better place.. but falls a bit short, and figure out why so many new doctors are choosing to go into specialties, rather than primary care.  

We step back in time and visit the nation’s first chartered hospital for a walk through a peculiar, hidden piece of land that tells the story of the origins and growing pains of mental health care in america. Then, we look at how an old school profession is taking a huge leap forward. 

Plus, a mom prepares for life without her daughter.