The Pulse

How do we fight an enemy if that enemy is within us? On this week’s show, we look at what happens when your body turns against you. Millions of Americans live with a chronic illness, and sometimes, there’s no cure. Plus, people suffering from opioid addiction turn to the privacy of a remote island to quell their habit, a scientist tries to cure a sickness inside her home, and we meet a man who embraced his adversity and became quite the celebrity photo bomber. 

If you liked this episode, leave us a review on iTunes. It helps other people find our podcast, too. 

When we’re confronted with new information, we instinctively question whether it comes from a reliable source – and that thirst for evidence stretches through most areas of our lives. If we look at science – biology, geology, chemistry – nothing is possible without evidence – you can’t prove or disprove a hypothesis, you can’t move forward or come to conclusions.

On today’s show, we’ll take a look at different kinds of evidence – how we use it, and how we know it’s solid. We’ll meet a biologist who’s borrowing some moves from forensic science, we’ll sit down with a hypnotist trying to crack cold cases, and find out how people in the Arctic knew they were on thin ice. 

What does it take to produce the overabundance of food that constantly surrounds us? On this week’s show, we take a trip to Russia, where cowboys are being trained to wrangle a brand new beef industry. Then we go to the desert to look at the unexpected perks of farming fish in Arizona. Plus, we step behind the scenes of a lab that is trying to grow food in a petri dish. 

You may be hungry listening to this episode, but you’ll walk away feeling full of knowledge. 

This election has made Americans feel deeply divided around a lot of issues – it’s as if we’ve lost our ability to connect to one another. So, we decided to change gears for this week (we had planned to do a show on different kinds of evidence) and instead, we wanted to sit back, listen, and hear stories. Your stories of adversity, difficulty, and beating the odds. Because these stories connect us, and allow us to tap into all the things we have in common.

This election season has put people at odds with one another. Deep divisions among Americans are amplified by the rapid-fire news cycle and social media. In this episode, we take a step away from the fighting and name-calling and see how some of the big issues in this election play out in the health and science world. 

We’ll talk about the science of persuasion, find out what role race plays in research, and take a trip to the very place that started our country’s fierce debates over abortion. 

We promise we’ll be very even-keeled and nobody will be called an idiot. 

This rebroadcast show is all about the human body – more specifically, what happens to us after we’ve taken our last breath.  We’ll look at how dead bodies serve as teachers in medicine and science, we’ll learn about the science of autopsies, we’ll find out what comes of unclaimed bodies, and explore why some religions guard their dead.

It’s a show to die for. Don’t miss it! If you like this episode, leave us a review on iTunes! It helps other people find The Pulse, too.

We interact with our world every single day, but it’s not often that we take a step back and think about how those tiny interactions are taking a toll. Throwing a piece of trash in a recycling bin may not feel like it would have earth-shattering effects, but we visit a recycling plant where we see how trash is hurting the industry. We explore NASA’s real estate problems, take a look inside a whale’s mouth, and discuss how we may be the first people in 11,000 years to see a new epoch (think New Year, but for the world). 

Like this episode? Leave us a review on iTunes — it helps other people find The Pulse, too. 

Now for our feature presentation: we’re going to explore the science of movie magic as seen on the big screen and behind the scenes. We’ll take you back in time to hear the innovative explorations of sound in “Fantasia”, talk to Brad Pitt…kind of, explore old gold vaults full of film, and get bonked on the head, twice, for the sake of science.

Please silence your cell phones and enjoy the show.

From a pain in the leg, to death without much warning, we explore how an issue that kills 60,000 Americans each year often goes unnoticed. 

Then, we meet a human creation that may come back to bite us in the end: a hybrid of a dog and a wolf.

Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it — copulate, that is. We step into the facinating kingdom of animal sex with biologist Carin Bondar on this animal themed episode. Step into the operating room for cat plastic surgery, meet a pup with a purple mohawk, and go under the sea to hear a sound that scientists hope will save sea turtles. 

It’s going to be a wild ride.