This week’s show is all about that crazy little thing called love—not to mention lust—and we’re breaking them down to their scientific elements.

Love is a shared universal experience. All around the world, people talk about it and sing about it. We write about love and watch movies about it. But, we don’t really understand why we feel love. Anthropologist Helen Fisher has been using MRI brain scans to unlock love’s secrets. She’s discovered that the reptilian core of the brain, linked with desire and craving, is activated when people fall in love. Carolyn Beeler goes to meet her.

We can’t explore Eros without touching on kissing. We wanted to find out why we kiss, and why we can’t help watching others make out. It’s something Hollywood has cashed in on over the decades—like in the iconic kissing scene from Casablanca. Pulse contributor Audrey Quinn uncovers the science behind smooching, and what it tells us about our human connections.

Without love and lust, our lives would effectively be without music. What would musicians sing about instead…the weather? Popular songs often reference our heartbeats in their lyrics, but some music takes it further, matching the speed of the rhythm to the pace of the heart. Pulse contributor Sharon Glassman explores that connection.

If you’re feeling lusty, a like-minded person could be just a click or a swipe away on a dating or hook-up app. But these easy connections have been blamed recently for a rise in sexually transmitted diseases. Dan Wohlfeiler is a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco who’s been working on STD prevention since the late 1980s. He shares how public health experts can get their safer sex message across in a world of constantly changing technology.

We also zoom in on the potential fallout from all these amorous adventures. HIV remains a major health concern. But a new protocol—Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis or “PrEP”—could help protect lovers from contracting the virus. It’s effective, but controversial. Elana Gordon meets a man on the front lines of this revolutionary development.

Philadelphia will soon be home to the country’s first sex toy vending machine. It’s called PinkBox, and the machine will sell condoms plus a range of other sexual playthings for the experimental couple or do-it-your-selfer. Todd Bookman goes to take a look.

We also make a trip to the zoo. It is, afterall, the place where many of us catch our first glimpses of the strange ritual that is mating. But not every species finds making love so easy. Giant pandas find it notoriously tough to procreate, and zoos around the globe go to extraordinary lengths to help get them in the mood. Brandie Smith, Associate Director for Animal Care Sciences at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo steps out of the giant panda enclosure, to share intimate details about how pandas do it.

And finally, we’re setting the mood for desire, by setting the table. There’s something very seductive about savoring a delicious meal with lover. And there’s something sexy about the food we indulge in. Remember the famous kitchen scene from the film 9½ Weeks, where Kim Basinger and Mickey Rouke raunchily deconstruct the contents of the refrigerator? Taunya English investigates the allure of aphrodisiacs and whether some foods have sexual superpowers.

Our first story takes us to the New Jersey shore, where the effects of Hurricane Sandy are still lingering. Public health officials say lead particles from destroyed homes that were churned up in the storm may pose a health risk. If inhaled or ingested, lead can cause developmental delays in children, miscarriages in pregnant women, and neurological problems in adults. Carolyn Beeler reports on efforts in eight counties in New Jersey that are testing residents for elevated blood lead.

Flibanserin, also known as “female Viagra” has landed smack in the middle of a women’s rights debate. Or, perhaps it’s more accurate to say that it was nudged into it. The pill is once again being reviewed by the FDA for approval right now, and we hear from Sheryl Kingsberg who treats women who have lost all sexual desire. Kingsberg is also a paid consultant for Sprout Pharmaceuticals which makes flibanserin, and maintains that this is a women’s right issue, not just a risk-benefits analysis.

Reporter Tood Bookman takes a look at a tough exam that has tested physicians for 100 years: the United States Medical Licensing Exam. It entails answering 1,100 questions spread over five days. Fail, and you cannot practice medicine in this country. Todd visited the group that comes up with those questions, the National Board of Medical Examiners, to find out how the exams have evolved over the past century.

We stick with the topic of standards and safety checks in medicine, but turn toward medical labs. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Ellen Gabler joins us to discuss her new investigative report on lab mistakes and oversight.

The Supreme Court’s decision on subsidies under the Affordable Care Act could affect millions of Americans, but as Elana Gordon reports, many are unaware that a decision is looming, and few states have prepared backup plans.

There may be an evolutionary reason that birth is a social affair for humans, and it could explain why women are surrounded with support during and after birth. Taunya English tells us about what fossils reveal about this issue, and visits with a new mom and her doula.

We also meet puppeteer Morgan FitzPatrick Andrews. He has long known that he would eventually lose his sight, but he’s never lost his creative vision. He is a theater-maker, puppeteer, punk musician and yoga instructor. He also has a rare congenital eye disease called Cone-Rod Dystrophy 5. In a new solo performance piece entitled “Cones,” Andrews challenges our ideas of vision loss. He told us about it for this week’s edition of our series “Patient Files.”

This week on The Pulse, we take a trip into the unknown. We explore things many people swear by but the science to support them isn’t quite there. Think cleanses, kombucha and brain booster drinks. Also, we’ll talk about once crazy-seeming science becoming mainstream and mainstream approaches getting questioned.

Our first story involves a deep dive into the world of alternative medicine and we’re talking really far out. Crystal healing. Steven Jackson takes us to a crystal healing shop to hear from owners and customers about the healing power of crystals and we also hear from an expert/skeptic to get a mainstream clinical opinion.

Leeches were once a go-to cure for pretty much everything, then became seen as completely crazy, and now they’ve reclaimed a place in modern medicine. Elana Gordon explores the leech’s role in medical history.

The cleanse craze isn’t going away and seems to be getting bigger and bigger. You can find hundreds of options online and all tend to avoid some or most foods for several weeks. Pulse Host Maiken Scott decides to try one out to see what all the fuss is about.

There are products out there claiming to make your brain more powerful and increase your focus, but do they really work? We talk to Bethany Brookshire, regular Pulse contributor and writer for Science News, to find out how we, as consumers, can separate fact from fiction in these types of health products.

Kombucha is a drink that claims to have magic powers. How has this ancient beverage turned into a modern fad?

Also on the show, could it be possible that mindfulness and meditation might have a negative impact on some of us? Miguel Farias, author of the new book “The Buddha Pill,” tells us about his research and the backlash he’s already receiving on the concept.

We start off this week’s show with an installment in our occasional series, “Pain in the Neck” where we talk about the annoying or strange things we experience as healthcare consumers. This edition is about something many of us can relate to: how we find out what happened during surgery. Turns out, there’s a system set up to fill us in with that update.. we just have to ask for it.

Elon Musk has been called a visionary and a mad man… and maybe he’s a little bit of both. A book out this week offers an intimate look at the complicated serial entrepreneur and author Ashlee Vance is in to tell us about it.

Are high deductibles changing how we shop for care and pushing the health system to fess up about how much things cost? Taunya English takes a look.

In our series Patient Files, your stories of illness, healing and coping, we hear from Jenny Laden who shares her story about losing her dad to HIV.

Also on the show, working to find a better way to boil water, diagnosing our digital difficulties in medicine and boxing to fight a serious, degenerative illness.

Remember the HAL 9000 from the sci-fi classic 2001: A Space Odyssey? Though it seemed like pure wild imagination that a computer could see things and recognize them (and in HAL’s case, harbor deep paranoia about what it saw), “computer vision” is a technology rapidly gaining traction. As part of our series “Bit By Bit: How data is shaping our health,” reporter Todd Bookman gets a sneak peak at a “smart” plate.

First responders arriving at the scene of a derailed Amtrak train in Philadelphia Tuesday night encountered chaotic and terrifying scenes—passengers emerging battered and bloody from twisted wreckage and mangled bodies trapped under the train’s wreckage. Such horror often has a lasting impact on the mental health of first responders, fortunately the understanding of how to help them heal has grown quickly since the 9/11 terror attacks. We’re joined by a nationally known expert on the impact of traumatic experiences to discuss how to handle people when they’re in a fragile state of mind.

One of the big lessons of Superstorm Sandy was that man-made dunes can protect homes. After the storm, the state pushed to fill gaps in an existing dune system but homeowners continue to push back. Almost 400 owners of beachfront properties have not granted permission to the state, leaving a giant hole in beach fortifications in northern Ocean County, New Jersey. Reporter Carolyn Beeler visited one town where long-time hold-outs have capitulated, and another where they’re still standing their ground.

Did you see a lot of beards in your Facebook and Twitter feeds recently accompanied by a rather unpleasant suggestion that many beards have “poop” in them? Disgusting as it may be, this story makes a great case study for the life cycle of science reporting gone bad, and Bethany Brookshire of Science News joins us to explain why.

Cooking classes, community gardens, walking groups…these are typically the kind of wellness activities that mayors of towns and cities champion. They make for great photo opps, and perhaps they even make a town a little healthier. But making constituents talk about their own deaths…that’s another matter altogether. Elana Gordon brings us the story of Gloucester Township, New Jersey, where the mayor is steering the conversation to a place some aren’t comfortable with.

Also on the show, we head to the border of Pennsylvania and West Virginia in the pursuit of a strange-smelling bread that combines history and science in every bite, a Phillies talent scout discovers the color of his femur in the worst way possible, and we look back at a watershed moment for science teachers everywhere.

A group of students at Columbia University in New York are creating projects detailed in a series of 16th century French manuscripts called the “Book of Secrets.” It’s not a mason manual or a book about witchcraft, though, it’s actually a kind of recipe book for craftsmen of the Renaissance period. As they create everything from fake coral to hour-glass sand, the students are learning about history, art, science, and the “secrets” of a world we seldom reach out and try to touch. Host Maiken Scott joins them in the lab.

Undergrad engineers at the University of Pennsylvania are working on the next generation of artificial limbs—but they’re using some unorthodox “tools.” Specifically, they’re experimenting with different ways to control the insect’s legs after they’ve been amputated. Think voice commands and brain waves. It’s the type of technology shaping the next generation of human prostheses, and it’s giving students the chance to channel their inner Frankenstein. Todd Bookman reports.

What would life be like if coffee didn’t jumpstart our brains every morning? That’s what we tasked our “Lab Rat,” Zack Seward with looking into this week. He accepted the challenge with aplomb, giving up all caffeine for a work week, and reporting back on the effects. Couldn’t he just drink decaf all week? Turns out…no. We invited Reanimator Coffee’s head of roasting into our studio to tell us why and to administer a decaf taste test.

In this week’s installment of our series Patient Files, your stories of illness, healing and recovery, we hear from seven year old, Brian Sadowski about a very unusual medical experience for a kid his age—a tangle of abnormal blood vessels that ruptured in his brain, and Brian suffered a stroke while swimming one day. He tells us what the experience was like..

Also on this week’s show: Have you ever tried to find out how much a medical procedure is going to cost before actually getting it? That’s the question that guides our “PriceCheck” initiative. Reporter Elana Gordon has been tracking the progress of this listener-generated reporting project, and joins us for an update. Plus, a conversation with an FDA inspector on the work of keeping our food and medicines free of pathogens, and a story about a very special Eagle Scout whose connection to technology helped him connect to nature.

Every morning, countless masses of fitness buffs dutifully record their breakfast menu, their exercises, and other health metrics, in apps like My Fitness Pal. They’ve created detailed digital archives of what they eat, how they exercise, and even what they suffer from. But when this info is recorded digitally, the question remains: who else can see it? And who exactly has access to all that health information? For our series “Bit By Bit: How data is shaping our health,” Carolyn Beeler investigates.

The death toll from the 7.9 magnitude earthquake that hit Nepal last weekend continues to rise, and millions of people are without shelter. Rebuilding efforts for Kathmandu will have to get underway quickly, but what could be done to prevent similar devastation in future quakes? We are joined by geophysicist Ross Stein to discuss why earthquakes are becoming more and more deadly and what we can do about it.

If you drink tap water, you’re getting a daily dose of fluoride—that’s something public health officials consider one of their top achievements of the 20th century. But this past week, the federal government lowered its recommendations on how much fluoride should be in the water. Reporter Taunya English investigates why.

Think about a time when you had a bad interaction with a doctor. Maybe they seemed cold, distracted, not interested in what you had to say. Does that make them a jerk? Maybe, but consider that burnout is a big problem in medicine, as doctors repeatedly are confronted by the most bleak of human conditions. An experiment is underway at a Philadelphia medical school to inoculate students against this loss of empathy with the help of theater. Yep, theater. Elana Gordon explains.

There was a time in America when your cheese choices were pretty much limited to yellow and white…and they tasted about the same. But specialty stores kept the flame for variety in food alive. Among those gourmet establishments is Formaggio Kitchen in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where chef Julia Child was a loyal customer. These days the wonderfully stinky cheeses also attract scientists from Harvard and Tufts searching for answers. Reporter Alison Bruzek takes us below ground for some smelly research.

Also on this week’s show: a climate change educator trained by Al Gore explains how his job can be downright dangerous, the air pollution we unknowingly create in our homes when we clean them, the promise of local honey to help allergy sufferers, and the winner of our Philadelphia Science Festival Challenge is crowned.

Typically, getting in a nasty car accident hinders your life, but in the case of 24-year-old Albert Leva, rear-ending a car full of undercover cops saved his. But how? Pulse host Maiken Scott goes in search of a medical explanation.

The American Association for Cancer Research hosted its annual meeting in Philadelphia this week, drawing cancer researchers and oncologists from all over the world. Pulse contributor Kerry Grens was there and joins us for a recap of what’s going on in the hunt for a cure to cancer.

Hooman Noorchashm and Amy Reed are both physicians, they’re married, they have six kids together, and they’re on a mission. You see, in 2013, Reed had surgery in Boston, for what was supposed to be an uncomplicated hysterectomy to treat fibroids. But when a mistaken diagnosis was made exponentially worse by a piece of medical equipment, Reed found herself suddenly riddled with cancer. Ever since, they’ve made it their mission to get out the word. Reporter Taunya English sat down to ask them about their media strategy.

Forget the Apple Watch, the tech giant has another big rollout this spring with potentially sizeable implications to modern medicine. The product, Research Kit, is a new software platform designed to let scientists collect vast amounts of data from iPhone users, and as part of our new series Bit-by-Bit: How Data is Shaping our Health, Todd Bookman looks into the up and down sides of this new platform.

Last week, California health officials finally declared the Disneyland measles outbreak over, but the national debate over vaccinating is anything but. And though every time this war of words flares back up, we treat it like a revelation, the fact is, the row over how we protect the our nation against deadly diseases is substantially older than the United States. Elana Gordon and Pulse contributor Avir Mitra have the story of a famous founding father’s role in the modern vaccine debate.

And finally this week, the Philadelphia Science Festival kicks off this weekend, and we have a preview. Nerd alert!

This week, The Pulse kicks off a new series looking at the role technology is playing in our well being…”Bit By Bit: How data is shaping our health.” Our inaugural story looks at how health insurance companies have begun plugging the massive amounts of data they collect about us into algorithms in an attempt to predict who is most at risk for ending up in the hospital again and again because of chronic conditions. We sent Todd Bookman to check out how exactly big brother is watching us.

On April 19, 1965, chemist Gordon Moore made the astute observation that the number of transistors per square inch on integrated circuits had doubled every year, then he predicted that the trend would continue. He was right, and his prediction turned into the driving force behind the success of Silicon Valley. It became known as “Moore’s Law.” But as the law turns 50, it’s future is threatened. Moore biographer Arnold Thackray joins us to discuss why.

Med students tend to describe getting an MD as a grueling journey, with endless studying, tough exams, and sleepless nights. MBA students in business school say much the same about their degree, noting the “super competitive” environment for good measure. What’s motivating a new generation of docs who want both of these degrees? Taunya English dives into the world of the over-achiever.

Only about half of people with depression respond to antidepressant medications. Yes, you read that right. But researchers are trying to improve those numbers by better understanding the mechanisms that cause this illness, and they may have found a link between inflammation and depression that could help explain the problem. Yvette Sheline heads the Center for Neuromodulation in Depression and Stress at Penn, and she joins us to take a look at this new finding.

It’s that time of year when transitional weather and countless tons of pollen wreak havoc on our immune systems. This week, in fact, at least half The Pulse staff came down with one thing or another. So we started talking about the foods we crave when we’re under the weather and the science behind those cravings. Then we sent sniffler-in-chief Carolyn Beeler out onto the mean streets of Philadelphia to look for some answers.

Imagine you have one all-consuming passion in life. Something you can’t live without. And suddenly, an illness threatens to take this very thing away from you. In our series patient files, your stories of illness, coping and healing, we hear from Mike Hopes of Lancaster, Pennsylvania…also known as pro wrestler Tim Donst. At 27 he’s already held several wrestling titles, but at present, his future is a little uncertain. I caught up with him three days before a very serious cancer surgery to get his take on life and risk.

When we discuss the impact of obesity, we’re usually talking about health issues or economic concerns. But a researcher Maurice Schweitzer joins us this week to examine how obesity changes people’s careers and chances for advancing in their jobs.

Do you crack your knuckles. Do you know what causes the “crack”? No one did for certain until a recent paper was published in a scientific journal. Elana Gordon tells us the researchers finally got the bottom of this annoying phenomenon with the help of an MRI machine.

College students around the country are demanding that their schools divest from fossil fuels. That would mean selling off investments in coal, oil and gas companies from endowments. Endowments are the “savings accounts” of colleges that earn interest and help fund everything from financial aid to keeping the lights on. Students’ efforts succeeded at Stanford, which got rid of its portfolio of coal in 2013. But at the place where this whole national movement began about four years ago, Swarthmore College, students at this school are still struggling to make their voices heard. Reporter Carolyn Beeler met up with student leaders as they staged a sit in.

The PBS mini series “Twice Born” takes viewers inside an intense surgery unit at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia – where doctors operate on babies still inside their mothers’ wombs. We spoke with some of the main characters featured in this dramatic documentary: Dr. Scott Adzick, Surgeon-in-Chief at the Center for Fetal Diagnosis and Treatment and a pioneer in this field, and Bobby and Shelly Ross – who used the center’s services after finding out their unborn daughter had a life-threatening birth defect.

If you’re trying to lose a bunch of weight, chances are you’ll get excited once you’ve lost ten pounds. Nine pounds is not bad at all, but ten pounds? That’s a milestone! We celebrate round birthdays, anniversaries, we buy gift cards for $20, or $50, but not $36. Regular Pulse contributor Christopher Intagliata takes us on a mathematical journey to explain our love affair with round numbers. And wait ’til you hear the very intriguing reason why eggs are still sold by the dozen!

Autism was first described in 1943, as a very rare condition. Starting in the 1990s, there was a dramatic rise in autism diagnoses. Why remains a million dollar question, but the increase sparked frantic research into the causes and treatments of this developmental disorder. Children born with autism today have more than two decades of intensive research to draw on – there are best practices for early interventions and education. But for the first big cohort of children with autism born in the 90s who are reaching adulthood now, these kinds of resources and roadmaps don’t quite exist. Katie Hiler reports on ways families are trying to forge new paths.

Have you ever found yourself staring at the tile in your kitchen – and suddenly you see something? A face, perhaps? Elana Gordon brings us an audio exploration of a weird brain phenomenon called pareidolia.

At the dawn of America, science was not just a passionate pursuit of knowledge – it became a bit of a patriotic hammer. Along with Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson was a chief promoter of American science. A new exhibit at the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia details his dedication to finding examples of power and strength in nature to make a case for the might of his young nation.

Finally on the show, this week marked a massive comeback for the only dinosaur to go extinct twice, if you will, the Brontosaurus. Brontosaurus was named in 1879 by famed paleontologist Othniel Marsh who found the specimen. But – in 1903, paleontologist Elmer Riggs proclaimed that Brontosaurus was apparently the same as the Apatosaurus, which had been found first, so it was game over for the Brontosaurus. New research reestablishes the Brontosaurus as its own species – which has thrilled paleontologists and dino fans of all ages alike.