The Pulse

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. 

Sunday, June 12, 2016 marked the largest mass shooting in U.S. history. It also marked one of many mass shootings around the globe in the last year.

14 killed in San Bernardino, California on December 2, 2015.130 killed in Paris, France on November 13, 2015.9 killed at Umpqua Community College in Oregon on October 1, 2015.

This is by no means a comprehensive list…but as these shootings have happened, we’ve had conversations on our show about grief, gun technology, even the epidemiology of violence.

What you’re about to hear are archived interviews – about past shootings – that are still applicable today, as the country remembers the 49 people killed in Orlando.

This is a podcast extra from The Pulse.

Despite advances in science and technology, humankind is still trying to find its way through the world. On this episode, we explore a lifelong quest to rid the world of a disease-spreading pest, we venture into the depths of caves to find a new kind of lab rat, we try to find new ways to help women overcome the trauma of childbirth, and we talk about the way we talk about addiction. 

Come along with us, and we’ll figure it out together. 

Today’s 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!

What are the unseen forces that affect our lives? On this episode, we peel back layers to discover what’s underneath — an untold chapter of space exploration’s history, a small bird’s migration pattern that illustrates a big problem, an altered reality to help people feel more compassion, and more. Plus, when you were a kid, did you ever feel like someone was watching you? Find out why. 

Our show today is about preservation, in nature and beyond. We’ll explore preserving the history of good and bad ideas, preserving a language that has no sounds, and preserving memories from a difficult time that perhaps, you’d rather just forget. Take a journey into a forest that is rethinking humanity’s role in conservation, then take a trek across the country with a man who is trying to put distance between himself and his addiction. 

Life is full of transitions, and on today’s show, we look at that space between one thing and the next — singing as a distraction, as your body begins to quit on you, the health of refugees as they make a journey towards new lives, using music to ease the transition between life and death, and facing fears when switching to a new career. 

When you were a defiant teenager and didn’t want to study, your line was probably something like, “When will I ever need to know this?” Somehow that seemed especially true for the sciences — which is a tragedy. How can something as fascinating as science turn into something incredibly dull in an educational setting? 

This episode of The Pulse is about making science education more exciting, using science to help people study better, getting scientists to be better communcators, and encouraging kids to follow their dreams despite the setbacks. 

Be a good student and listen carefully.