Electronic cigarettes are a booming business with a growing customer base. Some see them as a great hope for smokers who want to quit, others worry they will get a new generation of Americans hooked on nicotine. A year ago, the government announced a proposal to regulate them, but public health officials are only just now beginning to untangle some basic questions about them. Reporter Taunya English takes a look at the complicated issues surrounding “vaping.” And while we’re on the topic of nicotine-delivery devices, we get an update on the proposed use of graphic photos on tobacco cigarette packaging from Dan Romer of the Annenberg Center for Public Policy.

Last year on the show, we met Temple University biologist Erik Cordes, as he embarked on a mission to the bottom of the gulf of Mexico to study corals affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. He and his team took a close look at the toxicity of the dispersants deployed in the aftermath of the spill in hopes of mitigating the disaster, but as is often the case with oil spills, it turns out the damage may just have been exacerbated by the clean-up. He joins us to discuss his findings.

Last week, NASA formalized plans for a rendezvous between an unmanned spacecraft and an asteroid. The program has two goals: First, to test a solar electric propulsion system that will be necessary for a future trip to Mars. Second, to help prevent mankind’s extinction by asteroid. Do those priorities seem out of order? We sent reporter Todd Bookman to find out how a new space telescope (not funded by NASA), might just save us from the next mass-extinction event.

Have you ever tried to find out how much a medical procedure is going to cost before actually getting it? In an attempt to create some transparency around the pricing of medical procedures, last month we launched a new initiative called WHYY PriceCheck in partnership with the organization Clear Health Costs. Elana Gordon joins us for a glimpse of what we’re learning about the surprising cost of a colonoscopy.

In this week’s installment of our series Patient Files, we didn’t have to look far for a harrowing tale of recovery. WHYY Vice President of News, Chris Satullo almost lost his vision in one of his eyes, and he recounts the challenge of spending two weeks face down in hopes of keeping his vision. Spoiler alert, this story involves March Madness and pancakes.

Friday, March 20, 2015 is Match Day—the NBA draft for future doctors. At every medical school in the country, students will open envelopes that will tell them where they’ll be doing their residency. It’s a huge moment that many in medicine feel defines their careers. Pulse reporter Marielle Segarra followed two medical students in the weeks leading up to this nerve-wrecking day, and learned about the hopes and heartaches pinned to this big decision.

Would you quit your dream job if you thought it could do you harm years down the road? What if it came with a million-dollar-a-year salary? Tough choice, right? Well San Francisco 49er linebacker Chris Borland faced that decision and, after just a year in the league, decided it wasn’t worth the risk. He retired at age 24 this week. We called up ESPN’s Mark Fainaru-Wada who broke Borland’s story to discuss the ramifications of his decision.

This month, we’re doing a series of stories about cancer in the lead up to the premiere of the new Ken Burns production The Emperor of all Maladies on PBS. This week we look at the language of cancer: hope, fight, battle, cure…inspirational terms, but are they conducive to realistic conversations about these diseases? Reporter Elana Gordon parses the language. Then we hear from Ann Marie Wiesen, who’s grappled successfully with cancer several times but isn’t interested in being called a “survivor.”

If you think of life on Earth as chapters in a really long book, then every once in a while, a chapter comes to a dramatic end and most of the characters die. In science they call these “extinction events,” when the vast majority of species and life on earth is basically all but wiped out. But what causes these chapters to end? A new theory traces those catastrophic moments in Earth’s history back to another theory: dark matter. Reporter Audrey Quinn tries to explain all of this.

Do you have an inner scientist that’s perhaps lain dormant over the winter and is ready to get out there and investigate the wonders of nature? Are you eager to count birds, or chase evil parasites? Darlene Cavalier of SciStarter.com joins us to discuss several research projects that require the help of…well…you!

If someone tells you they have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, what thoughts run through your mind? Be honest. Of course many of us are going to say “Oh, that’s terrible!” but really, on the inside, aren’t we all rolling our eyes, thinking, ‘sure.. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.. right.’ It’s a controversial disease and there’s no real test for it. But there’s a push for more research and the disease just got a new name – Systemic Exertion Intolerance Disease. Elana Gordon reports on what that new name means for people who actually have the illness.

We’re doing a series of stories on the issue of cancer this month, leading up to the new Ken Burns production “The Emperor of all Maladies” which airs on PBS stations at the end of this month, This week, we hear from David Bolgiano about his grueling cancer treatment in a story by Carolyn Beeler and the toxic stress and physical toll that can come from battling survival in a story by Maiken Scott. 

This March marks a once in a lifetime occasion of epic proportions: It’s the ultimate Pi Day – not just 3/14 as usual, it’s 3/14/15. So, this won’t happen for another hundred years. Joining us this week to talk about Pi and its allure is Aatish Bhatia, a writer for the Emperical Zeal blog for Wired.com and the associate director of Princeton University’s Council on Science and Technology.

This week, we launch a new segment called Lab Rat, in which we test out the latest health and science apps, products and treatments. In our first edition, we take on the topic of genetic testing – an exciting frontier of personalized medicine that’s also run into some early controversy. Zack Seward visited a local startup that’s making it easier for you to know your own DNA.

We’ll also hear about the science of wind tunnels and a Franklin Institute after school program aimed at dispelling the notion that science is the domain of stodgy, old white men with thick glasses.

What if every time you bought a bottle of Poland Spring or Evian water to quench your thirst, you first poured a third of it onto the street? Sounds wasteful and crazy, right? Well, that’s what happens to Philadelphia tap water—more than a third of it is lost in transmission. Reporter Carolyn Beeler went in search of the missing water. All that talk about tap water got us wondering: What should water taste like? So we tracked down a foremost expert in water flavor, Arthur von Wiesenberger to discuss why our water tastes the way it does.

Four words are fueling a major fight in the nation’s capital: “established by the state.” That short phrase is at the heart of a Supreme Court case (King v Burwell) challenging the subsidies people are receiving to pay for their insurance plans under Obamacare. We’re joined by health management and law professor Rob Field from Drexel University to discuss the intricacies of the arguments and hear his prediction for an outcome in June.

Andrew Cohen is a professor of engineering at Drexel University, and he helps researchers visualize how cells change over time with the help of a custom-built 3D movie theater. Cohen recently stopped by for a conversation with musician Keith Pierce from the band Northern Arms for the next chapter in our series “So What Do You Do?”

In the lead up to the release of Ken Burns’ upcoming PBS special “Cancer: The emperor of all maladies,” The Pulse is featuring a series of stories about cancer. In the first installment, reporter Todd Bookman takes us back to a discovery that linked cancer to genetics and fundamentally changed how we thought of the disease.

Also on The Pulse this week: an update on our Clear Health Costs initiative, a new play about kidney transplants, and imagining what the check might look like if restaurants billed customers like hospitals bill patients.

On Wednesday, March 4, the Supreme Court will hear a case that challenges one of Obamacare’s key provisions: subsidies that make coverage affordable for millions of people who get insurance through federally run online marketplaces. The fate of the law could boil down to one, single word in a 900-page document: “state.” We’re joined by Supreme Court watcher Lisa McElroy for a preview of the arguments.

Since the passage of Obamacare, medical device manufacturers have paid a 2.3-percent sales tax. Some of that money goes toward those insurance subsidies that make coverage affordable for millions of people. But, as Taunya English reports, the new Republican-controlled congress is hoping to repeal that tax and weaken the President’s signature health law in the process.

Not every dentist gets to stare into the mouths of royalty. But Thomas Evans got to do just that. Evans earned fame, influence and a sizeable fortune by treating the teeth of 19th century nobles, while he simultaneously contributed to the modernization of dentistry. Reporter Todd Bookman tells Evans’ unlikely story.

If you’ve ever tried to find out how much a medical procedure might cost but no one could tell you, you’re not alone. The Pulse is launching a new project to lift the veil on some of these oh-so-mysterious costs—WHYY PriceCheck. Reporter Elana Gordon explains how you (yes you!) are a crucial link in the chain of transparency, and we talk with KQED’s Lisa Aliferis about how the project faired in California.

Vitamins are everywhere. The take up an entire aisle of your local grocery store and they were probably added to both the cereal you ate this morning and the milk you poured over it. In fact, Americans spend more than 5 billion dollars on multivitamins alone. But are we making ourselves healthier? Catherine Price wrote Vitamania: Our obsessive quest for nutritional perfection, and she joins us to talk vitamins.

Medical students spend four long years studying the science and theory of modern medicine, treating patients only under close supervision. But when the all-knowing resident is gone, and there are no books to reference, treating a real-life emergency gets a whole lot scarier. Daphne Owen found that out first-hand on a red-eye flight from LA to Philly last Thanksgiving. She tells Avir Mitra her terrifying tale.

While walking through the lobby of the Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine in Philadelphia, enroute to an interview, reporter Elana Gordon stumbled across a beautiful moment. Med student Linda Wang had sat down at the hospital’s piano to play an impromptu concert, and Gordon captured it all on tape. 

We spend large portions of our lives in and around our homes. It’s where we eat, sleep, and heal. Some of us were born in our homes, others will die in theirs, but the point is, there’s a lot happening at our home addresses, and not just social stuff—medical and astronomical breakthroughs happen under our own roofs every day. So, with the mercury bottoming out in the dog days of winter, we decided to dedicate this episode of the show to our homes.

How’s this for a prescription from your doctor: 10 days of no cognitive stimulation—no phone, no TV, no loud noises…nothing! That’s what Theo Balcomb was prescribed after she suffered a severe concussion when she slipped while getting out of bed one morning. Disoriented and exhausted from her the aftermath of her fall, Theo’s sister Hallie swooped in to help her on the journey back to health. The sisters tell us their story. This got us wondering what is the best course of action after a concussion? To answer that question and others, we are joined by Sarah Allen, a pediatric neuropsychologist at Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine.

When you’re in the hospital, “home” is where you want to be, so being discharged is the goal. The thing is, a lot of recently discharged patients end up not staying home for long, and, instead, they wind up back in the hospital. Reporter Elana Gordon spends a day with a nurse whose sole mission is to keep discharged patients from becoming readmissions.

The expression “weight loss” harkens images of broccoli and 7-minute workouts, right? But did you know the configuration of your kitchen may be having a big effect on your waistline as well? It does, according to author and researcher Brian Wansink, who, for years, has been studying how our kitchens affect our weight. Brian joins us to impart some fascinating and eye-opening weight-loss advice.

In the 1950s, the Dupont chemical company, based in Delaware, came out with a product that might have made the biggest impact on how you live in your home—acrylic paint in every color of the rainbow. Oil paint required a crew of professionals, and it took forever to dry. With Dupont’s invention, you could suddenly redesign the look of your home yourself…in a day! And with this invention came the idea of “color psychology”…the idea that specific colors can make you feel certain ways. But as Peter Crimmins reports, linking wall colors and our psyches is not an easy science.

Dragging a telescope to some far-away mountaintop is no longer necessary if your goal is to make meaningful contributions to the field of astronomy. As reporter Todd Bookman discovered, an explosion of publicly available space data means hobbyists can make discoveries that matter and advance the breadth of human knowledge without ever getting off the couch.

Also on this week’s show: how the Xbox changed Paul Ballas’ life, how to force your flowers into thinking it’s spring while it’s still snowy out, and the dangers of radon…that colorless, odorless gas that’s oh so 1983. Stay home with us this week!

This is the final weekend to sign up for Obamacare in 2015, and Latinos are one of the groups that could really stand to benefit from this insurance option—they make up about one-third of the nation’s uninsured. Even so, sign ups have lagged. Elana Gordon reports on new strategies to change that.

“The honest truth is that I had never expected to stay this long,” said FDA commissioner Margaret Hamburg in a recent interview. After six years running the organization, she’s making her exit. We sit down with an FDA watcher to discuss the high and lows of Hamburg’s record tenure and discuss the people who could succeed her.

Scientific and medical issues can and do turn into political footballs—think global warming, vaccines, fracking. But watch out politicians: there’s a new sheriff in town! SciCheck is a new branch of the website FactCheck.org, and it’s leader hopes to keep politicians attempts to bend science in check as an election season nears.

Each winter, the city of Philadelphia uses 20 to 40 thousand tons of rock salt to keep its roads ice-free. In a bad season, like last year, that number can balloon to more than 80,000. That’s just one city, and that huge number doesn’t include you and me, throwing a thick coat of salt on our sidewalk every time we see a flake of snow. Jessica McDonald reports on what all that salt is doing to our health.

It appears that Americans are becoming more unified on the issue of climate change, and more supportive of governmental action to reduce carbon emissions. Why the change in attitudes? Maybe it comes on the back of the recent Buzzfeed.com report that climate change could have a massive impact on fine wine. NO! We invited that reporter, Sandra Allen, to talk to us about these horrific findings.

Birds are beautiful, I’m sure we can all agree on that. The parasites that live on and in birds? Not so much…But don’t tell an ornithologist that. In our regular segment “So What Do You Do?” writer Chris Norwood sits down with bird expert Jason Weckstein to learn more about something you never thought you’d want to know.

Did you know operating room gloves, used by every member of a surgical team, are actually the product of a budding romance? Reporter Taunya English takes us back to the turn of the twentieth century, when the operating room was not the place you wanted to be.

Also on this week’s show, the peculiar nesting habits of the hornbill, and #healthpolicyvalentines tweets. For example: “Baby, your love is addictive. But not as addictive as the added sugar that permeates almost our entire food supply.” We’ll ready the funniest.

Health researchers have declared a new public enemy number one…sugar. In the past, this unenviable position has been occupied by fat, salt…even eggs. But lately, more and more experts are finding themselves convinced that the health dangers posed by added sweeteners dwarf the risks posed by previously vilified foods. The government has recently proposed new nutrition policies that include a new take on sugar. Reporter Audrey Quinn takes a look at our changing perception of the sweet stuff.

Alison Buttenheim, an assistant professor in the school of nursing at the University of Pennsylvania, studies attitudes about vaccines, and, in the wake of the Disney measles outbreak, she joins us to answer some pertinent questions about why some parents decide not to vaccinate. For most people, measles is a theoretical topic, but we hear from one family that experienced the measles firsthand.

Getting poor quality sleep a few nights in a row can feel like torture, so imagine if you lived your whole life in that state. That’s what people suffering from narcolepsy experience. Pulse contributor Steven Jackson spent a day with Julie Flygare, a woman with narcolepsy, trying her best to live a “normal” life.

Twenty-four of the country’s 141 medical schools carry a donor’s name rather than just the university’s name. And the pace of these name changes seems to be quickening. Does it matter when Cornell Medical College changes its name to Weill Cornell Medical College? Dr. Danielle Ofri thinks so. She joins us to discuss why we should care.

Wheelchair ramps, elevators, automatic doors—these conveniences help level the playing field for the disabled. But 25 years after the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, many websites have yet to comply with the law. Todd Bookman reports about efforts to level the digital playing field.

Tax season has an added wrinkle this year—the Affordable Care Act. As a result of the mandate to carry health coverage, those who went without health care in 2014 will owe a penalty, and others, who got insurance through the Obamacare exchanges may owe the IRS more, while others might get money back. Simply put, it’s complicated, and even tax preparers are feeling the pressure to get it right. Elana Gordon takes the pulse of the tax prep industry.

Snowmageddon turned out to be a mere dusting in the Philly region, despite the near panic from weather folks, predicting an historic storm. So what exactly happened here? We asked Tom Thunstrom, editor and co-publisher of PhillyWx.com, to join us for a conversation about the challenges of predicting the weather.

A thousand meters below the ocean’s surface is a layer of water that conducts sound in unusual ways. At this depth, sound waves don’t behave the same way they do on land or even in other parts of the ocean. And this strange acoustical phenomenon that played a secretive role in the nation’s military history and discovered the identity of a sea monster. Todd Bookman dives in.

Ants are famous collaborators, carrying pine needles or bread crumbs into their nests to feed their queen. But did you know that inside each ant, more collaboration happens on a micro-level? In this edition of our series “So What Do You Do,” writer Adrienne Simpson talks to Drexel University biologist Jake Russel about his fascination with the organisms inside of ants.

As you watch the Patriots and the Seahawks compete in Super Bowl 49, you should say a big “thank you” to science. Today’s star athletes get a lot of their skills, strength, endurance and gear through refined techniques developed by scientists. To discuss this revelation, we’re joined by Mark McClusky, Editor of Wired.com and author of a recent book “Faster Higher Stronger: How sports science is creating a new generation of super athletes, and what we can learn from them.”

If you get hurt on the job, your life can turn into an odyssey of doctors, insurance claims, and lawyers. It can make the injured feel like they’re little more than their case file. A local law firm specializing in worker’s compensation cases has turned case files back into people. Peter Crimmins has the story of turning painful bureaucracy into art.

Piggy-backing on the recent news that 2014 was the hottest year on record, President Obama made a passionate plea for the need to address climate change in his State of the Union speech this past week. But in some fields, adapting to climate change seems more practical than trying to prevent it. Forestry, to name just one. Carolyn Beeler walks through a Philly forest to find out more.

Also in his 2015 State of the Union address, the President announced the launch of his Precision Medicine Initiative “to bring us closer to curing diseases like cancer and diabetes, and to give all of us access to the personalized information we need to keep ourselves and our families healthier.” Sounds great, but what the heck is “precision medicine”? We invited the Center for Personalized Diagnostics at the University of Pennsylvania to tell us more about the future of diagnosis and treatment.

Concussions were certainly one of biggest news stories of 2014. But the story is far from over. Each year, Americans suffer more than two million concussions, and experts think that 20 percent of those injuries result in serious long-term injury. And while our awareness of these brain injuries came into sharp focus this past year, the science behind diagnosing and treating concussions is still far too blurry. But a new blood test being developed in Philadelphia might change that. Avir Mitra has that story.

Doctors have a long history of inventing stuff—from stomach pumps to artificial kidneys—and a Philadelphia hospital wants to feed and grow that innovative spirit. Thomas Jefferson University’s Accelerator Zone is designed to get researchers thinking about products…not just published papers. Reporter Todd Bookman got a look inside.

This month, two students at Burlington Township High School in New Jersey took their own lives. Almost 5,000 Americans between the ages of 10 and 24 die by suicide each year. Schools could be part of a first line of defense in preventing suicide, and some legislators recognize this. In September, Pennsylvania teachers will have to be trained in recognizing the signs of suicide risk. We’re joined by two experts in the field to discuss what this all means.

“Medicaid doesn’t pay enough.” For years that’s been the complaint from some doctors. In response, the Affordable Care Act bumped up payments, and now there’s some evidence that the temporary pay raise made it easier for people to book an appointment with a doctor. Taunya English reports.

Philadelphian Mark Kuchler has been battling lung cancer for three years. He’s 31 now, he’s back on chemo trying to keep the spread of cancer in his body at bay. He and his wife Rachel got married one year ago, in the midst of all this cancer chaos. In this edition of our series “Patient Files” they talk about how they deal with all of the adversity.

If you’ve struggled with addiction, you know what “the rooms” are. It’s shorthand for recovery meetings, like at 12 step programs—the rooms are church basements, community spaces, daycares or even kitchens. Millions of people have entered these rooms for support, sharing stories with one another. But these stories usually stay within those closed doors. Elana Gordon brings us the story of one local woman who has been walking a fine line, bringing some stories out of the rooms and into the public sphere.