The Pulse

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.

A pharma revolution is afoot: biosimilars. They’re like generics, except for more complex biologic drugs that can’t exactly be replicated… think injectables, used in cancer treatments, that often require a provider to administer them. Last week, a federal advisory committee handed down its recommendations on the very first application for a drug of this kind in the U.S. Elana Gordon was there and brings us this report on what many are calling an historic move.

According to the lead science writer for the website FiveThirtyEight.com, every time you fly, you trash the planet. Pulse host Maiken Scott sits down with Christie Aschwanden to discuss the damage air travel does to the environment and what we can do to mitigate it.

Ever pass a hospital employee on the street (or on line at Starbucks) wearing their brightly colored “scrubs”? Ever wonder if they should be doing that…wearing them out into the world, where the risk of infecting others with the germs on  them is high?  Maiken Scott went out in search of whether or not that’s a good idea.

Every year around this time—right in the middle of cold and flu season—parents with young kids seriously dread “daycare syndrome.” That’s the revolving door of illnesses that forces parents to call in sick to work. Taunya English reports on the scourge of daycare families.

Learning science can be complicated, and students often use graphs and other tools to understand complex problems. But what if using these visual tools isn’t an option? This week in our series Patient Files, we hear from a legally blind student who says that you don’t always have to see what you’re learning in order to understand it.

Also on this week’s show, eating and crying in the bathroom at work, how FitBits can cure some deep societal ills (or end up in your underwear drawer), and a new twist in the long and winding road to stop smoking.

We hear about cancer risks all the time. Smoking, of course, terrible diets, alcohol, vices – and of course, your family history. But a recent study suggests that a big part of getting cancer relies on chance – random genetic mistakes or mutations gone wrong. So what does this mean for our cancer prevention habits? Physician and former Philadelphia health commissioner Don Schwarz joins us this week to explain how we should process the message.

Is Philadelphia the greenest city in America? Several years ago, Mayor Michael Nutter set a lofty environmental goal of making it the greenest city in America by 2015.  Since then, Nutter and the Office of Sustainability wrote a plan called “Greenworks Philadelphia” that named 14 energy and environmental targets to meet by 2015. Did we make the mark? Carolyn Beeler found out… and the answer might surprise you.

This month, Pennsylvania joined the ranks of more than two dozen other states in expanding Medicaid. Elana Gordon explains the details.

For every sore throat and suture, every embarrassing rash and broken toe, there’s a code – a three to five digit billing code that allows doctors and hospitals to communicate with insurance companies and get paid. In just a few months, those codes are getting a reboot. Todd Bookman took a look at the pages and pages of new codes.

We often hear that science reporting exaggerates findings, but who is really to blame? The scientists? Press officers? Reporters? Joining us this week was regular Pulse contributor Bethany Brookshire, or SciCurious. She is a writer for Science News and Society for Science and the Public and she points to where things could go wrong  in the process but stresses that, ultimately, no one gets a pass.

What does a healthy heart sound like? Recognizing that sound is an essential skill doctors learn very early on and it can take hearing it up to 500 times before medical students can consistently identify the whooshes and murmurs that suggest a problem. Taunya English takes us to a Drexel class where medical students are putting their heart knowledge to the test.

Also on the show, does heat have the power to heal? And we hear from a local artist who is using artistic concepts to teach math and science in schools.

The word “buzz” is a fleeting thing in the world of technology. Products that are supposed to change everything often don’t. In search of the “next big thing” in tech, we’ll take a look at the Gartner Hype Cycle—an investing tool that tries to measure all that hype and predict how long it takes to go from harebrained idea to mainstream acceptance.

It goes without saying that 2014 was a watershed year for climate change. Record snow and heat had the scientific community singing from the same page, and world powers started to prioritize the environment in ways they hadn’t prior. So, what does 2015 hold in store? Later this year, the UN Climate Change Conference will be held in Paris, where climate negotiators will be trying to achieve a legally binding and universal climate agreement on climate with all nations. How likely is that to happen? Carolyn Beeler takes a look.

This week, we reflect on the 500th anniversary of Andres Vesilius, the father of anatomy and skepticism in medicine. Then we revisit students participating in their first anatomy class.

Ever heard of the phrase “Health in all Policies”? It’s the idea that you can look at any government policy through a health lens. Improved health becomes a yardstick—similar to jobs—when deciding if a policy is good or bad. Each January, we make guesses about the people and things we think you’ll be talking about in the New Year and we think “Health in all Policies” will be one of them.

When the federal government asked doctors to digitize their medical records, some physicians started filling out those electronic forms right in the exam room…during the office visit! We’ve all been there, right? But in the last decade, a possible solution, and a new job title, has emerged.

Also on the show, we talk to the author of “Smart People Don’t Diet” to hear what the latest science is telling us about what to eat or avoid. 

It’s the holiday season, so this week we listen back to some stories that make us feel warm and fuzzy. We’ll also attempt to digest some of the things that happened in the health and science world this past year.

2014 was a big year for the pharma industry, with game-changing approaches to drug development, acquisitions, lay-offs. But perhaps the biggest thing this year was the development of a sing drug for Hepatitis C – Sofosbuvir and we find out what it all means for the pharma industry.

A favorite activity this time of year is ice skating.. but guess what? You don’t even really need ice to enjoy the winter activity. Pulse contributor Avir Mitra explored some other slippery options. Sticking with our icy theme, we take a look at snowflakes and how they get their unique shapes. The final story filed under “frozen” is how researchers celebrate the holidays while they study neutrinos at the South Pole.

Since it’s our holiday, end of year, kind of show, we wanted to talk about some big developments in 2014. Regular Pulse contributor and associate editor for The Scientist, Kerry Grens, joins us this week to talk about some big science busts this year… along with some achievements.

Also on the show, what happened to the once prized toy of chemistry sets, a different look at dealing with adversity and grief and one woman’s story about how her experience with diabetes has brought her closer to her granddaughter.

Smells have the almost magical quality of being able to transport us back to a specific time and place with one sniff—an olfactory time machine, of sorts. For some, the smell of the beach transports them to their childhood summer days on the shore, while for others, a food smell might whisk them back to their first trip to Europe. Reporter Carolyn Beeler delves into the science behind the time machines that are our noses.

We might be getting a bit closer to answering one of the oldest questions in planetary science: Where did Earth’s oceans come from? Comets have been thought to be the hydrators of Earth, but a study released last week based on data from the European Space Agency’s Rosetta Spacecraft raises some questions about that theory. Dr. Claudia Alexander of NASA joins Maiken to try to answer some of them.

If at first you don’t succeed, try try again. That’s what our parents always told us, right? Well try as the players might, the Philadelphia 76ers can’t seem to win. And, as Shai Ben-Yaacov reports, the team’s losing streak might be affecting the body chemistry of its young would-be stars.

Airports, cars, bars, the gym…anywhere there’s a power source, there’s also probably a person trying to charge their phone. As far as portable technologies have come this decade, we are still only as mobile as our batteries allow us to be. So, what if your next gadget charged up not in hours, but in seconds? Reporter Todd Bookman reports on a recent breakthrough with the promise to untether us from the outlet.

Across the country, the shale boom has given rise to fears about whether oil and gas development might be polluting the water we drink and the air we breathe. This has led some residents to try doing their own field research, in the mode of citizen science. StateImpact Pennsylvania’s Katie Colaneri reports on this tricky blend of science and advocacy.

Project MERCURRI has been studying how microbes behave on Earth and how they behave in space, in particular on the International Space Station. Many scientists think it’s crucial to understand this in the coming era of long-term manned space flight. On this week’s show, we hear how the project is going, which includes microbes from the offices of WHYY! Gulp.

Also on the show, high-fat diets for pregnant women, using Legos to study drug addiction, and a conversation with a self-described “outlaw scientist” who played a part in the development of a platform for vaccine development.

A quick ethics test: Should a not-for-profit foundation make $3.3 billion selling royalty rights for a drug that treats its own donors and members? What if the money gets reinvested in more drugs and treatments? And what about slapping a $300,000 a year price tag on the stuff? And should we all have to help pick up the tab? Do you know the answers? Unsure ourselves, we sent reporter Carolyn Beeler to look into this more recent twist in the revenue stream of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

“Space…the final frontier.” The prescient words of William Shatner’s Captain James T. Kirk, the tortured hero of the original Star Trek TV series. While his show sure had its hokey moments—think psychedelic sets and Shatner’s pension for melodramatic acting—but it turns out that some of the technology aboard the Starship Enterprise was highly influential for an entire generation of scientists and tinkerers. Reporter Zack Seward has this tale of a high-stakes medical device competition trying to create working “tricorders” inspired by the sci-fi classic and a local team boldly going into the finals.

“Disinfectants” may not hold a very glamorous place in the world of health care, but inadequate clean up can put patients at risk. Hospital-acquired infections remain a huge challenge for the system, with outbreaks costing lives and money. A Delaware company thinks its got a way to reduce the spread of pathogens in medical settings, and, as WHYY’s Todd Bookman reports, the tool could also be used to fight the spread of Ebola.

Imagine you’re lying in bed trying to fall asleep as the chatter of a thousand people drones rudely on. This is an example of what it’s like to hear voices in your head that other people can’t. Hearing voices has long been associated with serious mental illness, and treated as a dangerous symptom, but now, voice hearers and advocates are taking a new approach to living with these voices. Laura Benshoff reports.

The Neti Pot—a personal-care habit a lot of people believe in, but there isn’t a whole lot of science to back it up. It’s that weird plastic kettle you buy at the drugstore, fill with salty water, and then you pour that mixture into your nostril. For some it’s reminiscent of waterboarding, but for others, it’s an essential part of wintertime nose health. So which is it? We asked reporter Taunya English in search for some answers, but…full disclosure…she has a dog in this fight.

Facts can be presented in different ways to tell different stories—anyone who’s served time on a jury knows this is true. Presenting a convincing case to a jury is the biggest part of a lawyer’s job, and some are enlisting the help of neuroscience to do this work better. Maiken Scott sits down with Kellie Janke and Mark Calzaretto of Magna Legal Services. They use their background in neuroscience and psychology to help her clients target specific areas of jurors’ brains.

Also on the show, pain’s relationship with itch, sex equality in research, white-nose syndrome in bats, and a conversation with ecologist Danielle Kreeger about the work of restoring estuaries.

For young athletes, concussions have been a huge topic of conversation and concern – and we’re not just talking about football players here.  But there’s another emerging trouble spot – knee injuries.  Taunya English takes us to the surgery room and sports field where ACL tears are all too common. 

Wearable technologies, or fitness tracking devices, are still a popular trend in gift giving this year.  An estimated one in 10 shoppers will buy one of these gadgets for themselves or a loved one this holiday season. Todd Bookman fills us in on a few of the industry’s expected top sellers this Black Friday. 

Two University of Pennsylvania doctors, Zeke Emanuel and Jason Karlawish, visited us in studio to give two very interesting takes on aging and what quality of life really means to them.   

We also hear from a pediatric neuropsychologist at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine to learn what the inner dialogue is of a scientist who studies brain development in children and is also the mom of two small kids. 

In this week’s Patient File, we hear from Michael Ross, a sports medicine physician and father of two boys.  Despite having colon cancer and receiving chemotherapy, he wants to keep doing what he loves – including running races. 

Also on the show, why do leftovers taste so good and what’s the appeal of tomato juice on planes?