The Pulse

 Allow us to reintroduce ourselves…

This week on The Pulse, we renew our commitment to keeping listeners abreast of the most important news and trends in health, science, and innovation in the Delaware Valley. We’re doing this by looking back at some of our team’s best work.

The Pulse tackles topics that play big roles in our lives. This week, the workplace wellness movement promises benefits to both employees and employers by encouraging and rewarding healthy lifestyle choices. But critics, and some new data, question the effectiveness of these programs. We look at the practical application of workplace wellness and the ethics of tying our health to our paychecks.

In our regularly recurring segment “So, What Do You Do?” we arrange conversations between scientists and laypeople in an attempt to broaden our understanding of both science and the livelihoods of those we stand on line with at our neighborhood coffee shop. This week public health grad school candidate Teagan Keating sits down with malacologist Amanda Lawless about her lifelong passion for studying mollusks.

One of the universal shared human experiences has to do with frustration over different aspects of our healthcare system. In our special segment “Pain In The Neck,” we attempt to share the experiences of folks dealing with doctors, hospitals, insurers, etc., and get them answers to common questions. This week, we try to understand why surgeons downplay recovery times.

Patient Files is The Pulse’s forum for people struggling with disease and injury. The stories are inspiring, heart-breaking, and occasionally, hilarious. This week we hear from 25-year-old Scott Clifford, who had broken 50 bones by the time he was just eight years old. Then he stopped counting. Clifford talks about living with Osteogenesis Imperfecta, or brittle bone disease. We also hear how Philadelphia comedian Valerie DiMambro’s life was forever altered when she found out she had celiac disease, meaning she was allergic to her Italian grandmother’s pasta.

Bringing to life the incredible science that happens in the labs of Delaware Valley every day is another important mission of The Pulse. This time we go on the job with some highly trained “super dogs” that can sniff out deadly cancers, we look for beauty in the sometimes panic-inducing experience of getting an MRI scan, we look into the future of disease fighting with Penn State scientists who have created microscopic “nanomotors” small enough to fit inside a human cell, and we recount the solving of an ancient puzzle by a group of Philly-based paleontologists.

If you’re a regular listener, we hope you enjoy this stroll down memory lane. If you’re new…welcome.

What can our genes tell us about our health risks?  This week on The Pulse, we take a look at the prospects and possibilities of precision medicine and whether it’s living up to its hype. We also talk with Randy Scott, who works for a company that makes the genetics tests you can order through your doctor.  He starts off by explaining the difference between genomic and genetic testing. 

As the Affordable Care Act enrollment approaches, many health advocates and government leaders are pulling out all the stops to spread the word and encourage people to sign up.  We check in with a few people who are making rounds in local neighborhoods. 

In this week’s So What Do You Do?, we pair up Opera singer Valerie Gay with Michelle Johnson, director of Penn Medicine’s Rehabilitation Robotics Lab, to talk about Johnson’s work with robots in rehab therapy. 

Diane Burko shows us how she’s using art to depict things that scientists struggle to explain and The Scientist’s Kerry Grens shares the latest science news of the week, including the detection of gravitational ripples originating from the Big Bang, research documenting the resurrection of ancient moss and scientific efforts to engineer tissue that closely mimics a natural heart muscle that beats. 

In other science news, we head to Philadelphia’s Monell Chemical Senses Center to find out what the smell of our earwax can tell us. 

And our SciStarter spring preview features all of the hottest projects for citizen scientists this season, including critter counts, rain measurements and cherry blossom searches. 

To listen to the full show, click on the yellow audio icon above. 

Music from today’s show: 

“Vaporis Congeries Magnae” – 1:32Samuel PellmanAlbum Selected PlanetsLabel Innova Recordings

“Best Night” – 5:30The War on DrugsAlbum Slave AmbientLabel Secretly Canadian

“Starving in the Belly of a Whale” – 3:41Tom WaitsAlbum Blood MoneyLabel Anti

“Get Off the Internet” – 3:33Le TigreAlbum From the Desk of Mr. LadyLabel Mr. Lady

“Bees” – 5:23CaribouAlbum The Milk of Human KindnessLabel Leaf/Domino

“Goodbye Old Friend” – 2:06Noah and the WhaleAlbum Heart of Nowhere SoundtrackLabel Virgin EMI Records

“Great Escape” – 5:06Washed OutAlbum ParacosmLabel Sub Pop

“3030” – 6:56Deltron 3030Album Deltron 3030 – The InstrumentalsLabel 75 Ark

On today’s show… we wait. We’ll wait at doctor’s offices, we’ll sit with patients who are waiting for organs, we’ll spend time with scientists, waiting for results, we’ll wait for elevators, and for bananas to ripen.

First up on our wait list, is the doctor’s waiting room. Sitting there, waiting for your name to be called, reading ten tips to make better rice pudding, it can get really aggravating. What’s the hold-up? What are they doing on the other side of that door? Maiken Scott shadows Dr. Peter Gearhart of Penn Ob/Gyn and midwifery care.

Then, we head to Trenton, where a health group is trying to get ahead of schedule. It used to take months for patients to get in. Now, they’re reporting reducing the wait to two days or less. How is the possible? Elana Gordon went there to find out.

About 6,000 people in the Philadelphia tri-state area need an organ transplant. The network of doctors, nurses, family members who wait with them is even larger. Taunya English spends some time with a few of them.

We have all gotten used to waiting. It’s part of life, right? But what if you could speed up the waiting process? Well, in some cases, you can. For example, a perfectly ripened banana. For one of the nation’s biggest banana wholesalers, this is an exact science. Millions of bananas pass through the Philadelphia Wholesale Produce Market near the airport. They flow in on boats from Central and South America and wait here for a few days before traveling to produce shelves across the eastern seaboard. We sent Zack Seward out to the ripening room to see what that scientific process is all about.

Waiting is something scientists do a lot of. Waiting for a fungus to grow, waiting for measurements to go up, to go down, for some tiny detail to change. Two Villanova University researchers took us into their lab for a glimpse at their process – and the time it takes to get results.

When you’re in a hurry, waiting for an elevator can feel like an eternity. And pushing the button a few extra times just does’t do a thing. Why is that elevator up on the fourth floor, and not here? Turns out there is serious science guiding this path. We talk with Theresa Christy, a mathematician and Otis Elevator Research Fellow, one of the people figuring out where the elevator should go next.

Waiting isn’t always a bad thing. It can teach impulse control and lessons about what we really want, and why we want it. Lin Myers Jovanovic is a professor of psychology at California State University, a sex researcher and therapist. Some years ago, she decided to forgo sex for 12 months. Now married and living in the Sierra Nevada in California, Lin reflected on her year of abstinence with Pulse Contributor Sophie Reid.

Where do you get your weather forecasts? TV news channels?  Maybe you use the web? Or the local paper? The Farmers Almanac? No matter how you answer, the follow-up question remains: Where do they get their weather? We take a look at the science (and art) of predicting the weather and speak to the organization that best forecasted this wild and snowy winter. Hint: They aren’t exactly the most high-tech organization in the weather game.

While we’re talking climatology, we look back into the eternal question of winter weather: Could it really be true that no two snowflakes are alike? The answer, of course, is still yes, but why is worth knowing. And we join the crew of a ship that sailed to the Arctic in the mid 1800s. Well, not really, but we do link up with some citizen scientists pouring over the weather logs of ships from the 19th and 20th centuries in search of ancient weather patterns that could one day help us predict future storms.

 And while we’re talking inclimate weather, we infiltrate Walgreens’ small squad of data crunchers who analyze what we’re buying in an attempt to determine where a flu outbreak has occurred, before we even call in sick from work. Turns out that sales of toothbrushes and orange juice are powerful predictors of a coming flu epidemic.

 We also join researchers using gene editing methods to rid genes of the doorway HIV uses to infiltrate our immune systems, and we talk to a malacologist about her work with mollusks. 

We often think of trauma as the result of a singular negative experience, but many, who spend their entire lives in environments plagued by stressors like crime and ill health, suffer similar debilitating effects. We take a look into the community trying to find solutions for a systemic problem that many poor people have no escape from.

There’s no doubting that we take our sense of smell for granted. Not only is it one of our most primal early warning systems for danger, but it’s also the key component of taste and its linked profoundly to our long-term memory. On this week’s show, we talk with a woman who lost her sense of smell, and we check in on some research aimed at helping those who’ve lost the ability to sniff out danger and pleasure get it back.

Few diseases are as terrifying to contemplate living with as schizophrenia, but a school of thought has emerged promoting the idea of recovering from what was once considered a life sentence. We talk to Dr. Fred Frese, a once committed schizophrenic who has not just reclaimed his life but gone on to help others suffering similarly, and Dr. Kim Mueser an expert who sees the challenges of many schizophrenics as surmountable.

People with autism will sometimes replay stories in their heads, over and over and over, warping and morphing it into something new. A Norristown, Pa. theater company is teaching adults with autism to transform those stories into plays. We check in on one of the theater’s classes. 

Also on this week’s show: biorhythmic music we make with electrical pulses in our skin, the explanation as to why we slip on icy sidewalks, and the science of chicken butts. What’s up? Chicken butt. All that and more this week on The Pulse.

For those stories and more, click on the audio icon above.

In the world of cheesesteaks, Geno Vento stands head and shoulders above the crowd. But a lifetime spent around this delicious, but fattening, delicacy has rendered him one of about 200,000 Americans who attempt a surgical weight-loss procedure each year. He’s lost 100 pounds so far, but the question remains: Can he make the profound lifestyle changes necessary to maintain his new weight? Then we sit down with Dr. David Sarwer, a psychologist who works with patients before and after bariatric surgery to discuss the mental component of weight-loss.

Last year, the U.S. deported over 130,000 undocumented immigrants. In an attempt to get emotional support to those fighting to stay in the country, an interfaith immigrant rights organization called New Sanctuary Movement has been pairing local congregations with families facing deportation. In the secon part of our series on mental health and undocumented immigrants, we visited with one of the program’s pairs to see how it works.

Ever wonder why your mom warned you not to pour used cooking oil down the kitchen sink? Can you say “fatberg”? Yeah, that exists, but it doesn’t have to. With encouragement from the EPA, Philadelphia’s Indonesian population is doing its part to keep both their infrastructure and their environment a bit cleaner by recycling the oil they use to fry meat and vegetables. We go in search of community oil drums.  

How do you improve care for the poorest and sickest among us while simultaneously balancing the books? That’s the trillion-dollar question facing the American health system. But it doesn’t scare a small healthcare team in Camden, N.J. from attempting to reinvent a clinic just for this population.

Also on this week’s show: a health crisis facing bumblebees, the future of blight-resistant potatoes, dogs with OCD, and science cheerleaders. Yeah, they exist, too. Goooooooo science!

For those stories and more, click on the audio icon above.

The workplace wellness movement promises benefits to both employees and employers by encouraging and rewarding healthy lifestyle choices. But critics, and some new data, question the effectiveness of these programs. We look at the practical application of workplace wellness, the ethics of tying our health to our paychecks, and how healthy behaviors can go viral in the office.

Undocumented immigrants living in the United States face numerous challenges in their daily lives, from finding and keeping jobs to the constant stress that a misstep could send them back to the home they left. In the first installment of a two-part series, we look at a group that’s trying to understand and effectively treat the mental health of those living in the shadows of the American dream.

With Valentine’s Day upon us, we discuss the challenges of creating and maintaining a healthy sex life with Philadelphia-based clinical sexologist Susana Mayer.

Scientists at Penn State have created tiny engines, called “nanomotors,” small enough to fit inside a human cell. The breakthrough is considered an important early step towards the goal of developing microscopic robots that couple be released into the body to hunt down and treat illness.

In this week’s Patient Files, in which listeners tell us their stories of illness, recovery, and healing, choreographer Brian Sanders describes the hip replacement surgery that reaffirmed his choice of a life and career based in movement.

For those stories and more, click on the audio icon above.

On this edition of The Pulse, we explore the question of how kids impact life satisfaction and happiness. We talk with Jennifer Senior about her new book called “All Joy and no Fun” as well as Angus Deaton, a professor of international affairs and economics at Princeton University about his recently published paper on this topic.

In this week’s Patient Files segment, 22-year-old Emma Straub shares her story of living with a rare auto-immune disease called Scleroderma.

Our Citizen Science segment details the launch of this year’s Great American Bird Watch and we head to the library to hear how librarians are taking on a role beyond that of a traditional book caretaker.

We’ll also take a trip to Villanova University, where scientists, art historians and restoration experts are bringing an enormous 17th century painting back to its original glory.

For those stories and more, click on the audio icon above.

On this edition of The Pulse, we take a look at Camden’s history as a tech hub. We’ll get a tour of some of the important inventions that came out of Camden – the Victrola, for example – and investigate whether a new generation of discoveries, with a medical focus this time, can bring the struggling city back from the brink.

Later on the show – it’s a rite of passage, a test, and a challenge. We’ll follow a group of first year medical students as they enter their first-ever anatomy lab, and meet their silent teachers.

Science reporter Kerry Grens fills us in on some recent discoveries and research studies, we’ll find out how snakes fly, for example, and contributor Avir Mitra examines new research about grunting. Finally, we hear about an ongoing fight over e-cigarettes, and efforts that are underway to ban them in public places.

For those stories and more, click on the audio icon above.

Bedbugs have made a comeback in recent years, spawning stress and anxiety for those combatting home infestations. We hear from the scientists trying to learn more about their “M-O” and stop their advance, as well as individuals battling the bugs in their home.

We go on the job with some highly trained dogs that can sniff out deadly cancers. Hopes are high that these “super dogs” will guide scientists toward more readily available and easily affordable ovarian cancer screening tests.

A former Philadelphia medical examiner decided to apply his 18 years of experience stitching up holes in dead bodies to patching up holes in your wall. We take you behind the scenes as he pitches his big idea to potential investors.

In this week’s citizen science segment, we go outside to measure local ice in hopes of contributing to global solutions to climate change.

Scientists could be on the verge of 3D printing living human organs. We look at the motivations driving these advances in biotechnology and the ethics behind actually applying them.

In this week’s Patient Files, 25-year-old Scott Clifford had broken 50 bones by the time he was just eight. Then he stopped counting. Clifford talks about living with Osteogenesis Imperfecta, or brittle bone disease.

And WHYY’s Peter Crimmins reviews a play written by and starring former Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Mike Boryla about his brief stint in football’s elite and the epiphany that convinced him to abandon a promising career in the NFL.

For those stories and more, click on the audio icon above.