Asking for help is hard. It can make us feel vulnerable, like we're sharing too much or admitting weakness. It can also stoke fears about our relationships and sense of self-worth — am I being a burden? Will they resent me later? What if they say no?

And yet, the ability to ask for help is an important life skill that not only helps us survive, but can make us feel loved, supported and connected.

On this episode, we hear stories about what happens when different people ask for help — from the struggles of a nurse and comedian to make herself vulnerable, to the dark side of GoFundMe, to how helpful a chatbot can really be for our mental health.

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Before dinosaurs, before trees — even before Saturn had its rings – there were sharks. The fierce predators have been swimming in our oceans for hundreds of millions of years, standing the test of time as they survived all five of Earth's mass extinction events.

Now, though, many of them face unprecedented threats, from overfishing to climate change. But there's a movement underway to protect sharks — and to change their public image, which suffered after the classic movie Jaws.

On this episode, we explore the secret lives of sharks, and what can be done to help these ancient predators survive. We learn about the history of sharks, and what's made them so adaptable; hear about how some fishermen are helping to save them; and find out what the historical record can teach us about the largest, most fearsome shark to ever exist — the megalodon.

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Health care is a billion dollar industry in the U.S. — one of the biggest in the country. The business aspect of medicine is an invisible force in the doctor's office that shapes treatment decisions and care. As patients, financial worries can affect whether we go to the doctor in the first place, make us suspicious of expensive procedures, or even cause us to turn down necessary care. And patients aren't the only ones worrying about money — on the provider side, everyone from doctors to hospitals to insurance companies are also weighing the costs and benefits of expensive tests and treatments, along with whether or not patients can pay.

On this episode, we explore the complicated relationship between medicine and money, and how it affects patient care. We learn about the history of medical debt and why some patients end up in court over unpaid bills; we find out how financial incentives affect pharmaceutical companies' decisions about what treatments to develop; and we hear about a controversial practice that some are calling medical deportation.

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It's easy to forget that the earth below us is always changing and shifting — but sometimes, we get a dramatic demonstration of exactly that, like with the recent eruptions of a volcano in Iceland.

Volcanoes can devastate and destroy, but they're also an integral part of our planet's history and even evolution. And the same goes for the rocks beneath our feet — they're ancient artifacts, historical records, time capsules filled with clues about Earth's past and its future.

On this episode, we read into the geologic record — written in stone — to decipher the secrets it holds. We talk with an adventurous researcher, who explains how volcanoes helped shape our planet's evolution; we find out what we can learn from studying rocks; and hear about how rock collecting helped save one woman's life.

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On this rebroadcast of The Pulse: Freedom sounds great as an idea. Who doesn't want to be free to do what they want? But when you take a closer look, freedom becomes more complicated. What does it really mean to be free — and how free can we be? On this encore episode, we'll look at freedom from different perspectives. We'll talk with a neuroscientist who says we evolved to have free will — even though it can sometimes feel like our brains are just following a bunch of preset options. And we'll hear from a social psychologist who says that being human means we need other people and living in groups always comes with limitations. We'll also meet a man who relied on a single word to unlock more freedom in his life.

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Amazon caught the wave of the early internet at a time when very few people even understood what the internet was. Launched in a garage 30 years ago, the company has grown from its humble beginnings to a global powerhouse that has expanded into all kinds of sectors, everything from cloud computing to health care. Founder Jeff Bezos wanted Amazon to become a daily habit for consumers — and for many people, it's become just that. And even if you're not ordering anything today, chances are, you are still using an Amazon service, whether you know it or not. On this episode, we'll explore the different innovations that have fueled Amazon's growth. We'll dig into its power-hungry data centers and peek inside the intricate clockwork that makes speedy deliveries possible.

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Imagine looking at a crowd of people, and they either all look vaguely familiar, or like complete strangers. It doesn't matter if this is a group of classmates or colleagues, or people you have never met before. That's a daily experience for people who have a condition called face blindness — who can't recognize people based on their faces. Face recognition takes up a lot of real estate in our brains, and for good reason; recognizing people allows us to form relationships, tell friend from foe, and create networks. On this episode, we explore how we recognize faces — and what happens when we can't. We'll also hear about people who are so-called "super recognizers," and find out how artificial intelligence could turn face recognition into a tool for surveillance.

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DIY culture is all about empowerment — teaching yourself new skills to do things on your own, like retiling your bathroom or fixing a leaky faucet. But what happens when the DIY approach extends to something as complicated and potentially dangerous as medicine?

On this episode, we take a look at the growing number of patients who are taking health care into their own hands — experimenting with DIY treatments ranging from brain stimulation to homemade wound ointments. We hear about a man who developed a cure for his persistent infection in his garage, find out why so many people are flocking to DIY medicine, and learn how one researcher carefully evaluates his patients' DIY approaches.

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Competent. Capable. Strong. Stoic. Provider. Protector. Leader. Patriarch. These are the kinds of words that we've long associated with masculinity and manhood — but in recent decades, ideas of what it means to be a man have undergone drastic changes.

As women have gained ground in education and careers, politics and culture, the role of men has shifted. They're no longer automatically assumed to be the main breadwinners, the decision-makers or leaders. And a lot of the "masculine" attributes that were once considered virtues — decisiveness, stoicism, paternalism — are now sometimes seen as problematic. In other words, the old script for what it means to be a man has been torn up. But some experts say that script has not really been replaced, leading many men and boys to feel destabilized and lost.

On this episode, we explore how our ideas of masculinity are changing — why there seems to be a void of positive messages, the lure of the manosphere, and how men are reinventing and re-envisioning their roles. Also — a look at how being more deeply involved in caring for babies and children is affecting men's brains.

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When it comes to science, it's often the flashiest stories that grab headlines — the cancer breakthroughs, the tech innovations, the discoveries of new species or distant stars. But there's also plenty of science that, while it may not make a huge splash, is quietly changing the way we live.On this episode, The Pulse celebrates its 10-year anniversary with a special live show that turns the spotlight on the science changing our everyday lives. We talk with a pediatrician and engineer whose work has transformed the way children travel – and saved countless lives; host Maiken Scott volunteers as a guinea pig for neurologists studying brain stimulation; and we hear from a biologist whose early-career quest changed the way she thinks about her work.

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