The Pulse

WHYY

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Go on an adventure into unexpected corners of the health and science world each week with award-winning host Maiken Scott. The Pulse takes you behind the doors of operating rooms, into the lab with some of the world's foremost scientists, and back in time to explore life-changing innovations. The Pulse delivers stories in ways that matter to you, and answers questions you never knew you had.

1 h fa

The Body Remembers: Exploring the Invisible Wounds Left by Serious Illness

On this episode, we explore the lingering effects of medical crises, both physical and emotional, and what true healing really means. We hear about one doctor’s journey to reconnecting with her body — and her pain — after nearly dying, what researchers are learning about medical trauma, and how a traumatic brain injury transformed the lives and marriage of a couple. As a physician, Rana Awdish’s goal was to get her patients healthy as quickly as possible. But when she experienced her own medical emergency — one that ended her pregnancy and nearly killed her — her perspective on the role of clinicians shifted. Awdish later wrote a memoir about her experience, “In Shock,” that explored the importance of not only healing patients, but connecting with them on an emotional level. But the story didn’t end there. Fellow doctor and podcast host Neda Frayha talks with Awdish about her continuing journey, in the wake of the book’s success, to realizing that she hadn’t fully healed from her medical crisis, and that just as clinicians needed to connect with their patients, she needed to connect with her own body. Awdish’s new book is "After Shock: Learning to Reinhabit My Body After Illness." We talk with psychologist Jim Jackson about his decades-long work on medical trauma — the invisible psychological scars that many patients experience after serious illness or injuries. We hear about the causes of medical trauma, helpful and harmful ways of responding to it, and treatment options. His new book is “Reclaiming Your Life from Medical Trauma: Recognize the Symptoms, Find Treatment That Works, and Heal Your Brain and Body.” Medical crises don’t just affect patients — they affect their loved ones too. Pulse reporter Liz Tung talks with writer Abby Maslin and her husband T.C. Maslin about dealing with the fallout of an assault that almost killed T.C., and left him with a traumatic brain injury. They explore the effects on their lives and marriage — and dealing with cognitive and personality changes that made Abby feel like she was married to a stranger. Her book on their experience is “Love You Hard: A Memoir of Marriage, Brain Injury, and Reinventing Love.”

50 min
1 g fa

You’ve Heard of ‘Dad Bod’ But How About ‘Dad Brain?’

We often talk about the biological and emotional transformation of motherhood, but what happens to men’s brains when they become fathers? On this episode, host Maiken Scott chats with psychologist and researcher Darby Saxbe to explore her new book, “Dad Brain: The New Science of Fatherhood and How It Shapes Men’s Lives.” While the "dad bod" is a common trope, Saxbe’s research reveals that the changes go much deeper. Drawing on longitudinal studies, she explains how fatherhood triggers a biological reorganization — including measurable changes in brain volume within the social cognition network and dynamic shifts in hormones like testosterone and prolactin. Far from being "damage," these changes are an adaptive process, streamlining the brain to help fathers process social information and bond with their children.

42 min
11 giu

How Music Shapes Memory, Emotion, and Imagination

Music can transport us to a different time and place — but how does that happen? We explore how music affects our brains — from its ability to tap into our memories and imaginations, to “musical daydreaming” and how it helps us understand both the world and ourselves. We also discuss the therapeutic power of music. We talk with Elizabeth Margulis, director of the Music Cognition Lab at Princeton University, about how music affects our brains, and how it helps us make meaning and sense — both of ourselves, and of the world. Her new book is “Transported: The Everyday Magic of Musical Daydreams.” We listen back to an interview with musician and neuroscientist Daniel Levitin about music's ability to engage our brains, its close link with physical movement, and its function — both therapeutically, and in human evolution. He’s the author of “I Heard There Was a Secret Chord: Music As Medicine.”

50 min
4 giu

When Healthcare Meets the Law: Abortion, Cannabis, and Corporate Medicine

On this episode, we look at the intersection of health, medicine, and the law. We explore how the upcoming rescheduling of marijuana may impact research on the drug, hear the story of a doctor who faced manslaughter charges in the 1970s for providing an abortion, and learn about legislation that some states are using to try and keep private equity out of medicine. Near the end of 2025, President Donald Trump made an announcement that marijuana advocates had been waiting decades to hear — plans by the federal government to move cannabis from schedule 1 to schedule 3, a much less restrictive legal category that would allow scientists to more easily conduct research on the drug’s therapeutic value. Pulse reporter Liz Tung digs into the history of how cannabis first became a federally illicit drug, what impact that status has had on research, and how much of a difference rescheduling will really make. We talk with Britt Carpenter, a recovery advocate and executive director of Philly Unknown Project, about how medical marijuana helped him get off opioids after years of addiction — and how the stigma against marijuana may prevent others from doing the same. Abortion has been in a state of legal flux ever since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, putting many providers at risk of criminal prosecution. That might seem like a new development — but doctors faced similar pressures in the tumultuous years after Roe v. Wade was first decided. Reporter Linda Marsa tells the story of one young physician named Kenneth Edelin who became a national focal point of the debate after facing manslaughter charges for performing an abortion. It seems like a simple, common sense idea — that medical decisions should be made by doctors, not investors. But it’s an idea that’s been increasingly under threat, thanks to the rise of private equity in medicine. Now, some states are pushing back, with legislation aimed at curbing corporate influence in healthcare. Pulse reporter Alan Yu breaks down a recent court case out of Oregon that tested one such law, how it was decided, and what it could mean other states moving forward.

50 min
28 mag

Engineering Happiness into Our Daily Lives

Think about the last time you were really happy — where were you? What were you doing? Who were you with? And, most importantly, how can you recreate that feeling? Happiness can feel like lightning in a bottle — beautiful in the moment, but hard to find and harder yet to sustain. So what is it that makes for a happy life? And how do we engineer our lives for greater contentment, fulfillment, and joy? On this encore episode: the science of happiness and how we can experience more of it every day. We talk with psychologist Eric Zillmer about why certain places bring us joy, and how to engineer happiness in our lives. We hear about one reporter’s experiment to bring more moments of serendipity in her life. And, writer Daniel Coyle explains why community is at the heart of what it means to flourish. Drexel University psychologist Eric Zillmer created a “happiness map” of Philadelphia with the help of his students. He says it holds greater lessons on why certain places bring us joy, and how we can reverse-engineer happiness into our days. Zillmer directs the happiness lab at Drexel University. Writer Daniel Coyle built his career on exploring what it is that makes people successful — but when both of his parents died a few years ago, Coyle found himself unmoored, questioning what makes for a happy and meaningful life. The resulting journey led to his newest book, “Flourish: The Art of Building Meaning, Joy, and Fulfillment.” We talk with Coyle why he says community is at the heart of flourishing, how to create the right conditions for happiness, and why he says life isn’t a treasure hunt — it’s the process of treasure creation.

50 min
21 mag

The Strange Science of Color — And Our Quest to Understand It

On this episode, we explore the world of color — from how we perceive it, to our efforts to describe and differentiate its many shades. We talk with a lexicographer about efforts to standardize synthetic colors, and how we describe them, and investigate how we know that the colors we see are the same as the ones everyone else sees. The Pulse host Maiken Scott adds some pops of color to her all-black wardrobe with help from Jill Rafter, a color consultant with House of Colour, who breaks down seasonal palettes and how to choose your ideal hues based on your skin’s undertones. We talk with lexicographer Kory Stamper about her deep dive into the origins of ultra-specific color definitions, and the fascinating history of how major global changes, ranging from industrialization to international warfare, led to a government effort to standardize not just the production of synthetic colors, but also how we talk about them. Stamper’s new book is “True Color: The Strange and Spectacular Quest to Define Color – from Azure to Zinc Pink.” How do we know that the colors we see are the same as the colors other people see? Pulse reporter Liz Tung talks with University of Pennsylvania researcher David Brainard about the science of how we perceive color, what we know — and don’t know — about our shared perceptions, and the philosophical questions this raises about the nature of subjective experience. Pulse producer Nichole Currie talks with Cricket Matthews, who experiences grapheme-colors synesthesia, a unique neurological trait in which letters, numbers, and words trigger specific colors in your mind.

49 min
14 mag

What It Takes to Survive a Disaster

When disaster strikes and the chips are down, who makes it out alive? On this episode, we explore what it takes to survive a crisis. We hear the incredible story of a 17-year-old girl, who after surviving a plane crash, faced a harrowing journey though the Amazon to safety, why some people experience hallucinations when facing death, and how we’re wired to behave in emergencies. On Christmas morning in 1971, 17-year-old Juliane Koepcke woke up deep in the jungle, injured, in shock, and utterly alone. She was the sole survivor of a plane crash that had dumped her in the Peruvian Amazon — and now she would have to find her way to safety all by herself. Writer Ellen Cochrane documented Koepcke’s incredible, 11-day journey back to civilization in her new book, “Follow the Water: The Unbelievable True Story of a Teenager's Survival in the Amazon.” We talk with journalist and lifelong adventurer John Geiger about the “Third Man Factor,” a phenomenon in which people in extreme, often life-threatening situations find themselves being helped and guided by a mysterious presence. Geiger’s book is “The Third Man Factor: Surviving the Impossible.” Journalist Amanda Ripley has spent decades covering disasters, ranging from plane crashes to natural disasters. After interviewing hundreds of survivors and experts, she breaks down the three stages of how we respond to disasters, what they say about how we're wired, and the strategies that help people survive. Her book is “The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes — and Why?”

50 min
7 mag

The Complexity of Motherhood

How do you sum up the experience of motherhood, and all of the changes it brings, both big and small? It’s a transformation that affects everything — hormones, body image, relationships, feelings, money, career — even the answers to larger, existential questions like, “Who am I in this world, and what is my role?” On this episode, we explore the impact of motherhood. We talk with a psychologist about “matrescence” — a term used to describe the multi-faceted transformation ushered in by motherhood — and why it comes as a surprise to so many mothers. We find out how motherhood rewires the brain, and how those changes affect the way we think and behave. And we hear about a new play that challenges ideas about motherhood and women’s health. After interviewing women about their experiences of motherhood, Aurélie Athan came across a term that seemed to describe all of the changes: Matrescence. Athan is a reproductive psychologist and a professor at Teachers College at Columbia University in New York City. When health-and-science journalist Chelsea Conaboy first became a mother, she was surprised to find that the maternal instinct she’d heard about for years wasn’t kicking in. That led Conaboy to investigate some of our long-held beliefs about motherhood — and how they influence our ways of thinking and behaving. Her book is called “Mother Brain: How Neuroscience Is Rewriting the Story of Parenthood.” We talk with writer and actor Andrea Peterson about her new play, (plan c) — a dark comedy that explores the gray areas of motherhood, from medical issues to fears about maintaining independence to relationship troubles. The world premiere of (plan c) with Pygmalion Productions is running now at the Rose Wagner Black Box Theater in Salt Lake City, Utah. When Katie Pratt was 3 years old, she was diagnosed with a Chiari malformation, a rare brain condition in which the cerebellum bulges through an opening in the skull into the spinal canal. Katie’s mom, Wendy, had a hunch about what the solution would be — but it wasn’t until doctors opened up Katie’s skull that they discovered she was right. Katie interviews her mom about the experience, and her incredible flash of mother’s intuition.

50 min

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Maiken Scott

Presentato da

Go on an adventure into unexpected corners of the health and science world each week with award-winning host Maiken Scott. The Pulse takes you behind the doors of operating rooms, into the lab with some of the world's foremost scientists, and back in time to explore life-changing innovations. The Pulse delivers stories in ways that matter to you, and answers questions you never knew you had.