53 min

Discovering your True Identity The Pulse

    • Science

Identity's a complicated thing — a mixture of nurture and nature, ethnicity, gender, culture, conscious decisions, coincidences, and more. In many ways, though, who we think we are boils down to the stories we tell ourselves; stories based on our origins, our families, and how we came to be.But what happens when those stories change? When we discover that the narrative of our lives is completely different from what we've always believed?

On this episode, we explore stories of identity, and what happens when long-buried secrets are uncovered. We hear about a journalist who discovered that his father wasn't who he thought he was, one woman's search for her childhood self in the records of a long-running experiment, and how a fateful medical decision changed the future of a baby born in 1986.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

Identity's a complicated thing — a mixture of nurture and nature, ethnicity, gender, culture, conscious decisions, coincidences, and more. In many ways, though, who we think we are boils down to the stories we tell ourselves; stories based on our origins, our families, and how we came to be.But what happens when those stories change? When we discover that the narrative of our lives is completely different from what we've always believed?

On this episode, we explore stories of identity, and what happens when long-buried secrets are uncovered. We hear about a journalist who discovered that his father wasn't who he thought he was, one woman's search for her childhood self in the records of a long-running experiment, and how a fateful medical decision changed the future of a baby born in 1986.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

53 min

Top Podcasts In Science

Hidden Brain
Hidden Brain, Shankar Vedantam
Radiolab
WNYC Studios
Something You Should Know
Mike Carruthers | OmniCast Media | Cumulus Podcast Network
Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas
Sean Carroll | Wondery
Ologies with Alie Ward
Alie Ward
StarTalk Radio
Neil deGrasse Tyson

More by WHYY

The Pulse
NPR
Eleanor Amplified
WHYY
A.I. Nation
WHYY
Radio Times
WHYY
The Why: Philly Explained
WHYY
Voices in the Family
WHYY