The Pulse
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.
- Update frequency
- every 6 days
- Average duration
- 48 minutes
- Episodes
- 151
- Years Active
- 2021 - 2025
Chasing the Eclipse
On April 8, a swath of North America will be treated to a rare and spectacular sight — a total solar eclipse; in some places, the first in more than a century, and the last for at least another 20 ye…
00:48:29 |
Fri 29 Mar 2024
Discovering your True Identity
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 …
00:53:09 |
Fri 22 Mar 2024
The Lasting Impacts of COVID-19
It's been four years since COVID-19 struck, transforming our modern world in ways we'd never seen before — and we're still processing the aftershocks. The pandemic exposed fault lines lurking beneath…
00:56:59 |
Fri 15 Mar 2024
The New Mental Health Landscape
Know the signs of depression. Recognize symptoms of anxiety. Pay attention to your friend's changing moods. There's been a push to raise mental health awareness for decades, and now, the topic is eve…
00:50:21 |
Fri 08 Mar 2024
Atomic Angst and the Teenage Spy
In 1944, a brilliant, young Harvard physics student named Ted Hall was recruited to work on the super-secret mission that had already assembled the country's top scientists: the Manhattan Project. So…
00:48:54 |
Fri 01 Mar 2024
Bodies for Science
If you're training to become a physician, your first patient is usually dead. In fact, "first patient" is what med students call the human cadavers that they work on in anatomy class — when they firs…
00:47:31 |
Fri 23 Feb 2024
All the Rage
You can feel it coming on — your face flushes hot, maybe your fists clench, your heartbeat speeds up and blood pressure rises. It's rage — and it can go from zero to red-hot in a matter of seconds. B…
00:48:27 |
Fri 16 Feb 2024
The Mysteries of Attraction
It can show up as a spark or a lightning bolt; a glance or a touch; an easy rapport or butterflies in your stomach. Attraction — it's a feeling we know when we experience it, but we're often not sure…
00:48:14 |
Fri 09 Feb 2024
Setting the Medical Record Straight
Medical records are an important part of health care. They create a history of past issues, test results, and medications. They paint a picture of somebody's general health. Patients now have more ac…
00:50:27 |
Fri 02 Feb 2024
Inside Facebook: A Conversation with Jeff Horwitz
After covering the 2016 U.S. presidential election, reporter Jeff Horwitz knew that "something really weird was going on," that social media sites, especially Facebook, had played a role in shaping t…
00:36:05 |
Wed 31 Jan 2024
Facebook at 20
Twenty years ago, a group of college sophomores created a website that would end up changing the world — fundamentally altering how we connect with other people, how much we know about each other, an…
00:50:14 |
Fri 26 Jan 2024
When Healing Happens But We Don't Know Why
More than a third of Americans use complementary and alternative medicine, ranging from acupuncture to herbalism, Ayurveda to homeopathy. But despite its growing popularity, complementary and alterna…
00:49:03 |
Fri 19 Jan 2024
How to Live with Uncertainty
Humans crave certainty — in science and politics, in our lives and our leaders, in our decisions and our futures. We find comfort in knowing the facts, and we fear the murky unknown. In the age of in…
00:49:09 |
Fri 12 Jan 2024
Virtual Worlds, Virtual Lives
We're in a major technological revolution where artificial intelligence, gaming, and virtual reality allow us to create and enter totally new spaces and have new experiences there.In these virtual wo…
00:48:46 |
Fri 05 Jan 2024
Why We Love and Hate Exercising — And How to Do It Either Way
We all know that exercise is good for us — for both our bodies and our minds — but motivating yourself to hit the gym, take a run, or even go for a walk sometimes feels like the hardest thing in the …
00:48:35 |
Fri 29 Dec 2023
The Transformative Power of Awe
It's the goosebumps you get at the crescendo of your favorite song; the stupefying wonder that comes with witnessing a birth or a death; the astonishing mystery we feel when gazing at the vast night …
00:48:18 |
Fri 22 Dec 2023
The Blurred Line Between Life and Death
We think of life and death as clear cut — you're alive or you're not; your heart's beating or it isn't; your brain functions or it doesn't. But when you look a bit deeper, both on a biological level,…
00:49:30 |
Fri 15 Dec 2023
Lowering Barriers to Care
Lots of things can get in the way of taking care of your health, catching medical issues early on, and getting treatment. Navigating insurance woes, trouble scheduling appointments, big medical bills…
00:50:31 |
Fri 08 Dec 2023
Uncovering the Inner Workings of the Oceans
What comes to mind when you think of the ocean? Maybe a day at the beach — swimming in the waves, snorkeling through coral reefs, fishing, surfing, and sunsets that kiss the blue horizon. But Earth's…
00:49:29 |
Fri 01 Dec 2023
How Gene Therapy is Offering Hope — Once Again
For decades, the idea that you could attack genetic illnesses right at the root — that you could modify people's genes to treat or cure disease — sounded like science fiction. But in recent years, se…
00:50:57 |
Fri 24 Nov 2023
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