The Pulse Archive

We explore efforts to communicate with other species, from plants and animals to extraterrestrial life.

From new technologies to our fight against climate change, we look at what it takes to create the future.

Origin stories connect us to the past and speak to what shaped us. On this episode, we’ll listen back to some of our favorite origin stories.

A look at how music affects our brains, and its power to treat illnesses ranging from Parkinson’s to depression.

Philadelphia’s first female battalion chief, Linda Long, retired in 2023 after being diagnosed with brain cancer. She thinks it’s linked to years of toxic exposures.

We turn to first responders during emergencies — but who’s looking out for them? Understanding the mental and physical toll their work takes on their health.

Why are we so outraged all the time? We explore how outrage connects to fear and perceived harm.

Professor of linguistics Emily Bender discusses the limitations of speech powered by LLMs and why it’s fundamentally different from human speech.

Revitalizing endangered Indigenous languages that have little or no digital presence is challenging with artificial intelligence—but not impossible.

The Philadelphia Neighborhood Corpus collected more than 400 audio recordings to study spoken language. AI is helping researchers understand the data.

How AI-generated language is changing the world — from how we communicate, to what it means to be human.

We take a look at giftedness — how it’s defined, who qualifies as gifted, and how our understanding of giftedness is changing.

Flying has gotten worse over the years — and so have passengers. An inside look at how aviation workers deal with angry customers

The bird flu virus continues to spread around the world, including in mammals like cows. Scientists are worried it could become a human virus.

We talk with experts ranging from food scientists to ER docs about how to avoid common Thanksgiving disasters.