The Story Collider

Feeling isolated in her new job as a particle accelerator operator at Fermilab, Cindy Joe finds comfort in the friendship of her unconventional pet, and actor Gail Thomas is invited to take part in a study testing mushrooms as treatment for depression in cancer survivors.

An expert in oxytocin, the hormone released during birth, Bianca Jones Marlin is determined to have a natural birth — even as the hours of labor add up…, and Ed Pritchard inadvertently becomes a leatherback turtle midwife during his first field job.

Brittany Ross gets inspired when her high school physics teacher assigns a physics video project where she has to demonstrate a law of physics out in the real world, and nothing will get in the way of Greg Pandelis’s dreams to be a zoologist, except maybe a giant cliff.

Raul Fernandez dreamed of going to university to study engineering. When he gets to Boston University, he feels unwelcome, and Cynthia Chapple was continually underestimated by her teachers and struggled with minimizing aspects of herself to be accepted.

Therapist Susan Fee signs up herself and her daughter for a stress management research study, and while suffering from a panic attack, comedian Kenice Mobley reflects on a psychology experiment about the impact of race on comfort that she took part in.

Shawn Musgrave's seizures make him feel like he's experiencing deja vu, and Shane Mauss’ bipolar disorder causes him to lose his sense of reality.

Witnessing mistakes health care professionals made after her dad has a stroke, Jenn Kamara vows never to work in medicine, and for Theresa Ball, it seems like everything in life is keeping her from her dream of becoming a nurse.

Comedian Amy Veltman doesn’t want to acknowledge her embarrassing gastrointestinal issues, and Mike Lambert seeks a friend’s help to pick out new glasses, but his secret body dysmorphia threatens to undo him.

Scientist Gretchen Goldman struggles to protect the data and integrity of science under the new Trump administration, and journalist Liz Landau feels the wrath of the internet when she covers a study about women and their voting preferences.

After surviving breast cancer, comedian Ophira Eisenberg hates the pink breast cancer awareness ribbon, and after the sudden death of his mom, Richard Kemeny feels numb to the world and his feelings.

Devon Kodzis thought they had their anxiety under control until a routine doctor appointment, and naturally anxious neuroscientist Tammy Spence becomes preoccupied with her dog’s health.

One moment Keith Mellnick is cycling home, the next he’s in the emergency room of the hospital with no idea what happened to him, and medical student Fabiola Plaza feels compelled to help a woman on the New York subway get a doctor’s appointment.

After a neurological disorder leaves Tracey Starin visually impaired, she struggles to fill the void of her love for reading, and at first comedian Ayanna Dookie doesn’t take her Lupus diagnosis seriously.

When Barbara Todd isn’t with her dad when he passes, she searches for forgiveness, and grad student Nina Christie’s preconceived notions of the Skid Row needle exchange get turned on their head when she begins volunteering there.

Emma Yarbrough feels in control of her future after undergoing an egg retrieval operation until a burning sensation sends her for a loop, and when the doctor finds blood in Carlos Kotkin’s urine, he ends up having to undergo some deeply humiliating procedures.

Comedian Sam Lyons is determined to not get involved with his partner’s feral cats, until one goes missing, and in an act of desperation, Bhaskar Sompalli goes on a hunt to find free lab equipment to make his graduate school experiment work.

Corn researcher Katie Murphy is scared becoming a TikToker will ruin her credibility as a serious scientist, and as a kid, Scottie Rowell gets an unpleasant surprise when they don’t wait to eat their aunt’s pickles.

When Skylar Bayer’s heart condition sidelines her from doing her dive research, she struggles with not feeling worthy enough as a scientist, and when Mpho Kgoadi loses feelings in his legs as a child, he worries he won’t be able to achieve his dreams.

To get funding for grad school, Hakim Walker needs to pass a lie detector test, and in order to keep up the facade of living the American Dream, Xavier Bettencourt applies for a job as a science educator.

During her pediatric residency, Erica Martinez finds herself struggling to feel empathy for some of her patients, and while working as a doctor in South Bronx, Karinn Glover feels overwhelmed and powerless when trying to help a patient with substance use issues.

When Neeti Jain dissects her first fish in the lab, she feels like she’s not cut out to be a scientist in marine ecology, and as the new chief public health officer, Harold Cox feels out of his depth when their office receives a package with what appears to be anthrax.

When Luis Melo doesn’t see his name on a report that he spent nine months working on, he decides to confront his boss, and when another professor at a conference makes an inappropriate comment toward Sara Maloni, she decides to speak up.

When Julie Baker is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and told her vision might get worse, she struggles to accept she’s going blind, and Javier Torres becomes frustrated with others' responses to his neurosensorial hearing loss.

Some harsh words from Sarah Kucenas’ high school swim coach shake her confidence and she gives up her dream of being a pediatric neurosurgeon, and when Michael Herrera’s COVID turns into long COVID, he struggles to feel like himself until he starts birding.

When Kaze Wong chooses the path of physics over high jumping, he feels like he betrayed a part of himself, and even though Micaela Martinez spent most of her life working towards becoming a professor, she still doesn’t feel comfortable in the academic world, so she secretly starts rapping.

Rich Tackenberg is skeptical when a psychic tells him there’s something wrong with his car, and science journalist Katherine J. Wu interviews neuroscientists Susana Martinez-Conde and Stephen Macknik to get a better idea of how psychics, like the one from Rich Tackenberg’s story, operate.

Pediatrician Ken Haller goes off script when a father comes into the exam room with his young son, and after years of Mikala Jamison’s dad helping her with her mental health struggles, the roles are reversed when her father is diagnosed with early onset Alzheimers.

While staying with host family in an unfamiliar city, Andrew Spink wakes up to find he can’t swallow, and distracted by thoughts of his career, entomologist Ralph Washington, Jr. gets swarmed by mosquitos.

As a new science teacher, Zeke Kossover is determined to capture the attention of his students, and while on a field expedition in Kenya, Evan Wilson is tasked with the seemingly impossible job of figuring out the role of dust in wearing down herbivore teeth.

When Colleen McDermott signs up to be a forestry conservationist for the summer, they soon notice that none of their colleagues look like them, and on Pete McCorvey’s first deployment in the United States Navy, he is dreading the part of training where he gets pepper sprayed.

As a teenager growing up in Iran Yasamin Jodat hears about a robotics competition at the local boys' school, and she is determined to do whatever it takes to be part of it, and a third cancer diagnosis threatens to ruin JulieAnn Villa's love of running.

Discouraged by the medical approach to pregnancy, Julia Whitehouse decides to have a home birth, and when Nessa Goldman splits with her husband, her dream of having children by age 35 is in jeopardy.

When Zach Weinersmith agrees to create a trivia game, he doesn’t realize how hard it is to come up with facts that are both interesting and actually true, and concerned about his eyesight, comedian Josh Johnson desperately searches for a good doctor.

While preparing for a lecture, Stacy Vasquez finds a racist term on a skin slide, and while learning about Lyme disease in medical school, LaShyra Nolen isn’t satisfied when the professor can’t tell her what the rash would look like on dark skin.

After ending up in the ER for the third time, Rachel Alvarez struggles to understand what’s going on with her health, and as a young adult with muscular dystrophy, Monkol Lek refuses to give up on his ambitions.

Neuroscientist Rebecca Brachman is working late one night alone in the lab when she accidentally sticks herself with a needle full of deadly toxin, and Ali Mustafa finds that the scars of war stay with him even at his new job in the lab.

Documentary filmmaker Caitlin Starowicz is so focused on making her movie about endangered Mountain Gorillas a success that she fails to see what’s in front of her, and for a story on escape rooms, journalist Danny Wicentowski studies the trials, triumphs, and strategies of the players.

Documentary producer Mariah Wilson is days into making her film about the endangered Forest Elephant and still hasn’t seen one, and Science Journalist Katherine J. Wu interviews Mariah Wilson to learn more about the stars of her documentary Silent Forests.

As a child who loves biology and has Caribbean immigrant parents, Calvin Cato feels pressure to become a doctor, and Shane Hanlon can’t help but compare his life choices to those of his hometown best friend.

While working as a camp counsellor at a camp for children with chronic and life-threatening illnesses, Gabe Mollica is determined to keep his promise to one of the campers, and Collette finds herself going along with her mom’s absurd plan to act like her father isn’t dying of cancer.

Dog trainer Chris Brown needs to up his skills when he adopts a former bait dog named Terror, and David Crabb has to make some tough decisions when his dog, Charlie, starts having seizures.

During her first research project in the Sierra Nevada mountains, Katie Moriarty thinks she might have spotted the impossible: a wolverine, and Science Journalist Katherine J. Wu interviews wildlife ecologist Katie Moriarty to find out more about these mystical wolverines.

Ecologist Cylita Guy finds unexpected adventure when she studies bats in the field, and Maija Niemisto is a director of education on the Clearwater, America’s environmental flagship. But when a stranger comes to the side of the ship, it heralds a discovery about her city and herself.

Lauren Silverman finds herself drawing parallels between her relationship and steelhead trout, and during the pandemic, Grant Bowen is torn between his ailing grandmother and his immunocompromised girlfriend.

Jack Walsh exaggerates the severity of his brain tumor to get out of buying a timeshare, and Laura Fukumoto goes above and beyond trying to make a special mushroom dish from her grandmother’s childhood.

Ted Olds finds himself an unwilling participant in his son’s school assignment to look after an electronic baby doll and, Cadré Francis is less than thrilled when finds out he’s been volunteered to do demonstrations at a STEM camp.

All throughout his life, Chris Wade has a love-hate relationship with science, with very little love and, after Caroline Hu’s parents make her choose between art and science at age 17, she struggles with her choice.

As a newly minted postdoc, Eric Jankowski has the perfect solution for the toxic lab atmosphere and, science journalist Eric Boodman gets in a little too deep on an assignment at a senior care home.

Computational biologist Francis Windram is determined to figure out how to make spider webs glow in the dark and, avian ecologist Emily Williams refuses to be outwitted by a bird.