Fresh out of college and in what seems like her dream job, drug and alcohol coach Rhana Hashemi quickly realizes she has no idea how to connect with the high school students she’s supposed to help, and when Paul Davis and his wife struggle to get pregnant, they decide to foster a pregnant dog—and things escalate quickly.

When an epidemiologist dedicated to preventing violence against children is suddenly fired from the CDC, she is left grappling with both the shock of losing her job and the uncertainty of what comes next, and at a global climate conference, climate scientist Tom Di Liberto learns that Trump has been re-elected—and feels the weight of what that means for him and the fight against climate change.

As a newly minted PhD student in geology, Erik Klemetti starts to question his decisions when Aucanquilcha, a 20,000-foot volcano in Chile, proves difficult to tame, and explorer George Kourounis finds himself growing increasingly anxious as he prepares to enter a fiery sinkhole known as the “Doorway to Hell.”

At his friend’s bachelor party, Andrew McGill joins in on a mushroom trip that quickly spirals out of control, and in an attempt to calm his nerves about going on an Alaskan cruise, Will Clegg turns to marijuana.

For Hannah Hedelius, a classmate’s hiccups trigger an overwhelming reaction she can’t hold back, and as a graduate student, Rachel Hostetler begins to realize that her intrusive thoughts may be more than just regular stress.

Shawn Musgrave wants to donate blood, but runs headfirst into the FDA’s lifetime ban on gay men as donors, and while working with the condor recovery program, Molly Astell opens a freezer to find every researcher’s nightmare.

On a trip to Colombia for a research conference, biologist Stephanie Galla must rely on her fight-or-flight instincts when she is cornered by a mugger with a knife, and an ordinary day takes a shocking turn when Kim Weaver is struck by lightning.

Teaching sixth grade science becomes much more difficult when Xochitl Garcia's students start hypothesizing that fire is alive, and when journalist John Rennie is assigned to cover an entomological society event where insects are served as food, he sees an opportunity to face his fear of bugs.

As an undergraduate with no “real” science experience, Molly Magid is thrilled to join a research project studying how bats fly—until she discovers the bats refuse to cooperate, and as a child, Léa Souccar and her father explore the wreckage in the aftermath of a devastating bombing.

When anxiety starts taking over her life, Jude Treder-Wolff signs up for an improv class, and counselor Belinda Arriaga and emergency medicine doctor Nancy Ewen join forces to get scientific evidence of the power of culturally responsive mental health care.