The Story Collider

After he's named lab safety officer, John Rennie must recover a precious sample from the bottom of a vat of liquid nitrogen. So he reaches in. John Rennie is a science writer, editor, and lecturer based in New York. Viewers of The Weather Channel know him as the host of the original series Hacking The Planet and as one of the hosts of The Truth About… series of specials. He is also currently the e...

Darcy Burke's mother gave her a book on mountain lions, and it had the effect that every science writer wishes their book will have. Kind of. Every week the Story Collider brings you a true, personal story about science. Find more and subscribe to our podcast (and see our celebration of a million downloads!) here: http://storycollider.org/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adcho...

As a new, super competitive, graduate student Aditi thinks she has the perfect way to impress her advisor and labmates ... until one night it spirals a tiny bit out of control. Aditi is a New York-based cancer researcher and a freelance science and creative writer; her occupations are a miscellany of creative pursuits. Every week the Story Collider brings you a true, personal story about science....

Kimberly Rae Miller's family had a secret: her dad was a hoarder. But when she begins digging into the research on hoarding, she finds it's not nearly as simple to fix as she'd hoped. Kimberly Rae Miller is a writer living in New York City. She haswritten for Yahoo!'s Shine, Figure magazine, and contributed to CBS Radio/CBS New York. In 2010, Kim was featured in Katharine Sise's career guide Creat...

Sara Peters has epilepsy, but no drugs seem to help. So she agrees to be hooked up to a machine at the hospital for days, in hopes of inducing the one thing she and her husband, Peter Aguero, dread the most: a seizure. Recorded at TEDMED 2013. Video: http://tedmed.com/talks/show?id=189377 Originally from New Jersey, Sara Peters now lives in Sunnyside, Queens with her charming, maddening husband. A...

When Ben Moskowitz gets to take special classes in elementary school, he's excited at first, but then he starts to realize there might be something different about him. Ben Moskowitz is from Glen St. Mary, Florida. He works as an audiovisual preservationist at New York University. He is a Moth GrandSlam Champion and a pretty nice guy. He currently lives in Brooklyn with his two cats, Scotty and Vi...

Science writer Alex Brown's philosophical education becomes very practical when he is diagnosed with meningitis. Every week the Story Collider brings you a true, personal story about science. Find more here: http://storycollider.org/ Alex Brown has a BSc Natural Sciences from the University of Bath and will soon graduate with an MSc Science Communication from the University of the West of England....

Three years after a mysterious illness nearly drove her insane and took her life, Susannah Cahalan visits a patient with the same rare, dangerous condition. Every week the Story Collider brings you a true, personal story about science. Find more here: http://storycollider.org/ Susannah Cahalan is the New York Times bestselling author of "Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness." She began her investiga...

Elna Baker's grade school reputation faces it's greatest threat: her engineer father's enthusiasm for homework. Every week the Story Collider brings you a true, personal story about science. Find more here: http://storycollider.org/ Elna Baker is a writer and comedic storyteller. She's appeared on The Moth Radio Hour, This American Life, BBC Radio 4, All Things Considered, WTF with Marc Maron, Stu...

A physicist decides that the best way to make progress on his robotics project is to go to Namibia to study termites. Every week the Story Collider brings you a true, personal story about science. Find more here: http://storycollider.org/ Justin Werfel is a research scientist at Harvard's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. He received his PhD at MIT and did postdoctoral work at...

Science writer Seth Mnookin set out to write a book on whether vaccines were dangerous, but discovered the issue was more complex than he'd thought. Every week the Story Collider brings you a true, personal story about science. Find more here: http://storycollider.org/ Seth Mnookin teaches in MIT's Graduate Program in Science Writing. His most recent book, The Panic Virus: The True Story Behind th...

As grad school for neuroscience wears on, Michael Nitabach feels the pull of law school, and goes. But he had another surprise coming. Every week the Story Collider brings you a true, personal story about science. Find more here: storycollider.org/ Mike Nitabach is Associate Professor of Cellular & Molecular Physiology and of Genetics at Yale School of Medicine, where he directs a research pro...

Esther Perel's career gets an unexpected boost from the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky scandal. Every week the Story Collider brings you a true, personal story about science. Find more here: http://storycollider.org/ Or subscribe on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-story-collider/id396452781?mt=2 Psychologist Esther Perel is recognized as one of the world's most original and insightfu...

As a kid, Mara Wilson is decidedly uninterested in science, but as she grows up she starts to look for answers in new places. Every week the Story Collider brings you a true, personal story about science. Find more here: http://storycollider.org/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://a...

When Meehan Crist was a child, her mother hit her head. It was only as an adult that she discovered that her mother was covering up something far more serious: something called rather ironically a "mild traumatic brain injury." Find more from The Story Collider here: http://storycollider.org/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/pri...

Neuroscientist Daniela Schiller studies the emotional components of memory. In her previous story her research helped her begin to understand her father, a holocaust survivor. But that story led to a whole new chapter in their relationship, and her understanding of memories. Hear Daniela's first story here: http://storycollider.org/podcast/2011-10-09 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megapho...

Moran Cerf's life is spun around when a computer glitch declares him dead -- but that's nothing compared to what happens when a real funeral comes around. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

When he begins showing strange symptoms on a jog though the mountains, science writer Andrew Revkin discovers just how close to death he is. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

While visiting Guatemala Sarah Everts is bitten by a dog, so she goes looking for a rabies shot. But coming home to Canada is when the real problem started. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

After a career as a theater manager, Stuart Firestein takes a biology class, which leads him to a completely new life, and a lot of salamander noses. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

When Paula Croxson began to study memory as a neuroscientist, she also learned a new way of thinking about her grandmother's failing memory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

Writer Jess Zimmerman discovers the dangers of dating a philosopher of neuroscience who thinks he knows what's really happening in her head. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

Journalist Jon Ronson is excited when he hears about some 'sentient' robots, but when he goes to interview them he finds both less and more than he ever expected. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

André Fenton always wanted to do research at the most fundamental level -- to uncover basic truths about memory and how it works, never mind how useful. But a friend's accident unexpectedly leads to him inventing a spectacularly useful, and lifesaving, device. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notic...

Robin Marantz Henig and her daughter, Samantha, decided to write a book together about life as a twentysomthing. There was just one problem -- how to handle the bits you don't want to talk about with your mother? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-in...