The Story Collider

Journalist Erika Check Hayden travels to Sierra Leone and sees Ebola up close and personal for the first time, and Richard Cardillo escapes his problems by joining a Catholic mission in Peru, where he becomes a community health organizer.

As a pediatrician in the 1980s, Ken Haller comes across a disturbing X-ray, and on her first day working in the White House under President Obama, microbiologist Jo Handelsman receives some bad news.

Data researcher Virginie Uhlmann struggles to send an important email, and after a panic attack, Shane Saunderson decides to rid his life of technology.

Stuck in the lab with buckets of jellyfish, Shreya Yadav must rethink why she's studying what she's studying in the first place, and underwater photographer Keith Ellenbogen comes face to face with an animal he wasn't expecting.

Even though he's an excellent student, and later a doctor, Dale Okorodudu finds that strangers perceive him differently, and Laura Bulk, who has been partially blind since she was a baby, struggles with strangers' attempts to "help."

Studying Marine Biology in Florida, Philadelphian Kory Evans feels like a fish out of water... while fishing, and Carla Katz finds out she has a brain aneurysm while getting screened for a kidney transplant.

In high school, Saad Sarwana decides to go from nerd to bad boy with a prank that he learned in chemistry class, and as a college student, Andrew Akira Hansen loves chemistry so much that he takes his experiments out of the lab and into the parking lot... and the shower... and anywhere else he could.

After leaving class early, Sonia Zárate gets a startling phone call about her daughter, and an indoor kid at heart, Sam Dingman goes on a hike anyways and ends up making a shocking discovery.

Erik Vance's first job reporting on scientific research doesn't smell as much like success as it smells like manure and Liz Neeley observes hypnosis from the inside when she becomes the subject of the experiment.

In difficult times, park ranger Gary Bremen takes solace in "sea hearts" that wash ashore, and when Dawn Fraser finds out that she and her twin brother, Dwayne, who was born with Down Syndrome, are one in a million, she searches for other twins like them.

While running an errand, Andrea Azarian happens upon a lost horse that needs her help, and left in charge of the farm for the first time, Gwynne Hogan panics when a goat goes into labor.

Transporting virginal fruit flies from Houston to Honolulu proves to be no easy task for Patricia Savant, and when a storm rocks the cruise ship where he works, Mike Funergy worries about how the elderly passengers will handle it.

When Saurin Choksi starts dating a neuroscientist, it challenges his assumptions about gender roles, and Wendy Suzuki's trajectory as a neuroscientist is forever altered by a passionate love affair in Paris.

Jamie Brickhouse's HIV-positive status becomes a point of tension at the dentist's office, and diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder as a child, Anders Lee struggles with this identity as an adult preparing to donate sperm.

After her mom's version of the sex talk confuses her, Khadija Aweis is determined to make sure her little brother has clarity, and when Leesha Maliakal takes on an ambitious research project designing an app for marathon spectators, her supportive dad tries to help.

When his mother his diagnosed with breast cancer, Ian Anthony has to take care of her, even though she didn't always do the best job of taking care of him, determined to make it on her own, Yaihara Fortis Santiago leaves her home in Puerto Rico for grad school, but her father still wants to protect her.

Shawn Hercules is a successful gospel radio deejay in Barbados, but he dreams of a different kind of life in science, and Emma Young feels ready for her first real job in science, surveying northern spotted owls, until she encounters some unexpected fears.

As a science teacher Mamoudou N'Diaye was supposed to have all the answers, but he struggles to explain being Black in the USA, and Rhonda Key fights to be taken seriously by her white co-workers and students when she gets a job at a middle school.

To cheer up her ailing father, Victoria Ruiz decides to smuggle a turtle into his hospital room, and Stacey Bader Curry finally meets a nice guy -- the only catch is, he needs a liver.

Massih Moayedi survives cancer, but the recovery throws his life off track, and after his 20-year-old daughter dies suddenly, Paul Battista has to relearn what his role in life is.

As a medical student Roger Mitchell Jr. sees a patient that makes him reflect on violence and police in the Black community.

Padraic Stanley gets a fresh start when his abusive father gets diagnosed with Alzheimer's dementia, and after meeting a man with a rare memory disorder, Paul Aflalo reconsiders his own memories.

Digital consultant Phong Tran navigates his relationship through various digital platforms, and fed up with feeling lonely, Sufian Zhemukhov embarks on a data driven analysis of his own unlikability.

This week, in celebration of our tenth anniversary, our hosts selected four of their favorite stories from the past decade.

Inspired by her work as a parental behavior researcher, Bianca Jones Marlin and her husband decide to become foster parents, and raised by white adoptive parents, Kim Evey seeks out motherhood as a way to connect with her Asian identity.

After some unfortunate night-time incidents, Keith Mellnick realizes he needs to better understand his sleepwalking before it starts causing even more problems, and Avneet Johal is excited to start his first year at university, but strange thoughts and behaviors keep getting in the way.

Despite loving science, Ivan Decker's first exposure to field work doesn't go as planned, and Nathan Min tries to pursue a 'respectable' scientific career, but finds himself relating to the mice he studies.

When Jack Walsh finds out his first child will be born in just a few days, he panics, and after experiencing hearing loss, Jeannie Gaffigan receives the startling news that she has a brain tumor.

Growing up in the fifties and sixties, Jenice Matias senses there's more to her mother's occupation than she understands, and D.B. Firstman has always known their body is different, but at the age of thirty, they make a discovery that changes everything.

As a first-generation pre-med student with no financial aid, Brooke Dolecheck takes a job as a 911 operator to support herself, and flight paramedic Marc Doll must transport a child to St. Louis for his last chance at a heart transplant.

Determined to fit in as a PhD student, Aparna Agarwal decides she'll never ask for help -- even if it means fitting in to much smaller gloves, and on a snorkeling trip of his dreams, Jesse Hildebrand doesn’t want to admit he has no idea what he’s doing.

After donating her kidney to a friend, Leah Waters struggles to get back to normal, and when the coral colonies of her childhood experience a bleaching event, Native Hawaiian coral biologist Narrissa Spies must face her greatest fear to protect them.

High school math whiz Tori Ball has always hoped a boy would fall in love with her mind, but when it finally happens, she's not sure how she feels, and high achieving, but superstitious college student Maryam Zaringhalam’s entire system collapses when she misses a calculus test.

Eager to succeed in her Physical Chemistry class, Shaniece Mosley is thrown off by a professor's attempt at a compliment, and Lelemia Irvine struggles to get through his PhD program as he's constantly told that his identity as a Native Hawaiian is incompatible with academia.

Feeling like a loser after he fails to graduate on time with his degree in materials science, Len Kruger accepts a dinner invitation from a cult, and after young Jehovah's Witness Emmanuel Garcia loses his faith, he finds a new purpose at a neuroscience conference.

Sean Bearden has never been interested in education, but when he's incarcerated at the age of 19, he finds a passion for physics, and when Victoria Manning decides to get a cochlear implant, she fears losing her identity as a deaf person.

When Eva Bloom struggles to have an orgasm, she turns to research, and Dasha Kelly Hamilton thinks of a creative way to teach her daughters about sex.

As a kid, Samy Kamkar discovers his superpower -- hacking, and when Jordan Bush's father-in-law-to-be is diagnosed with cancer shortly before her wedding, she finds a creative way to help him attend.

Avi Caspe and his mother, Ariel Detzer, reckon with what the label of "autism" means for their family, and when Paulette Steeves' son is given 2 years to live, she searches for a way to keep him alive.

Catherine Macdonald always wanted to study sharks, but her first time tagging them in the field doesn't go as planned, and when Michelle Tong visits home after her first semester of medical school, a stranger presents an ethical dilemma.

When science journalist Katherine Wu interviews a scientist about a new facial recognition algorithm, the conversation turns more personal than she expected, and hurricane Katrina gives Mary Annaise Heglar a new perspective on both her grandfather and home state.

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.

When Ph.D student Ali Mattu's girlfriend tells him she is moving to New York City, he has to make some tough decisions about where home is, and Arlo Pérez Esquivel struggles to define his boundaries with his father while he is pursuing his education in another country.