Being able to change to meet one’s circumstances is essential to survival. As HG Wells famously wrote: “adapt or perish.” In this week’s episode, both of our storytellers find themselves in unfamiliar territory and need to change course.

Part 1: As the only American, microbiologist Chris Robinson struggles to make friends with the other researchers in Chernobyl.

Chris Robinson is a published writer and PAm-Costco USA Scholar in the midst of his PhD at Indiana University. His research uses the honey bee as a model to study the ecology and evolution of the gut microbiome and how evolutionary adaptations, such as antibiotic resistance, are transmitted by mobile genetic elements. Originally from the Lowcountry of South Carolina, Chris has harvested watermelon with the USDA, spent a few years as a line cook in Charleston kitchens, and was formally a Fulbright Research Fellow in Ukraine. When not staring at a computer screen, Chris can be found deep into a bicycle ride, playing in the garden, or lamenting the failure of some baking experiment.

Part 2: In his quest to study the adaptability of stickleback fish, neuroscientist Ashwin Bhandiwad keeps needing to adjust his experiment with each new hurdle.

Ashwin Bhandiwad has spent a remarkable amount of time trying to understand how the brain is organized. Once called "the most handsome boy in the world" by his mom, Ashwin is now a scientist at the Allen Institute for Brain Science working on developing tools to create maps of the brain. Ashwin received his PhD in Psychology from the University of Washington where he investigated how loud noise causes damage in the inner ear. Simultaneously, he disregarded that research by attending many loud concerts. Ashwin also loves swimming, starting projects that he’ll never finish, and talking in silly voices to his young children.

Episode Transcript

Part 1

It's 2017, I'm 24 years old, and for the past two years, I've been living with my dad in South Carolina trying to connect the dots between undergrad and what I wanted to do with my life, which, as far as I knew, was to be a scientist.

And like a lot of first‑generation college students, I really struggled with that. So I just applied to everything, kind of weird tech jobs on the internet and PhD and master's programs, and I got lucky. I was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to Ukraine.

I love mushrooms and I love trespassing in abandoned places. And what I proposed to the State Department was that they should pay me to go to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, live there for two months, dig up some soil, hike in the woods and examine the effect of radiation on fungal biodiversity, and that this whole thing would be a good way to do international diplomacy.

They said, “Sounds great. You'll leave in three months.”

So I hugged my dad, kissed my dog goodbye, and boarded a train that September to Kiev.

Chris Robinson shares his story at Palais de Congress in Montreal, QC in July 2024. Photo by Melissa Dupuch.

I remember thinking along the way that this was my shot. This was how I was going to become a scientist. And not only that, but I was going to build a community of peers. I was going to be an international diplomat. I had never left the country before, so I was pumped.

I arrived in Kiev and made my way to the university where I was posted and met my host, a wonderful woman of the name Dr. Iryna Kozeretska. My plan was that I was going to— there's many organized expeditions to Chernobyl. I was going to attend one of these, figure out what I was getting myself into, what tools I needed, reagents, lay of the land, field sites, all sorts of stuff, and then go the following year and do it again.

Irina calmly expressed to me that this was not going to happen, that there was only one expedition happening that year and that it would be leaving in two weeks. So that was my only shot.

Understandably, I panicked. Spent the next two weeks anxiously trying to put something together, and very quickly realized that I was way over my head. I didn't speak Ukrainian or Russian, I didn't know anything really about Ukraine or its history, definitely not how research is done in Ukraine. And most of all, was this understanding that I would need to go out, meet Ukrainian scientists and befriend them, and then make meaningful scientific collaborations.

This scared the hell out of me. I have really bad social anxiety and the thought of having to do this made me feel incredibly alone.

But the two weeks passed and I met my other scientists and we all hopped in a car and made our way to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, which you can imagine is not the most welcoming place in the world. It is a vast industrial wasteland, it's sad and it's made all the more unfriendly by the fact that it is pretty much entirely occupied by the Ukrainian military due to the radiation.

So we were met with a bunch of checkpoints, a bunch of mean‑looking men with big guns and a lot of hostility. And as we were making way through our checkpoints, we finally meet our guide, a man of the name of Igor who was like a park ranger in Chernobyl.

I remember meeting Igor because he was like a big, giant brown bear of a man. Huge. He was imposing and wore this outfit of irradiated green leather that it looked like he had hacked off some animal. I mean, the man was like a personification of the zone. I was terrified.

So when he walked over to me and shook my hand and the other scientists’, I just had, “What the hell am I getting myself into?”

Igor took us to the Pripyat hotel where we'd be staying and all the other scientists would be staying. The first thing I remember seeing was just the sheer amount of dogs. Dogs in Chernobyl are everywhere. They outnumber humans 10 to 1. And because they can't go in the woods because the wolves will kill them, they congregate around the two or three bastions of civilization in the zone.

Many people in Chernobyl really, really despise them. One, they're kind of vermin, scavengers, and then they're dogs. They play around in the soil, they jump around, and as a consequence, they're heavily irradiated, among the most irradiated animals in the zone.

But I fell in love. They were like, puppies were everywhere. They were like, all the dogs were like little runts and they all had these weird, glowing red eyes as a consequence of cataracts that developed with irradiation. I just loved them.

We walk inside to the hotel. I meet the other scientists and we have dinner, have some drinks. Things are going okay. I'm not the most charming person in the world, but after some cognac, things get a little easier.

And at nighttime when the scientists are going to bed, Igor comes and tells me that I would not be staying at the hotel as there were no other rooms available. He takes me outside, puts me in a car and says, “You will have to stay in a hostel,” which is about two kilometers away.

He drives me to a very sad, decaying apartment building and drops me off in the hands of a very annoyed Ukrainian woman, who deposits me in a cell of a room that has a wire mesh bedframe and a sink that just only has irradiated water.

I sit in this room inebriated and just all those feelings of inadequacy and anxiety just pour back out, and I'm trapped in the room with these demons, just trying to wrestle what to do, what am I doing here, this is not going to work.

Normally, I would confront this like a healthy human being, do something, go walk around, change the scenery, but Chernobyl has this funny rule that if you're caught outside without your guide, so if I was caught without Igor, I would promptly be arrested, taken out of the zone, and potentially deported. So, no option there.

The following morning, Igor picked me up, took me to the hotel where I would, hopefully, begin to work. I was excited. Okay. Well, maybe I can at least do my science.

Igor said, “No, there are many projects, many scientists in the zone. You're new. You're at the bottom of the priority list. So, instead you're gonna come with me. We're gonna work with these other two scientists and you're gonna help them out.”

So for the next five, six weeks, that's what I did. I followed them around They were looking at compositional changes in the forests in Chernobyl as a consequence of radiation, and so pretty much all the work was hiking around in really beautiful woods. And the days were phenomenal.

I mean, Pripyat in Chernobyl, we were eating sausage and chocolate in old Soviet bunkers, telling stories. I was really walking around with this badass park ranger who hunted irradiated moose and bear. It was cool.

We go back to the hotel at nighttime and things were demonstrably a lot less fun. Understandably, the two scientists I was with and Igor wanted to talk to other people. They've been with me all day so that left me alone, which was a really bad place for me to be.

Understanding that I was really in Chernobyl to keep meeting people and, honestly, Ukrainians is what I was there to engage with, I went outside where a lot of the Ukrainian locals and scientists congregated and tried talking with them. This didn't work at all either. Every joke I told, no laughs. Any attempt to engage with them, grunts. I mean, this was not working.

Looking back, I was being a really big sensitive baby about everything. I didn't really understand then that the Ukrainians here, who were accomplished scientists in their own right, were effectively hired as cheap labor for Western scientists. They had long, grueling days like me. They had every right to be angry or frustrated that this naïve, young American is coming to try to just hang out with them.

So instead, what I did, I hung out with my cognac and my cigarette, and I smuggled food out to the people that I knew would be my friends, all the dogs.

And so I sat there. I knew what they wanted. They wanted food, pet, love, and I just wanted their attention. That's what I did. I smuggled food. And the amount of times that I spent drunkenly on the ground with these dogs has probably contributed to a significant increase in my lifelong cancer risk. But I had friends. I was lonely and got what I needed.

A lot of nights were spent like this. Just me with the dogs kind of quiet, just hanging out, trying to make friends. Alternatively, other nights happened where maybe someone made a big discovery or a friend showed up and the hotel would erupt with a big party, chaos. And the contents of the hotel would spew out into this courtyard and attract more and more dogs. It was enormous.

One night, I was feeling a little rebellious, a little too drunk. Slipped a hood over my head. I wanted to go to bed, so I just walked home. Kind of snaking along paths, behind me are two or three dogs who were following my every little step. And together, we're exploring abandoned buildings, we're dodging police patrols, and we're breaking every single rule in the zone. It was exhilarating.

In the morning, I figured, well, if I could do this at night and get away with it, I could probably do it in the morning too. Igor was pissed, but what I would do is, before the sun would come up, I would dart out of the hostel and make my way back to the hotel through little rural roads.

Now, along that path, every morning, was a pack of 50 puppies who guarded the path like a gang of bandits. And the only way I could get by is if I slowly laid myself on the ground and waited. Eventually, they would accept my toll and then gallop towards me and then smother my body with kisses, barks, bites, whatever, just a big, old dog pile on this ground.

After a few moments of this, I would rise, the dogs would stay at attention, and I'd walk to the hotel, all 50 behind me. We would arrive and they would be unleashed with all the other dogs.

One morning, I was having a coffee and lording over my pack, and one of the Ukrainian scientists, Zhinya, came up to me. He asked, “Chris, why do you spend so much time with all these dogs?”

I didn't mean to be weird but I was like, “I'm kind of lonely. I don't know how to make friends and the dogs make me feel better.” I pulled out my phone and just started showing him pictures of my dogs back home.

And he very kindly pulled out his phone, and showed me pictures of his dogs back home. Just like that, I was in. I had made my first friend. Human friend, yeah.

So we're looking at dogs. I asked, “So, you have a dog, you have a family?”

“Oh, yeah, a daughter.”

“What are their names?”

“Why are you in Chernobyl? How is life in Ukraine? How is science here?”

And we're just building this rapport. For the rest of my time in Chernobyl, he makes every attempt to introduce me to his friends, to include me in the conversations that just make me feel welcome.

And this is important because, by the end of the expedition, I returned back to the university and I had nothing of scientific value. But that was fine, because, really, the whole reason I was there was to engage with Ukrainians, to learn Ukrainian science, to learn how it works, and to talk with them.

So in the hallways, the same Ukrainian scientists that shunned me and grimaced whenever I talked with them, waved at me, shook my hand, smiled. And a few times a week, I would meet Zhinya outside for a cigarette and coffee and we would discuss, “What can we do to make Ukraine better? How can we get your students into programs in Europe and the United States?” And of course, at every chance we got, we always shared the pictures of our dogs back home.

Thank you.

Part 2

It's 2013 and I'm a grad student here at the University of Washington in Seattle. It's been two‑and‑a‑half years since I packed all my stuff into a car and moved all the way across the country to be three time zones away from my parents, from my family, to pursue my dream of studying the beautiful brain of a singing fish.

Honestly, life's going great. I have wonderful work life. I have great friends. All of my bad decisions haven't led to bad consequences yet. And lately, I've been interested in the concept of the Umwelt. For those of you non‑German speakers, this is a philosophical construct about how our experiences, the things that we assign meaning to, the things we pay attention to, how all of these come together to form our idea of the world.

I'll later learn that the word "Umwelt" directly translates to the self‑centered world, which is a great way to describe my mid‑20s. But I'm interested in this partially because I'm noticing my own world is changing, and the three years that I've been in Seattle, I'm different. I'm a West Coast guy now. I'm more chill than I used to be. I genuinely enjoy the rain and the spider seasons. I have a favorite fall place that I won't tell anyone about. And it gets me thinking, if I can change so quickly, I wonder how an animal's world changes and how that leads to adaptation and the evolution of a species.

Ashwin Bhandiwad shares his story at the Allen Institute in Seattle, WA in September 2024. Photo by Erik Dinnel, Allen Institute.

Now, with a lot of generosity, a little luck, and a little networking, I get a chance to study this question in the three‑spined stickleback fish. Those of you who have never seen a three‑spined stickleback, I want you to just close your eyes for a moment and imagine a small fish. You got it.

It's a little more angular and spiky than what you're thinking, and the males have this beautiful red mouth and a red belly that makes it look like they just went to town on a cherry popsicle.

But what's wonderful about sticklebacks is not what they look like, it's what they are, which is highly adaptable. I'm interested, in particular, in stickleback that live in this one little lake in Canada.

Now, this lake is the stickleback’s whole world. But what's happened is one has split to two. There are two sticklebacks in this lake and they live in different places. They look different. They behave differently. They eat different things. And what I want to know is, even though they share the same world, do they live in different worlds?

I get a chance to work on this. I pitch this to my advisor and my postdoc friend Matt, who studies sticklebacks and they say, “Great! What do you need?”

Well, it turns out what I need are permits. So because they only live in this one little lake, they're considered an endangered species, so they're heavily restricted. Fortunately, Matt knows the professor who has access to these fish, so it's up to me to convince this professor that I should work on this.

I practice my pitch in front of the mirror for what feels like a hundred times. And on a cold spring morning, we drive all the way up to Vancouver and meet this professor at his neighborhood coffee shop. And over a double latte, I really let him have it. I'm giving the hard sell.

“I'm really interested in this. I want to test the limits of their visual system. I'm not going to hurt them. And I'm going to build this amazing rotating aquarium to test this.”

I'm going through this pitch. I'm done. Ta‑da, and I look over at this guy. And he's got this face like, “That's it? I could have been doing my taxes, instead I'm here with you.”

So I thank him and I'm beating myself up over it, you know, a lot. What could I have done better? How could I have done this?

When Matt calls and he goes, “Dude,” that's how Matt talks, “dude, Dolph loved your idea. He's totally on board.”

I go, “Really? Are we living in the same world because I totally bombed that?”

And he goes, “No, no, no, it's fine. It's great. Now, there is a problem. He can't give you any fish, so you'll have to go to the lake and do your experiments there. So whatever you're going to build, make it portable.”

I say, “Okay.”

Over the next few months, I work incredibly hard to build this rotating aquarium that I’ve promised. And when I'm done, it's a work of art. It's beautiful, it's portable, and it works 80% of the time, so basically perfect.

So, we pack this apparatus, some fishing gear, some coolers, and we drive nine hours north, with three ferries, to this little tiny island off the coast of British Columbia. When we get to this lake, this lake that I've read about, I've dreamed about, I've heard about, we get there and it kinda sucks. I imagined snow‑capped mountains in the background, maybe a bald eagle flying overhead. It's a glorified pond next to a road, but I don't care right. I'm here. I'm going to test out this idea that has been burning a hole in me.

I start setting up my equipment and, immediately, it turns out that we can't do these experiments here. See, it's partially cloudy, which means that the sun keeps going in and out of the clouds and so the light levels are all over the place. We can't do this. What are we going to do?

So the four of us put our heads together and we decide, well, we need a place that has constant light that's coming straight down from up top, and the only place we can think of that has light like this is the bathroom in our motel room.

So we pack everything up, the apparatus, coolers, everything, and we head back to the motel. Now, this motel is one of those long single‑story motels that I'm sure you've all driven by. Long carpeted hallway where the carpet looks like it was put in back when doctors used to smoke in the hospital.

We get into the bathroom. I set everything up. I have to set this rotating aquarium on the closed lid of the toilet, but that's right under this dome light. I feel very happy, very proud. We get everything set up, but it's a little cramped. To get in and out of even the room, you can only open the door just a touch. You have to really squeeze by. But things are set up.

Over the next three or four days, our schedule looks a little like this. In the morning, we go out to the lake, we catch as many fish as we can, put them in coolers, haul them back, test them all day in the bathroom in the aquarium, then put them back in the cooler and then head back, put them back in the lake.

By the time we're done, I'm feeling really proud of myself. I'm not proud that I blocked the bathroom for all the people that came with me, but I'm really proud of the work that I've done. I had an idea. I talked to enough people to convince them. I really went through with it.

So, on the last night, we decided to celebrate. We go to the motel bar that's attached to the motel. Same interior designer as the carpet person. It is not going to be on Architectural Digest anytime soon, but wood paneling, wood floors, wood everywhere. We're having a couple Molsons and some local Canadian guys come by and they want to talk to us.

They go, "Hey, are you a native?" This is a bad accent. "Hey, are you native?"

And I go, "No, no, I'm Indian.” They've never met an Indian guy before and so I go, "Well, you're welcome.”

It turns out that they're interested in us not because of me but because of all four of us. See, from their perspective, here's what they've seen. Four out‑of‑towners who are holed up in their motel room all day. When they come in and out of the room, the door opens only a crack so you can't see it. They've got some weird contraption. They meant to say apparatus. They've got this weird contraption and the only thing that comes in and out are these coolers.

“Oh, my God, they think we're drug manufacturers.” So we convinced them that we're not. We're fish scientists. It's very easy to convince.

And we're met with this mix of relief and disappointment. They wanted to hang out with outlaws, and we are definitely not. We're in‑laws, if anything.

It's not until the ferry ride the next day when we're coming back to Seattle that I realize what has just happened in this past week. See, when I was doing science, those two Canadians, they too were doing science. They had all these little pieces of evidence and they put it together in their world view and came up with “drug manufacturers”.

That hits me like a bolt of lightning. Science is not just a bunch of data and facts. It's how you put it together that makes a difference and.

So, even today, in 2024, when I think of these two Canadian guys, that I don't remember their names, I'm filled with gratitude. Gratitude for not calling the police, initially, but also gratitude for making me a better scientist, for really making me understand really what science is, which is this quest, this process that's never‑ending because we'll never really know the truth, but we can do our best and try to get close.

I also want to thank them for making me a more empathetic person. I knew at some level that other people had thoughts, and other people had their own worlds, but now I really know because of this close call. So wherever you are, rural Canadians, thank you for everything you've done, and thanks to all of you for listening.