While Nadia Osman is growing up, her father is determined to get her to pursue a career in STEM and Josh Silberg finds a new appreciation for his dad’s embarrassing antics when he’s forced to be an aquarium mascot.

Comedian Josh Gondelman is terrified when he gets a call that his father doesn’t remember there’s an ongoing pandemic, growing up Ken Ono dreams of being anything but a mathematician, and as a teenager, Eric Jankowski is inspired when he meets his science heroes.

Sabrina Imbler encounters strange blobs in the ocean and becomes obsessed with figuring out what they are and while visiting a new eye doctor, Derek Traub wonders if his Duane Syndrome and uneven vision are somehow connected.

After being bullied for his sexuality as a kid, Scott Taylor hesitates to bring his full self to his identity as a scientist and Kamryn Parker’s high school history teacher unwittingly influences her scientific journey.

Curtis Chou becomes dogmatic in his quest to correct a person’s incorrect fact on the internet and Richard Cardillo is determined to uncover a priest’s secret to keeping a thriving cactus collection.

In anticipation of our upcoming Proton Prom, this week we’re re-airing the first Story Collider stories from two of the storytellers who will be performing at the event.

It’s almost magical how a combination of just A, C, T, and G entirely determine who we are. In this week’s episode both our storytellers look at how their genes impact their lives.

Heather Galindo studies her lab mates in hopes of understanding what it means to be a scientist and when Rob Ulrich leaves their small town to study science, they keep waiting to feel like they belong somewhere.

During a visit to her doctor, comedian Angel Yau finds herself answering “always” to every question on the mental health evaluation and scientist Valerie Bentivegna doesn’t know what to do when her PhD supervisors tell her that her thesis isn’t good enough.