The Story Collider

Pakistan-born physicist Saad Sarwana gets a visit from the FBI. Saad Sarwana grew up in Pakistan, and moved first to Canada and then eventually to the US to attend graduate school in Physics. He's a professional physicist by day and an amateur standup comedian by night! As a Physicist, Saad has over 30 peer reviewed publications and two US patents. As a comedian Saad has performed at every major comedy club in the NYC area, and has been featured on an ABC 20/20 story about Muslim Standup Comedians. This winter you can see him in the US on the Discovery Science Channel show "You Have Been Warned." Help keep us going! If you love the podcast, please donate here: http://www.patreon.com/thestorycollider Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When tragedy strikes his high school friend, David Epstein vows to find out what happened. David Epstein is author of the recent New York Times bestseller The Sports Gene, an exploration of the genetic basis of athleticism. He is currently an investigative reporter at the non-profit ProPublica. Up until September, he was a senior writer at Sports Illustrated. He has been a crime reporter at the New York Daily News, and an education reporter at Inside Higher Ed. In his past life, David was a geology grad student. He has lived in the Sonoran Desert, on a ship in the Pacific Ocean, in the Arctic in Alaska, and -- like every other writer -- in Brooklyn. Help keep us going! If you love the podcast, please donate here: www.patreon.com/thestorycollider Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

As a woman of color working in science, Danielle N. Lee has always encountered challenges. But she doesn't expect the email she receives one morning, or the events it sets in motion. Dr. Danielle N. Lee is a biologist and outreach scientist. Her research areas include animal behavior, behavioral ecology, and mammalogy; She is currently examining individual behavioral differences and natural history of African Giant Pouched Rats, Cricetomys ansorgei. DNLee (as she is known online) specializes in informal science outreach to urban youth audiences and the use of social media technology to engage broad audiences in the understanding of science. She focuses on relevant, accessible, and experiential-based lessons -- formal and informal -- to engage diverse audiences in science. Her blog, The Urban Scientist, discusses urban ecology, environmental science, and STEM opportunities (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) as well as diversity in the sciences. Help keep us going! If you love the podcast, please donate here: www.patreon.com/thestorycollider Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Psychologist Pete Etchells' father inspired him -- to hate neurons. Pete Etchells is a lecturer in biological psychology at Bath Spa University, UK, and a science blogger for the Guardian's psychology blog, Head Quarters. When he was growing up though, he really wanted to be a dinosaur. His research interests cover everything from how the human visual system works, to understanding how modern technology (particularly video games) affects behaviour and development. Every week the Story Collider brings you a true, personal story about science. Find more and subscribe to our podcast at our website: http://storycollider.org/ Help keep us going! If you love the podcast, please donate here: http://www.patreon.com/thestorycollider Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

While studying bioengineering, Craig Lehocky discovers he's different from the other students. Craig Lehocky's tinkering runs deep. He currently develops surgical robots as an M.D. / Ph.D. student at CMU and University of Pittsburgh. Before that, he worked on prosthetic limbs controlled by the brain at the University of Pittsburgh. And even before that, he restored cars, houses, and guitar amplifiers at the University of his Dad. He doesn't know what tinkering his future holds, but hopes it unfolds in Pittsburgh. Every week the Story Collider brings you a true, personal story about science. Find more and subscribe to our podcast at our website: http://storycollider.org/ Help keep us going! If you love the podcast, please donate here: http://www.patreon.com/thestorycollider Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Story Collider needs your help! Our initial funding is coming to an end, and we need your help to keep going. It doesn't take a lot, $1/podcast will go a long way. As a thanks if you donate, we'll give you a special podcast with some of the storylets we tell in the live shows between the main stories. Here's a sample of those. If you'd like to contribute or for more info, head to http://www.patreon.com/thestorycollider. Thanks! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A wrong number to a friend in Sri Lanka leads Saswato Das to the final interview with a famous science fiction writer. Saswato R. Das has written about science and technology for more than two decades for publications that include the Economist, Scientific American, New Scientist, the International Herald Tribune/ New York Times global edition, the Los Angeles Times, Newsday, the Times Literary Supplement (UK), the Times of India, IEEE Spectrum, the Bell Labs Technical Journal, etc. He has a background in astrophysics and has taught undergraduate astronomy within the CUNY system. Every week the Story Collider brings you a true, personal story about science. Find more and subscribe to our podcast at our website: http://storycollider.org/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Jim O'Grady's attempts to woo his housemate are stymied by the monkey she's training to help quadriplegics. Jim O'Grady is a reporter for WNYC Radio and a Moth GrandSLAM champ. He has worked as a reporter for The New York Times, a professor of journalism at NYU and research director at The Center for an Urban Future. That's a policy think tank for whom he co-wrote this science-y report: http://bit.ly/7vx5Ei. He is the author of two biographies, Dorothy Day: With Love for the Poor and Disarmed & Dangerous: The Radical Lives and Times of Daniel and Philip Berrigan. Ask him how his high school science teacher, who was a nut job, pronounced "mitochondria." Every week the Story Collider brings you a true, personal story about science. Find more and subscribe to our podcast at our website: storycollider.org/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

At age 7, Deborah Blum starts a mystery when she interrupts her parent's dinner party. So their guest, famed biologist E.O. Wilson, investigates. Deborah Blum, a Pulitzer prize-winning science journalist, author and blogger, is the Helen Firstbrook Franklin Professor of Journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Author of five books and a popular guide to science writing, her most recent publication, The Poisoner's Handbook, was a 2011 New York Times best seller and will be the subject of an American Experience documentary on PBS in January. She writes a monthly environmental chemistry column for The New York Times called Poison Pen. She also blogs about toxic compounds at Wired; her blog Elemental was named one of the top 25 blogs of 2013 by Time magazine. She has written for a wide range of other publications including Scientific American , Slate, Tin House, The Atavist, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, The Los Angeles Times and Discover. Before joining the university in 1997, she was a science writer for The Sacramento Bee, where she won the Pulitzer in 1992 for her reporting on ethical issues in primate research. Her work has been anthologized in Best American Science Writing, Best American Nature Writing, and The Open Laboratory: Best Science OnLine. Every week the Story Collider brings you a true, personal story about science. Find more and subscribe to our podcast at our website: http://storycollider.org/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What's the worst that can happen when you let a recent college grad command a $330 million spacecraft? Victor Hwang is a New England born nerd. After graduating from Tufts, he helped build ground telescopes, fly spacecrafts, and chased a dream to become a circus acrobat. Now he's a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute trying to make humanoid robots a little bit smarter. Every week the Story Collider brings you a true, personal story about science. Find more and subscribe to our podcast at our website: http://storycollider.org/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.