Listen Now

Tamara Stanners wanted to make a good impression as a new radio announcer, so she volunteered to be frozen alive in a 5000-pound block of ice for a charity event. The response to her chilling experience was anything but lukewarm.

Toshiko Adilman left her husband, her two young boys, and the comfort of their home for a job as an interpreter on a movie filmed in Antarctica. But the exhilarating, temporary gig almost became a permanent disaster when she found herself stranded, and literally shipwrecked, thousands of miles from home.

Erin Stanfield went abroad hoping to expand her small town horizons, only to end up with a job as a mascot (where she dressed as her hometown's literary hero) at a theme park built to look like a tiny replica of the town she just left.

Dr. Floyd Huen has been fighting for the rights of Asian Americans since joining the activist movement at the University of California, Berkeley in the 1960s. Now he's grappling with the fact that some members of that community think he's trying to harm instead of heal.

Cicely Hansen is the proprietor of Decades of Fashion in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco. Her store is rooted in her love of vintage fashion, and her formative years as a teenager in the '60s partaking in the iconic Summer of Love.

Tareq Hadhad was set on a career in medicine until war broke out in Syria, forcing his family to flee to a small island in the Canadian Maritimes where he learned that whether healing through medicine or peace-making with chocolate, both paths can lead to a sweeter life for his family.

Former EPA scientist Gretchen Gehrke spends her evenings and weekends protecting the climate data that she and her colleagues used to collect.

Widower Joe Bartley felt like life was passing him by, sitting in his small-town flat with little to do and no one to talk to. So, he decided to pound the proverbial pavement and get back to work. The question was, who would hire him?

Retired corporate executive Paul Critchlow was becoming increasingly horrified with all the blank spaces in his calendar. When a friend of his offered him a summer internship at Pfizer, he jumped at the chance, and his experience proved to be much more meaningful than just filling time.

Without people like Greg Zerafa, Chris Bedetto, and Jerry Greaney there would be no New York Times to greet you at your doorstep each morning. Meet the men who are literally behind the machine.

Investigative Reporter Kevin Donovan learned that the truth can be an unpopular thing after revealing the dark secret of a city mayor revered by some of his own readers.

Dr. Cassandra Quave researches plants hoping to find a cure for the next wave of antibiotic-resistant infections and diseases—some of which she barely escaped herself.

Ian Winfield studies fish populations in England’s freshwater lakes, often with Bruce Springsteen blaring in his earbuds. Now he's using the Boss's lyrics to encourage others to take greater care of endangered natural resources.

Lola Augustine Brown wants the career, the kids, and the hen house all at the same time. It requires a very strategic dance and inevitably she sometimes slips.

Dr. Rebecca Hsu is a freelance forensic pathologist who literally picks people's brains to find the truth.

When a client hasn't paid, just tell Julie. Julie Elster's business is dedicated to getting the overdue invoices of freelancers paid with a whole lot of sweetness and a smidgen of sauciness.

Glenn Martin devoted three decades of his life to inventing a Jetson-like jetpack. Soon after it took flight, he quit the company that was created to bring it to market.

Maurice Ashley faced off against child prodigies to become the first black international chess grandmaster.

A football contest backed by a certain cherry-flavored soda empowers a young Mexican-American woman born of undocumented parents to stay in college and fight for immigration reform. Read an extended version of this story on slack.com/podcast.

An academic takes a unique job as a Wikipedia editor and consultant for the University of Oxford, using his access to historical texts and data to build the most comprehensive Wikipedia entries online—including the complete guide to everything Brexit.