Paradigm Shift: Stories about the moment when everything changes
The Story Collider
Story Collider, Inc.
4.4 • 824 Ratings
🗓️ 21 January 2022
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this week’s episode, both our storytellers experience something that irrevocably alters their lives.
Part 1: Carl Zimmer learns he has a lot in common with bats hibernating in an abandoned mine.
Part 2: In the midst of a big move, a global pandemic, and social unrest, neuroscientist Aya Osman finds her purpose.
Carl Zimmer is a columnist for the New York Times, where he has been covering Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic. He is also the author of 14 books about science, including Life's Edge: The Search For What It Means To Be Alive.
Aya Osman is a UK trained neuroscientist currently studying the connection between the gut and the brain (the gut-brain axis) in a range of neuropsychiatric conditions including addiction and autism at Icahn School of Medicine in New York. Before embarking on her PhD and subsequent postdoctoral research Journey, she completed an MSc in Toxicology and worked for the governmental body Public Health England. Dr. Osman is also an international fashion model who harnesses her unique skill set gained from a public facing role as a model as well as extensive scientific training to communicate important scientific findings to the public in a manageable and understandable format across multiple media platforms, with a particular focus on scientific topics relevant to the Black community.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | A science story, huh? |
| 0:04.0 | Is NYU a scientist? |
| 0:06.0 | I felt right. |
| 0:08.0 | And I just thought, well, I figured it out. |
| 0:10.0 | It was that golden moment. |
| 0:13.0 | Because science was on my side. |
| 0:15.0 | Hey, everybody, welcome to the Story Collider, where we bring you true personal stories about science. |
| 0:30.5 | I think we all can agree these past couple of years have been a time of change. |
| 0:36.3 | Many of us are living in completely different realities |
| 0:38.7 | than we were two years ago, whether because of the pandemic, social changes, or a combination |
| 0:44.0 | of the two. In today's episode, we have two stories from storytellers who have experienced |
| 0:49.0 | paradigm shifts. Our first story is from Carl Zimmer. It was recorded last December at a closed live stream show in New York City. |
| 0:58.4 | The theme that night was belonging. |
| 1:10.6 | So it's a bright winter morning in the Adirondacks. There's a fresh layer of snow on the forest floor. |
| 1:21.2 | And I look ridiculous because I am trying to put on chest waiters in the snow, which is something you really shouldn't try to do. |
| 1:30.3 | And I've never really put on chest waiters before. I'm not a fly fishing type. |
| 1:34.3 | But this is what I have to do. |
| 1:37.3 | And so I've got my shoes off and I'm hopping up and down, trying not to end up with a foot soaked in snow. |
| 1:45.0 | And what makes me feel even more ridiculous is that standing right in front of me are two biologists, |
| 1:51.0 | one also named Carl, the other Katie, and they already have their chest waiters on. |
| 1:55.0 | They put them on like an old pair of slippers, because this is what they do for a living. |
| 1:59.0 | They're very nice, and they wait, and they and they wait and I struggle and eventually I get them |
... |
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