Science Friday

An uncomfortable encounter with a stranger sets producer Abby Wendle on a quest to answer the question: who do you let in and who do you keep out? In her search for balance between openness and caution – she navigates the struggles of her long-distance relationship and chats up musician John Prine.

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Mike Kane (@Mike_Kane_TV) is an Emmy-award-winning producer and writer in the DC area. His work has appeared on PBS, Discovery, TLC, Animal Planet and more. He has been performing stories on stage for more than seven years has performed in Story District's Top Shelf show four times.

Today we introduce you to Allie n Steve, who is one person. For half the day she can be Allie and the other half he is Steve. For many of us this would be a disorienting experience. But after a shattering experience in their life, Allie n Steve has learned to live comfortably in this in between space. And Allie n Steve has lessons to teach us about the beauty of not retreating to black and white. We also talk to a woman who suffers from a little known condition called "maladaptive daydreaming." She is who is so addicted to her fantasy life that she's finding it hard to manage her real one.

Content Warning: This episode contains descriptions of sexual abuse.

A panel of judges sits to decide the fate of the young woman. She's the child of addicts and an ex-addict and ex-felon herself, and she's asking the court to trust her to become an attorney. The outcome of her case hinges on a question we all struggle with: are we destined to repeat our patterns, or do we generally stray in surprising directions? - a question increasingly relevant in an age when algorithms are trying to predict everything about our behavior.

In this episode, we talk to a 74-year old woman whose husband's death has led her to skydiving, and a beekeeper who thinks his hives have been stolen by mobsters. Then we travel to Mogadishu to learn about a reality show called "Inspire Somalia," which is trying to remind a country that's been terrorized by Islamic extremists that it could once again be the kind of place where people can sing in public.

Your aging mother lives in another country. Then a tenant moves into her house – he's clean, polite, helpful. At first you are relieved, until you begin to suspect that man has sinister motives. That's the situation two brothers found themselves in, in Taiwan. Then something happened between the tenant and the mother that unsettled the brothers' lives even more.

Special thanks to the following musicians:

In any relationship, there are always things we don't say, assumptions we make about people we love. But often those assumptions are wildly, even dangerously wrong. We tell the story of a Taiwanese spy who infiltrates a family, and exposes how little they understand each other. And we meet an extreme daydreamer who has decided to keep her fantasy life a secret from her husband and son.

Reality TV may be popular around the world, but it's also roundly mocked as formulaic and contrived. So, can that kind of fragile fantasy world meaningfully influence reality? We look at the goals and impact of a UN-backed reality show called "Inspire Somalia," that attempted to model democracy and freedom in a country racked by decades of clan warfare and oppression by extremist groups like al-Shabab.

Clips from Inspire Somalia courtesy of the U.N.

Special thanks to the following musicians:

A panel of judges sits to decide the fate of the young woman. She's the child of addicts and an ex-addict and ex-felon herself, and she's asking the court to trust her to become an attorney. The outcome of her case hinges on a question we all struggle with: are we destined to repeat our patterns, or do we generally stray in surprising directions? - a question increasingly relevant in an age when algorithms are trying to predict everything about our behavior.

In this episode, we talk to a 74-year-old woman who decides the only way to get over her husband's death is to jump out of an airplane. And to a third generation beekeeper whose entire collection of hives has been stolen - he believes by Russian mobsters. After losing so much can they tell themselves new stories about themselves that allow them to function?

Special thanks to the following musicians:

Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

HANNA ROSIN, HOST:

When he was in college, the thing that annoyed Brett Cohen the most was celebrity culture.

Most of the music in this episode was obtained from NPR's licensed music libraries. But we are always on the hunt for awesome new music or original work by musicians! If that's you, write to us on Facebook or at invisibiliamail@npr.org and your music could be featured here!