Let's get slow. Producer Abby Wendle picks up the gauntlet that was thrown down in the last episode "The Great Narrative Escape." Sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride.

Imagine a TV show with no plot, no characters, no tension... and yet, it went viral! In this episode, we have a story that questions storytelling as we know it. Plus, co-hosts Kia Miakka Natisse and Yowei Shaw take a spectacularly unspectacular train ride.

Is 209 Times helping or hurting the community it claims to serve? What does the site mean for the future of local news in America? And what can be done about it? In the final installment of "The Chaos Machine" series , Yowei finds herself in the middle of a long-standing tug of war over who owns the...

The man behind 209 Times is not who you'd expect. In Part 2, co-host Yowei Shaw discovers the website's surprising origin story, and ends up at the frontlines of a revolt against the mainstream media and a fight over who gets to own the truth.

Yowei gets a tip about Russian trolls in Stockton, California and falls down a hole of swirling conspiracy theories. At the center is a scrappy, controversial website that has become one of the most popular sources of local news in town. Some say it's doing important investigative journalism while o...

Invisibilia explores a social experiment with money, focused around a contentious topic: reparations. What happens when you demand white people give up their wealth?

Invisibilia is back! Stories that help you see the world differently, with new hosts Kia Miakka Natisse and Yowei Shaw.

Hacking, phishing, surveillance, disinformation... these are tools used to silence dissidents and influence elections. But what happens when these same methods are used against an ordinary citizen? The story of a man fighting an enemy he can't see and becoming increasingly paranoid.Which makes him a...

The strange story of an unlikely crew of people who band together to take on one of our largest problems using nothing but whale sounds, machine learning, and a willingness to think outside the box. Even stranger, several of the world's most accomplished scientists seem to think they might have a go...

A city council candidate says he's black. But his opponent accuses him of being a white man pretending to be black. If race is simply a social construct and not a biological reality, how do we determine someone's race? And who gets to decide? We tell the story of a man whose racial identity was fier...

What if you had a superpower that allowed you to see part of the world that was to come? At the age of 60, a Scottish woman named Joy Milne discovers she has a biological gift that allows her to see things that will happen in the future that no one else can see. A look at how we think about the futu...

Welcome to what is possibly the most tense and uncomfortable summer program in America! The Boston-based program aims to teach the next generation the real truth about race, and may provide some ideas for the rest of us about the right way to confront someone to their face. | To learn more about thi...

Daniel Martinez discovered the unthinkable: a creature that breaks one of the most fundamental laws of life. In the wake of his discovery--which has been widely confirmed by the scientific community--all kinds of people have thrown themselves into trying to unlock the secrets of how this creature se...

Bernie Krause was a successful musician as a young man, playing with rock stars like Jim Morrison and George Harrison in the 1960s and '70s. But then one day, Bernie heard a sound unlike anything he'd ever encountered and it completely overtook his life. He quit the music business to pursue it and h...

You hear the train barreling towards you and you're tied to the tracks. It's an impossible situation. Most people would panic, and then a tiny handful would think up improbable workarounds. This season on Invisibilia: inventors in desperate times.

An original animated video in two parts!

What happens when you treat artificial intelligence with unconditional love?

Producer B.A. Parker started recording her calls with her father because she was concerned about the care at his nursing home. But the recordings gave her a window into something very different: their relationship. So she started recording her calls with her grandmother as well. A story of relations...

As a parent, what do you do when your four-year-old starts telling you about memories that can't possibly be his? Memories that he says are from a past life?

A mysterious profile pops up on a dating app - leading to a bubble of chaos and confusion. A story about trying to sort fact versus fiction, how destabilizing that can be, and a very strange confrontation with the truth. NOTE: Since this story was originally published, we have added some background...

Richard Kraft was in a fog of grief when he bought his first Disney collectible at an auction. But once he started, he couldn't stop. In the first episode of our new fall season, we explore the role of positive distraction in the face of adversity.

Invisibilia is a show that runs on empathy. We believe in it. But are we right? In this episode, we'll let you decide. We tell the same story twice in order to examine the questions: who deserves our empathy? And is there a wrong way to empathize? If you or somebody you know might need help, the Nat...

A young woman discovers a pattern in her dating habits that disturbs her - a pattern that challenges her very conception of who she is and what she believes in. The realization sets her off on a quest to change her attractions. But is this even possible? And should we be hacking our desire to match ...

What would it be like if you could control your mood with a hand held device? Literally turn the device to different settings and make yourself happier and sadder? Alix Spiegel talks to a woman who has that power. If you or somebody you know might need help, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline ...

In this episode of Invisibilia, we explore our relationship with uncertainty through the eyes of a chief meteorologist. We wonder: what do you do when you don't know what to do? And how do we handle it when that question has no answer?

What is the relationship between the version of you that lives online and the one that walks around the earth? We think of our online selves as shadow versions of us which we can control. But in this age when facts are malleable, something strange is happening: our online selves are sometimes eclips...

We look at how our culture's massive effort to address pain has paradoxically increased it. And we follow one young girl as she struggles through a bizarre and extreme treatment program. NOTE: The treatment in this episode is administered by trained professionals in a hospital setting (and should no...

This moment in our culture can feel fraught. From 'fake news' to the opioid crisis, there's a lot of uncertainty about the future. So this season, Invisibilia helps you discern truth from fiction, cure your pain, and find your true love with conviction. It's your very own Emotional Survival Guide!

When truth becomes stranger than fiction.

How one prayer changed a life.

Who do you let in and who do you keep out?

Why would you leave a message when you can just send a text?

On April 19, 2018 Invisibilia co-hosted our first-ever live event with our friends at Story District.

When someone in your community transgresses, do you banish them in an attempt to make the community safer for everyone? WARNING: This episode contains obscenities and descriptions of sex and violence.

We're living in a polarized world, where picking a side is almost a requirement. But what happens in the space in between?

Are we destined to repeat our patterns or do we generally stray in surprising directions? CONTENT WARNING: This episode contains descriptions of sexual abuse.

We examine how leaving things unsaid with our intimates can lead to misunderstandings and missed connections.

Can a reality show - and telling a certain kind of story - call a different kind of reality into being?

What happens when you lose something so central to your life that you no longer understand who you are? How do you find yourself again?

We're living in a black and white world, where the stories we tell ourselves lock us into one side or the other. These stories define us – imprison or liberate us. In their fourth season, co-hosts Hanna Rosin and Alix Spiegel map the grey areas.

What happens when you have to choose between having an open mind, or a moral backbone? Listen to the original episode here: http://apple.co/2DoRC5X

In a special podcast bonus, co-host Hanna Rosin checks in with Bill Millar, who we met in Season 2's "Flip the Script." They talk about dating, cats, and how love can look different for everyone. Listen to the original episode here: http://apple.co/2x0aWE3.

It feels like emotions just come at us, and there is nothing we can do. But we might have it backwards. We look at an unusual legal case and examine a provocative new theory about emotions.

An anthropologist discovers an emotion, and after a tragic event, comes to understand it. And a young woman does the one thing guaranteed to ruin a date, and learns something about her emotional life.

How is it that two neighbors can look out their window at the exact same thing, and see something completely different? This is a question many people in America are asking now. We explore it by visiting a small community in Minnesota, called Eagle's Nest Township, that has a unique experience with ...

The concept of social bubbles has become popular lately as people grapple with the unexpected outcomes of the 2016 election. We meet two people making radical attempts to break out of their bubbles.

Is there a part of ourselves that we don't acknowledge, that we don't even have access to and that might make us ashamed if we encountered it?

We all have a better self, a version of us that is better, more successful. It can inspire us to achieve our dreams, or mock us for everything we have failed to become.

What happens when you discover a part of yourself that is so different from who you think you are? Do you hold on to your original self tightly? Do you explore this other self? Or do you just panic?

Season 3 has ended but we're hard at work on Season 4! We'll see you soon, but in the meantime, we wanted to share Invisibilia's tips for a successful road trip.

On June 1, Invisibilia is back for Season 3! Invisibilia explores the invisible forces that shape human behavior – thoughts, emotions, assumptions, expectations. Check out the trailer for the upcoming season!

There's a popular idea out there that you can change from the outside in. Power posing. Fake it 'til you make it. If you just assume the pose, inner transformation will follow. Is it true?

Do clothes have the power to transform us? Seven stories that explore how clothes can change us in quiet but surprising ways with help from Yowei Shaw, Chenjerai Kumanyika and Colin Dwyer.

Psychology has a golden rule too: If I am warm, you are usually warm. If I am hostile, you are too. But what happens if you flip the script and meet hostility with warmth?

We all carry an invisible frame of reference in our heads that filters our experience. Alix and Hanna talk to a woman who gets a glimpse of what she's been missing – and then loses it.

In this special podcast bonus, Lulu Miller tells the story of William Kitt, a resident of the Broadway Housing Communities, featured in our episode "The Problem with the Solution". William Kitt was insane, by his own definition. But he no longer believes he is, because of what he calls the Greatest ...

Americans LOVE solutions. But are there problems we shouldn't try to solve? Lulu visits a town in Belgium with a completely different approach to dealing with mental illness.

In a special podcast bonus, Lulu Miller tells the story about a young runner who always thought he had it in him to break the four-minute mile, until a potential change in personality made him question if he was the same runner.

We like to think of our own personalities, and those of our family and friends as predictable, constant over time. But what if they aren't? What if nothing stays constant over a lifetime?

You probably don't even notice them, but social norms determine so much of your behavior - how you dress, talk, eat and even what you allow yourself to feel. These norms are so entrenched we never imagine they can shift. But Alix Spiegel and new co-host, Hanna Rosin, examine two grand social experim...

On June 17th Invisibilia is back for Season 2! Invisibilia explores the invisible forces that shape human behavior – thoughts, emotions, assumptions, expectations. Check out the trailer for the upcoming season!

Alix and Lulu present a bonus podcast about why "Inside Out" was considered as a possible name for the show, but ultimately wasn't chosen.

In Our Computers, Ourselves, a look at the ways technology affects us, and the main question is : Are computers changing human character? You'll hear from cyborgs, bullies, neuroscientists and police chiefs about whether our closeness with computers is changing us as a species.

The Power Of Categories examines how categories define us — how, if given a chance, humans will jump into one category or another. People need them, want them. The show looks at what categories provide for us, and you'll hear about a person caught between categories in a way that will surprise you. ...

In Entanglement, you'll meet a woman with Mirror Touch Synesthesia who can physically feel what she sees others feeling. And an exploration of the ways in which all of us are connected — more literally than you might realize. The hour will start with physics and end with a conversation with comedian...

A podcast BONUS for you today. We didn't have enough room in our Batman show for this lovely story about Julee-anne Bell, one of the many people who have learned Daniel Kish's echolocation technique. Enjoy!

In "How to Become Batman," Alix and Lulu examine the surprising effect that our expectations can have on the people around us. You'll hear how people's expectations can influence how well a rat runs a maze. Plus, the story of a man who is blind and says expectations have helped him see. Yes. See. Th...

In "Fearless," co-hosts Alix Spiegel and Lulu Miller explore what would happen if you could disappear fear. A group of scientists believe that people no longer need fear — at least not the kind we live with — to navigate the modern world. We'll hear about the striking (and rare) case of a woman with...

Co-hosts Alix Spiegel and Lulu Miller ask, "Are my thoughts related to my inner wishes, do they reveal who I really am?" The answer can have profound consequences for your life.

Invisibilia, a show about the invisible forces that shape human behavior, weaves personal stories with scientific research that will ultimately make you see your own life differently.