NPR Science reporters Alix Spiegel and Lulu Miller explain to Ira Glass how they smuggled a rat into NPR headquarters in Washington, and ran an unscientific version of a famous experiment first done by Psychology Professor Robert Rosenthal. It showed how people’s thoughts about rats could affect their behavior.

A big bull, a giant slide, and cowboys on horseback shooting balloons are just a few sights you can take in at the Iowa State Fair.

Reporter Alix Spiegel and playwright David Kodeski tell stories about Niagara Falls. During the hour we hear from Paul Gromosiak, a man who's obsessed with the Falls, writes about them, thinks about them all the time, but never goes there, because "they've ruined the falls." We hear a man who went over the falls in a barrel, and we hear the recordings he made inside the barrel as he went over. There's a man who picks up the bodies of people who've jumped over the Falls.

Shawn Allee tells a story of the oldest kind of million dollar idea, the scam. Or was it an honest venture? Back in the 1980s Michael Larson made the most money ever on the game show Press Your Luck.

Reporter Paul Tough talks with Aaron Hsu-Flanders, an acknowledged master in the field of animal balloons, who says that artistic jealousies have ruined his life. Even in the world of latex giraffes and doggies, there are artistic rivalries and bitterness.

Some people battle inner demons, but contributor David Ellis Dickerson went one step further. David tells the story of the time he took on an actual demon in his college classroom.

Writer Sarah Miller attends a class on how to walk and talk and act like a man. It's not easy.

Ira interviews Ryan Knighton, a blind guy who had a very peculiar experience with a hotel room telephone.

There’s a museum in Baltimore that was created to memorialize the Black experience in America. It’s called The National Great Blacks in Wax Museum.

Nema and Neda Semnani have extraordinarily similar first names – and completely opposite ways of dealing with what happened to their dad when they were little.

David Ellis Dickerson tells the story of heading home to Tucson after six years away, having rejected the evangelical Christianity of his family. David came prepared for war, armed with new beliefs.

Not everyone hates the idea of "toxic assets." Reporter Lisa Chow goes to New Jersey to follow two guys on their quest to clean up some of America's bad mortgages—by buying them, and going straight to the homes themselves to have a look at how dire the situation really is.

Patrick Howell, a gay Republican from Orlando, goes on what might seem like an ill-fated hearts-and-minds mission at the Republican Convention.

If you're going to do a show about people who are lost, you pretty much have to include a story about adolescents. Jonathan Goldstein tells a story from his teenage years.

After 25 years at the same company, a man starts a new life with a new venture: a cable channel that shows nothing but puppies.

The story of two young people who, in their search to figure out who they were, pretended to be people they weren't. Both were from small towns; both took on false identities.

Writer Achy Obejas reads a piece of short fiction from her book, We Came All the Way from Cuba So You Could Dress Like This? (11 minutes)

Sex advice columnist Dan Savage tells the odd story of how he became a Republican state convention delegate even though he's a Democrat and gay.

A story by Cheryl Trykv, read by the author in front of a live audience at The Hothouse, illustrates what it means when the sinner makes no attempt to seek forgiveness.

There’s a museum in Baltimore that was created to memorialize the Black experience in America. It’s called The National Great Blacks in Wax Museum.

Ira reports on a week he spent on the set of the TV show M*A*S*H in 1979, supposedly to do a story about the program for National Public Radio. He was 20 years old.

Broward County is  one of the bluest counties in Florida, and some of the Democrats who live and vote there are worried their party isn’t doing enough to keep it that way. Lina Misitzis spent some time talking to them about their fears.

Producers Diane Wu and Lina Misitzis spend the night at a corner grocery store in Brooklyn, New York and talk to some of the people that pass by. (25 minutes)

David Sedaris takes Ira on a tour of his favorite spots in Paris. He moved to France with no special feelings for the place.