Host Ira Glass speaks with various people who regularly eat foods that give them severe allergic reactions, stomach cramping and trips to the hospital.

Ira talks with Paul Tough, author of the book How Children Succeed, about the traditional ways we measure ability and intelligence in American schools. They talk about the focus on cognitive abilities and conventional "book smarts." They discuss the current emphasis on these kinds of skills in American education, and the emphasis on standardized testing, and then turn our attention to a growing body of research that suggests we may be on the verge of a new approach to some of the biggest challenges facing American schools today.

A teenage girl gets bitten by a shark, rushed to the doctor's office, stitched up, and told she'll be totally fine. Crisis averted, right? Not so much.

David Rakoff died on August 9, 2012. He’d appeared on This American Life 25 times, first in 1996, during the third month of the show; his last appearance was just a few weeks before he died.

We surveyed hundreds of people around the country, from every part of the political spectrum, about the ways in which politics are interfering with their friendships and families. Producer Lisa Pollak reports.

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

Ben Loory wrote and tells this story, which begins with a duck falling in love with a rock.

Ira plays tape of a man whose job is plowing snow. He'll plow your driveway for money...or, if you're extra nice, he'll do it for free without even mentioning it.

Planet Money reporters Chana Joffe-Walt and Zoe Chace tells the story of the far-fetched, 150 year-old dream of a universal European currency.

David on how he tried to pass as a local once he moved from Toronto to New York. He claims that there must be a chip in his head — or something like it — that automatically tells him when someone or something famous is Canadian.

Producer Alex Blumberg tells the story of how Oklahoma, against huge odds, came to have the first and best publicly-funded pre-school system in the country, and how one businessman joined the fight because a cardboard box full of evidence convinced him that pre-school was the smartest business decision the state could make.

When the Euro arrived in 2002, the BBC called it "the most ambitiousfinancial and political change since money began." Here in the US we don'tthink of it as that revolutionary, but in Europe it truly changed howmillions of people lived. Adam Davidson and Chana Joffe-Walt report.

Famous people are supposed to be somewhere else, invisible to us. Comedian Tig Notaro tells this story about repeatedly running into Taylor Dayne, who was a pop star in the late 80s and early 90s.

Lisa Pollak goes to the Enchanted Snowfall at La Encantada Mall, where the snow is "98 percent magic; 2 percent soap." (4 minutes)

Habiba's story continues. Nearly 16 years after investigators first started looking into the Dos Erres massacre, a prosecutor tracks down Oscar and asks him to take a DNA test to see if he is a survivor.

Kristen Finch was a speech therapist who sometimes worked with kids with Asperger Syndrome, symptoms of which include emotional distance, inflexibility and missing social cues. Kristin and her co-workers often joked that all their husbands had Asperger's, since the symptoms overlap with stereotypically male personality traits.

Producer Nancy Updike reveals to Ira the staff’s concern about his dog, Piney.

Jeanne Darst tells a story about that iconic crime of passion: snooping. Jeanne is the author of the memoir Fiction Ruined My Family.

Reporter Josh Bearman tells Ira a story about two coded messages that Galileo sent to fellow scientist Johannes Kepler back in the 17th century. Galileo was trying to tell Kepler about some of the amazing discoveries he made with his new telescope.

Our story picks back up with the question of how non-cognitive skills can be taught to older kids who have gone much longer without learning things like self-control, conscientiousness and resilience. Ira returns to the story of Kewauna, the Chicago teenager, who talks about the dramatic ways in which she changed her life.