This story originally aired on October 20, 2018. Growing up in Taiwan, Dean Huang always knew he wanted to study abroad, especially after visiting cousins that had immigrated to Boston. “It’s just that Taiwan is really small, and I feel like I can maximize my potential and challenge myself to receive a different education.” When he turned 18, Dean was accepted to University of Washington in Seattle, and shortly after that became an American citizen. He was active in a group of fellow Taiwanese

This story originally aired on October 20, 2018. Nightmares happen to us all. For people with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, nightmares can be debilitating, nightly experiences. “Trauma nightmares are almost [like playing] a video tape of a traumatic event,” says Dr. Murray Raskind. He’s a psychiatrist at the VA Puget Sound hospital in Seattle and a professor in the University of Washington School of Medicine, who’s been researching PTSD treatment since he started working with a support group

Author’s note: One of the delights of producing the six-part podcast Forgotten Prison was digging through abandoned boxes of photos, letters and other archives to uncover the unknown stories of McNeil Island prison, sometimes referred to as Washington’s Alcatraz. One of the more surprising things we discovered was that, back in 1980, McNeil Island played a role in the story of Cuban refugees fleeing to the U.S. in the Mariel boatlift. It was difficult to find out much information other than that

Author's note: One of the best parts of this job is the opportunity to learn new things from smart people. In June, producer Geoffrey Redick and I traveled to Twisp, in the Methow Valley. That’s where we met Mayor Soo Ing-Moody. Her town dealt with large wildfires in 2014 and again in 2015, when three firefighters died. We were looking to Twisp for some lessons learned, for a program we did exploring wildfire danger here in Western Washington. Ing-Moody took us to an overlook along a highway

Author's note: I’ve worked at KNKX Public Radio just over a year now. And it’s stories like this that brought me here. The words scribbled on love notes hidden in boxes at Tacoma’s Over The Moon Cafe belong on the radio. As I said in this story, reading them over a tasty meal feels like being engrossed in a good book you never want to put down. But hearing them spoken — by the woman who dreamed up the restaurant where they live in anonymity — is that much better. The audio injects life into

This story originally aired Dec. 22, 2017. This week, many parents will read “The Night Before Christmas” to their children. Well, KNKX has something special for you: a reading of an abridged version of the almost 200-year-old poem by many of the voices you hear on the air here at KNKX, and some you don’t normally get to hear on the air. Enjoy.

This week on Sound Effect, our theme is “Cheating Death” — stories of defying the odds and living to tell the tale. First, we meet a 1920s daredevil who survived 104 vertical feet of certain death. A diver recounts her underwater brush with death . A a 92-year-old author recalls how an unlikely ally saved her from Nazi occupation . We meet a UW researcher studying how to help your dog live longer . And a local storyteller talks about his unexpected connection with a woman who was awaiting a

Researcher Matt Kaeberlein runs the Kaeberlein Lab at the University of Washington, where he and his team studies the biology of aging. Their goal is ambitious: to learn the biological mechanisms behind what makes people get "old," and then to find interventions that would actually slow the rate of aging. They'd like to increase the human healthspan, or the period of life spent free from disease. And, for that matter, they'd like to extend the canine healthspan, too. So far, the lab has studied

On a dark and rainy afternoon, Sound Effect producer Jennifer Wing and I meet Laureen Nussbaum in the lobby of a retirement home in North Seattle. Laureen is a petite woman. She is 92 years old, and insists on helping us with our gear. Laureen opens her arms to receive one of our bags, “Can I carry something?” she asks. Jennifer hands over her coat and with that, Laureen glides up an enormous spiral staircase as we speed up a bit to keep up with her. “I love these steps,” Laureen says with a

The ad read, “Help wanted with chores around the house, heavy lifting and going for walks.” It was the late 1990s, and Obie Pressman needed the work, even if the ad wasn’t especially illuminating. “It struck me as a little odd," he said. "I knew I wasn’t getting the whole story.” Obie was in a vulnerable place at that time, after a series of setbacks. His parents had recently gone bankrupt and lost their house. His father then left his mother for another woman, and soon after, Obie’s own