Secret Life of Scientists and Engineers
Rachel Collins: Microbiologist
Season 2010 Episode 49 | 7m 3sVideo has Closed Captions
Secret: Professional Wrestler
Rachel Collins is a microbiologist who studies the effectiveness of various antibiotics. She also loves horror movies and black metal music, and she is, in fact, a professional wrestler known as "MsChif." Rachel's wrestling tagline is that she is "your soul's tormenter," and some of her most popular moves include "the Desecrator" and "Obliteration."
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Funding for The Secret Life of Scientists and Engineers is provided by Winton Capital.
Secret Life of Scientists and Engineers
Rachel Collins: Microbiologist
Season 2010 Episode 49 | 7m 3sVideo has Closed Captions
Rachel Collins is a microbiologist who studies the effectiveness of various antibiotics. She also loves horror movies and black metal music, and she is, in fact, a professional wrestler known as "MsChif." Rachel's wrestling tagline is that she is "your soul's tormenter," and some of her most popular moves include "the Desecrator" and "Obliteration."
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship- [Narrator] Funding for "The Secret Life of Scientists" is provided by the Alfred P Sloan foundation.
(fireworks booming) (film rolling) (keyboard clicking) (dramatic music) - When I go into the lab, I pretty much take different types of bacteria bugs and I'll grow 'em up.
And then I take, what's called an antibiotic, which is a medicine that's gonna kill these bugs off.
And I see how much of it might take in order to start killing 'em off.
Because sometimes it takes a little, sometimes it takes a lot.
The results go to clinical labs.
Clinical labs give the results to the doctors.
The doctors give the drugs to the people.
They know how much to give 'em and they know what type to give 'em.
So in a roundabout way, I kind of help people out.
Maybe feel better.
(piano chiming) I could have gone with the seven second one.
(film rolling) (dramatic music) (fireworks booming) (film rolling) (keyboard clicking) (dramatic music) One day, I was in the lab, and one of the secretaries walked into the lab.
And she's like, you know, if you had one fun thing that you wanna accomplish in your life, what would it be?
And just sitting there.
I thought, you know, I think I would learn to wrestle.
(dramatic music) My character is Mischief.
For a wrestling character the easiest thing is to have something coming from inside of who you are.
My character does come from a lot of the things that I really love in life.
Horror movies, black metal music.
That is me, to a big extreme.
It just stayed down hidden before, I guess.
(upbeat music) One of the big things that identifies Mischief is the scream.
That was never planned, whatsoever.
The first match I ever had, my music hit, and I walked out the entrance way and it just came out.
(woman screaming) Another thing that I'm kind of known for is spitting the green mist.
It may not always be legal in a match, but hey, if the ref don't see it, it's all good.
(audience screaming) To become Mischief, it actually takes the energy of the crowd.
To walk through that curtain.
To let out that first scream.
Hear the crowd going.
That's what it takes to actually transform.
And that is one of the coolest things you can get in wrestling.
When you have a crowd so into it, suddenly they're just on their feet, cheering at the top of their lungs.
That's a really, really great feeling.
- Go green.
Wow.
- Going into my first match, I was very, very nervous.
That hasn't really changed a whole lot.
And the way I look at it is if you're not getting nervous, then maybe you should think about doing something else.
Because as far as I'm concerned, if you got the nerves going, then that means you care.
(upbeat music) There is no quitting in wrestling.
I guess it's not really just wrestling.
I don't really give up on things in life.
Usually when I do something, I do like to finish it.
I like to stick to it.
Even if I decide I don't like it halfway through.
I can't leave it undone, you know, I at least gotta go and finish it.
(upbeat music) It's ingrained in me that the show must go on.
- Mischief (audience cheering) (film rolling) (dramatic music) (fireworks booming) (film rolling) (dramatic music) (keyboard clicking) My dad was a chemist.
He ran an analytical chemistry lab.
And they actually tested different water supplies.
A lot of times, they would have so much going on, he would go in on the weekends and he would be running the test then.
So what was he gonna do with the kids at the time?
We went along with him.
So I would be in there and I would be doing the lab work with him.
And I think that's really what got me most interested in science.
I work in microbiology research.
What I do is testing bacteria against different antibiotics.
To find out which antibiotic they're gonna be susceptible to.
That way when a clinical lab identifies, you know, this person has an infection.
They can then see how much of this antibiotic is the person gonna need, in order to clear up that infection and kill off that bacteria.
(piano music) When I first got into microbiology, the man that hired me, I figured I should kind of forewarn him a little bit.
(woman laughing) (bell dinging) On my weekends I'm also professional wrestler.
But he was really good about it.
I'm very, very lucky to have such an open-minded boss.
He thought it was kind of neat.
He's like, okay, you know, now I got this wrestler in here.
And he prints out these, you know, pictures and puts 'em up.
It's actually out in the hallway, right as people walk into our lab.
So as they come in, it's one of the first things they're gonna see.
They're like, hmm.
They automatically know it's me.
You can't exactly hide someone with green hair.
They'd be like, hey, is that you?
You know, I'm like, well, you know, yeah.
So wrestling kind of enters conversation at the lab, sometimes.
(dramatic music) (film rolling) (dramatic music) (fireworks booming) (film rolling) (dramatic music) (keyboard clicking) (keyboard clicking) (keyboard clicking) (keyboard clicking) (woman laughing) I don't think Mischief could be killed by an antibiotic.
You'd really have to do a lot of searching to find it.
(keyboard clicking) Absolutely.
Do you see that man?
He had hair everywhere.
(audience screaming) (keyboard clicking) Japan is much more quieter, much more respectful crowd, I would say.
When I went out, and when they weren't quite ready for who I was, as soon as I let that scream out.
(woman screaming) The entire crowd in unison said, ooh.
(keyboard clicking) My favorite scientist would be Abby, out of NCSI.
- Okay.
I heard that you were having trouble tracking Corporal Collins movements the night of the murder.
Luckily, I haven't because he was wearing this.
(keyboard clicking) (bright music) - Your souls tormentor is right here, Mischief.
(bright music) (keyboard clicking) I would say Darwin would make a great wrestler.
He had so many people ready to fight up against him for his theories.
(keyboard clicking) (bright music) Well, they're okay to work with, a lot of 'em stink.
Some of 'em actually smell kind of good.
You know, there's this one called anginosus and it smells like butterscotch.
(keyboard clicking) It can be one either way.
I mean, the good guy is fun because the crowd is taunting the other person, but the bad guy is fun because you can do anything you want, and you got to look kind of fool.
(keyboard clicking) My dad.
(bell dinging) (keyboard clicking) If I don't have the arthritic pain catching up to me, I will still be wrestling, but I will never leave science.
(film rolling) (dramatic music)

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Funding for The Secret Life of Scientists and Engineers is provided by Winton Capital.