PITTSBURGH—Is there something funny about sea urchins dying amidst a polar vortex? Is there drama in establishing an Internet connection at sea? These and other tales about scientific research, to be recounted by five Carnegie Mellon University students during a performance on the South Side, promise both laughter and tears.

The students from CMU’s computer science, engineering and biology programs will tell their sometimes funny, sometimes touching stories during a show at 8 p.m., Oct. 6 at the Rex Theater on the South Side. Like the first such show here last fall, this is a collaboration between The Story Collider, an international storytelling project that produces live shows and podcasts, and Public Communication for Researchers (PCR), a CMU student group that promotes graduate students explaining their research and why it matters.

The Carnegie Mellon students telling stories are Adam Foote, a biology Ph.D. student; Casey Canfield, an engineering and public policy Ph.D. student; Matineh Eybpoosh, a civil and environmental engineering Ph.D. student; Vrushali Fangal, a computational biology master’s degree student; and Anvesh Komuravelli, a computer science Ph.D. student.

Erin Barker, senior producer of The Story Collider, and Ari Daniel Shapiro, Boston producer and host, will moderate the show.

Tickets are $10 each and are available at the door or at http://storycollider.org/shows/2014-10-06. Though this event is open to all ages, PCR and The Story Collider note that some of the stories may contain explicit content.