100th Episode: Best Life Advice from Ologists + 100 More Ologies

random topic. I needed to do something numerical. I thought about doing numerology just for fun and for kicks, and then I just couldn't in good conscious put that out for my hundredth So I thought, for folks who have listened since the very beginning in September twenty seventeen, or folks who have just cherry picked episodes without realizing that they may have skipped some real gems, I would give you a recap of the best life lessons I have

learned from the last almost two years studying other people's ologies. All just the top five things I have learned about life from making ologies. These are things that I wish I knew when I first started. So here it is. This is the one hundredth episode. I'm going to give you the top five self healthy things I have learned from making ologies, as well as after the break, the next one hundred episodes of things I'm going to cover. Okay,

are you ready? We're a hundred Okay, let's get into it. Okay, the first thing, paths are not linear? Wait? What paths are not linear? I always used to think that other people's lives were like that airport. People mover just like straight, very determined, measured a consistent page, hopped on at the beginning, it just coasted up to their gate of life. But

that's not it at all, even a little bit. What I've learned from Ologies is that I am not the only person who has had hairpin turns and stops and starts and stalls and sprints and point point like hopping onto different paths like a Mario brother Sitting down and hearing one hundred stories, give or take, has taught me nobody knows what they're doing, and it's great. Some of the best field biologists bailed on VET school, and some really amazing doctors thought they were only good at the arts.

I never intended Ologies to be a podcast. In the beginning. I had this idea to do a series, and I thought way back then, fifteen years ago, it came across this list of ologies and I thought, oh, I should make a book about this, I'm going to do maybe an illustrated book, and it sat on the back burner forever, and then I pitched it as a TV series and no one wanted it, and finally I thought I could do a podcast now that they exist, and it's been the best way for me to just make it on

my own terms. I can leave all the swearing in, I can talk about butts, I can make it as many minutes as I want to make it, with as many episodes as my brain and fingers and zoom recorder can handle. So if you feel like your life has taken some twists and turns, that just means that you're like everyone. Also, it's the switchbacks that kind of get you up the steepest hills and you just can't really

see it until you're at the top. So keep truck in. Also, hydrate and check your premises as long as we're at it. But don't worry if your path is not a straight line. No one's is, and that's great. Okay. Another thing that I've learned from making this podcast is it's really good to figure out what you love. What you love so much, so when we pick jobs, we don't always lead with a thing that kind of burns a big love hole

through our chests. We pick based on what's going to pay back student loans, or maybe what we think are family would be proud of, or what someone like us seems capable of, and then we forget to ask what do we like? What do we dig? What makes us nauseated with excitement? What are we infectiously affectionate toward? What would we do for free? And I love stories about choral scientists who volunteered before they went pro and squid

experts who badgered labs into hiring them. This feeling of these whole new worlds opening up, and this is where volunteering helped me so much, and I talked about it in the Field Trip episode. I was so bummed out at this point in my life that I just wanted to volunteer doing something that felt like me. They didn't have a lot at stake and didn't have to be permanent. That kind of put me in a place I didn't usually get to be with people I would otherwise never meet,

and it completely changed my life. And I realized that talking to scientists and learning and communicating all that was what I wanted to do more than anything. And I really would not have connected those dots years ago if I didn't start out very sad, newly single with a margarine to hang over, lamenting that none of my current friends at the time wanted to talk about spiders with me.

So let yourself have a little corner of time, a little notepad, and write down the things that you love the most, the stuff that gives you butterflies, and then ask yourself if you can spare like three hours a

week to go volunteer somewhere in that field. The worst thing that could happen is that you use that time learning new things instead of like scrolling on your ex roommates cats Instagram feed, like did your molecules spend this long in the universe and line up to make the person that you are just so you could see a not even well composed photo of someone else's cat on a couch that you never liked. No, go figure out what makes you horny for living, not sexy horny, just like,

oh hell yeah, I like being alive. And then maybe if you can volunteer, so figure out what you love what you love so much. Another huge lesson in making ologies, just do the thing. If you have a thing you want to do, or a painting that you want to make, or a garden that you want to plant, or a poetry book you want to write, or maybe a grad program you want to apply for, someone you want to

be friends with. Just happen, get a try. You know, you can watch double dutch jump rope for years, but nothing prepares you better than just getting your old patuity in there and just screwing it up till you get it right. There are so many inventors I interview for my TV jobs and other science communicators and scientists who have told me that they learned as they went, and that to get a dream to exist, you have to just start and fail until you get there. Experiments go

wrong all the time. Do you know how many rockets have blown up without people in them? A lot rough drafts get edited, mistakes get corrected. You just learn as you go. And as a perfectionist and a workaholic, my favorite thing to do is to just wring my hands from the sidelines, mentally doing and imagining failing at something before I do. Well, guess what, that doesn't work. I started recording this podcast and sat on it for nine months before I was forced to put the first episode

out on a deadline. My biggest regret is that I was too chickashit to start earlier. So nothing will be perfect the first time. Nothing will ever be perfect. But you're gonna learn as you go. This is why experiments are repeated. You got to get a larger data set. This is why bands practicing, garages and paintings start out as sketches. Failure is success because failure and learning is progress no matter what. So go do the thing. You not only have my permission, but you have my eager,

paternal impatience and some of my projected regrets. So deal with that. Another lesson. If all this evolutionary biology has taught me, one thing is to embrace your mutations. Every weird mantis that looks like an orchid, or your dog, or pine needles or sea slugs, each of these things are the results of just a heap of mutations that worked out for the best. The stuff that's weird about you is your greatest asset. Look at gross Michelle bananas.

They were all clones. Fungus came in, wiped them all out, they all died. There was no variation. So in the words of International phonologist, variation is a feature, it's not a flaw. So if you're weird, or you have a great memory for medieval cookwaar terminology, or you're fascinated with slime molds or always silently psychoanalyzing your coworkers, or maybe you could read history books that put others to sleep, or you just don't feel like you fit in at

any particular lunch table, that's great. Your weirdness is the best thing about you. When it came to making ologies, I was worried about doing a podcast with so many fucks and shits because no other science podcast in the top ten had an E next to it for explicit I was like, there's gotta be a reason why I can't do a science podcast for adults. If I work on kids science shows, there's got to be a reason why everyone keeps us clean. In the asides, I do,

what if people find them annoying? The weirdest stuff about ologies ended up being the thing that makes it what it is, So embrace you mutations. There would be no progress, no evolution, no adaptability without that weirdness, So don't be a banana clone. Embrace mutations. Oh you're weird, thank you.

And the last thing I have learned from doing ologies and interviewing so many people who literally like swim with sharks and give ted talks and teach students and find cures for things and travel the world literally turning over rocks and finding new species. Is this. Sometimes you just have to get out of your own damn head, like the sports Psychology episode recommended, just be in the moment. And I have a thing I have to tell myself when I'm nervous, and that is to show up like

you belong and have fun. Because imposter syndrome is very real. Everyone you admire probably has it. I feel like a Charlottan. Sometimes are worry this podcast isn't good enough. Sometimes I'm plagued with regret over how many air horns I dropped. Sometimes I'm like, didn't drop enough air horns. But no one could make this podcast better than me, because I love it the most. Likewise, no one could do your life as well as you can. So you got to

show up like you belong because you do. And if you don't see anyone that looks like you in the room, you belong even more because that room needs you and needs your perspectives and have fun. It's such a stupid sounding advice, but as again a perfectionist, I will sometimes like Robot myself for the sake of professionalism, and I'm just going to go on record to say that that sucks. I mean, yeah, in a business interview, you should show

up with pants on and not drunk. But it doesn't mean you can't enjoy the experience and be a human being. Just know you belong there, have fun, be loose, don't police yourself into a fugue state. I have done that in the past. It never goes as well as when I just task myself with chilling out and goofing off a little. So show up like you below and have fun. So many episodes, so many lessons. I did not expect to make this episode like this, but I hope it

helps someone. I wish I knew these things years ago when I started, but now we all know them, as well as so many facts about lizard dicks and sky burials and volcanoes and personality quizzes and exploding whales, fungus, Jenny's and if your pet turtle loves you, Yes it does. So are we out of ologies? Is that it one? Hundred episodes. Oh hell no, Oh, we're not done, how dare you? After the break, you're going to hear about some very nutty ologies I haven't yet covered and what

they mean. And let's just get pumped for the episodes that come up next. But before I mention the sponsors, I want to let you know I'm going to be keynoting this year's sycom Camp, which is run by my friends Carasanna Maria and Sarah Curtis and Jason Coleman. I'm so excited about that. So I'll be giving a talk about science communication again. It's Sycomcamp dot com in case you want to see the lineup. It's an incredible lineup.

I'm very very honored to be included. And this week a donation will go to their scholarship fund to help folks afford the conference fee. So I'm donating ad revenue from this podcast to go toward a scholarship for that and I'm excited to see some of you there. So for more info, that's at Sycomcamp dot com. It is the first weekend in November, and the lineup is amazing. Okay, so some sponsors that made that donation possible Okay, so

what ologies are coming up next? So many of you on Patreon have asked for musicology, so many in fact, right now, I'm going to say your names with my mouth, Okay, Amberwood, Park, Howard Irmish, Irone, Kelly King, Christopher Lowren, Alicia Linn, Sarah Sexton, Raiden, markham Leanna, Joe Weinmanson, Katie Stomps, Rihanna Huminy and Kendall. So many want musicology or ethnomusicology. I'm in la U Sale has a really great program, So yeah, musicology has got to happen. I feel like that needs to be

a seventeen part episode. How many parts should it be? Should be eighteen? Let me know. Also, so many of you are just begging for bats so chiropterology. I'm hoping that I'll be up in October. I was supposed to go to Austin to go interview Merlin Tuttle like the King of Bats of Chiropterology in Austin, and I wasn't able to go last week, so I have to find

some time to go between now and October. Ps should I do a whole spooky October with like spectrology which is Google gag ghosts or parapsychology or demonology or rachnology, spiders Osteology is boones. Should I just do Spooky October Spooktober? Should I do it? Okay? Let me know. I also really want to do meteorology, which is like weather, tornadoes, hurricanes, A ton of you want lagomorphology, which is about bunnies and rabbits and hares, just rabbit holes, about rabbit holes. Fuck, yes,

maybe I should say that till next spring. I'm not sure. Okay, Cryptology, y'all really want. It's code breaking, but you also want cryptozool, the study of Bigfoot in the Locknus monster and the Yetti. Perhaps I should save that for next April. First, maybe satology is a study of whales, y'all want it? And whale whale whale. We are in a cord on that one, big wet, leathery pickles. There'll be a whole episode about you. Audiology is how people here. I really would like to

do that. One. Analogy is about wines. Garbology is a real thing. I have so many questions about garbage. There are actual garbologists out there. Oh, I want to sit down with one so bad. I want to smell them, because I bet there are garbologists who smell way better than the average person. Formology about cheese. That must happen. It has to happen. I want to do one on hipology,

which is about horses. Aerospace technology is rockets. Thank you Roxanne Parker for mentioning that I wouldn't have thought of aerospace technology as analogy, but boom, here we are. Pinnipedology is sea lions and seagals and walruses. Hell yes, oh, I definitely want one on pharmacology or psychopharmacology. Glaciology is glaciers, so I should interview someone, I guess while we still

have glaciers on Earth. I've got New York Times crossword editor Will Schartz ready to record enigmatology about puzzles whenever I'm in New York next. So give yourself a minute disagreem about that alone in your car. Y'all definitely want some proctology, and I will be there to administer that episode to you. Also, pathophytology, phytopathology, poisonous plants. It's on the list, as is exercise physiology, and bromatology, which is food. Who eats everyone's hand should be up. There we go.

So that's twenty five I've just mentioned. Let's see if I can come up with another seventy fipologies I want to do, keeping us covered for at least a few years. Again, I may not do all of these in the next one hundred. My miight swaps them out, but these ones are just all my radar. Okay. Speech language, oh my god, speech language pathology that was not intentional. Odentology is teeth pomology, fruit heliology is a study of the sun. Numstmatology is

coins and money. There's cartology, maps, Megadrolology is this study of earthworms. I want to talk about their dirty, dirty guts. Mechanology is opiates and the opioid epidemic. Spielology is the study of caves. Cryology is technically I think the study of emojis several of you want chickenology, I don't know if that's a thing. Maybe gallology would be chickenology. But if we have to invent a chickenology, I feel like it kind of is like we get a pass on

that one. I want to know about chickens. Pilmatology, kissing, that's the study of kissing. And there are people who do it. There's futurology. What is a future hold? Does it hold more kissing? I don't know. Campanology is the study of bell ringing, okay odo. Rhino Laryngetology is the study of taste and smell and yes, I said it wrong. Bryology is a study of I have a neuropsychopharmacologist who studies how LSD and mushrooms may be used in mental

health care in the future. Do you know a latologist studies lottery tickets? I know, and now you know, And there's one in New Jersey and I want to talk to them. Broleology they specialize in umbrellas. Limnology that's a study of water in rivers. Suicideology is a thing they help with prevention, survivors and grieving families. Fulminology it's the study of lightning toxicology, poisons pyrology. Fire pyrotechnology is the

study of how humans used fire to our advantage. There is a whole sub section at Yale of people who study this, and I wanted just to ask them about campfires. How much should you roast a marshmallow? What does it say about me if I burn mine? Anyway? That's fifty. Here are a few more I mentioned to do you ready, dermatology, skin scuriology, study of squirrels, cardiology, the heart. Maritime archaeology is the study of shipwrecks. Coprology it's the study of porn.

Latrinology is the study of writing on bathroom walls. Agnetology is a study of culturally induced ignorance. Many of us know nothing about that. Is that induced by culture? I'm not sure. Climatology, of course, very topical. Bacteriology because they are literally all over us in us right now, we would be dead without them. Hydrology, the study of water. Bogology is a real thing. It is the study of bogs. Mommiology, mummies.

Should I do that? In October? Ah, parasitology, parasites, immunology, neurology, the brain. Metrology is a study of measurements. Y'all want that so bad? I'm on it. Sinology is the study of China. Kremlinology is the study of the Soviet Union. We could do paprology. That's the history of paper. Diabetiology, metabolism and blood sugar. Dysteleiology is the study of seemingly useless organs. What and I'm looking at you Jacobsen's organ

the part where we have an extra nosehole. Plutology is the study of wealth, seismology, earthquakes, virology, viruses, and how things go viral. Maybe I'll do scientology or astrology or bnology is the study of cities. Electrology is a study of electricity. What is it? How does it work? Why was Tesla in love with a pigeon? Astycology the science of crawfish. Who does it? I'm going to talk to them. Raegology study fingerprints, medusologies, the study of jellyfish, nuthologies, bird nests.

We Diemology is the study of happiness. Probably said that one wrong too. Ethology is animal behavior. So many types of psychology I can't even list them. Mimology is a study of memes. Nephology study of clouds. Ontology is the study of being. Scatology is poop. Tocology is childbirth. I have a feeling those are related. Sometimes lupinology wolves, vol Panology is foxes. Ersenology is the study of bears. Those aren't for sure the next one hundred, but that is

a vague sampling of some that may appear. Now ward. You ask, what about a sneak peek it's some coming up zoom. Well shucks, boy howdy, why not. I've already recorded them and I'm working on these ones for upcoming weeks. One on chronobiology or day night cycles and circadian rhythms. I'm working on vexillology, which is the study of flags. There is a bisonology episode that involves three different ologists and that's a real doozy to put together, but I

think you're gonna like it. Also, disasterrology is the study of disasters and emergency management systems. That one's recorded. It's going to be great. Also, I did one on poor scene virology, which is pig flu outbreaks, and I'm saving that for the Dawn of the Apocalypse. Finally, there's one on Potterrology, and that is a two part episode from a university chemistry professor about the chemical reactions behind Harry Potter spells. That will be a two parter. That one

will knock your round glasses right off your face. Okay, So there it is. That's one hundred down, many hundred more to go. In each episode, I'm going to ask the smartest people stupidest questions. It will be an honor to make this weird show for you. The last one hundred episodes have just taught me so much, from mucus covered slimy sea spirals at the bottom of the ocean to just to the outer edges of the cosmos and

my own brain and back again. So thank you so much everyone for listening, thank you for asking your questions, thank you for supporting on Patreon, and thank you for cheering me on. Just like marathon volunteers with some cold gatorade each week with bad hair and crispy contact lenses, I'm just hustling to the finish line to get these up. So this is the best job in the world. I feel very lucky to be up in your ears, so cut banks, stare at the sky, observe a snail, text

your crush, do the thing, follow a dream volunteer. If you need to shake things up, and just be truly you be afraid ofly and stupid because no one knows anything seriously until they ask. So to find me. I'm Ali word with one L on Twitter and Instagram, where at ologies on Twitter and Instagram. Thank you to Hannah Lippo and Aaron Talbert for admitting the Facebook group and being such wonderful friends. Same to Shannon Feltis and Bonnie Dutch of the You Are That podcast. They manage merchant

Ologiesmarch dot Com and are wonderful people. You can tag your photos Ologies merch on Instagram so we can post you on Mondays. Thank you to Jerry's Sleeper for being so encouraging these past hundred episodes. Thanks of course to Stephen Ray Morris, who helped from the beginning, showing me how to edit and eventually taking over edits so we could crank them out faster. Here's to one hundred more

at very least. Thank you to all my wonderful NERD Brigade friends for always encouraging me to make things in my voice. I love you all. Also thanks to my family who listens even though I swear so much during this The theme song was written and performed by Nick Thorburn of the band Islands. And if you listen to the end, you know I tell you a secret, And today's secret is that I'm really glad that the one hundredth episode is now done so that we can just

go on and keep making them. I was like, what do I do with the hundred? What do I do? And I really I was weirdly like it's got to be big, but then not too big and self congratulatory. So anyway, I'm glad we're through it and now on to the next ones. Also, I was in a bad mood for like half of today and I couldn't figure out why. And then I realized it was just because I didn't have a hair tie and my hair just kept getting in my mouth. And I got a hair tie and I was like, I'm a new woman. We're

all just big babies in large pants. Anyway, I think you're great. By bye, pacodermatology, hobbiology, rypdo zoology, lithology, yeah, technology, meteorology, pertology, nathology, zeriology, selenology, staying near all day to you,