Dongs. Schlongs. Peters. Intromittent organs. Gamete cannons. Biologist, gonad researcher, and Phallologist Dr. Emily Willingham joins to chat about peckers big and small, plain and fancy, barbed, coiled, colossal, pickled, and efficient. Also on the agenda: how the pressures of masculinity affect self-image, what actually contributes to a partner’s pleasure, what can cause willies to go wonky (and how to get back on track,) life beyond the binary, and sensual turtles. Stick around to the end fo...
Jun 01, 2021•1 hr 12 min•Transcript available on Metacast Seals. Sea lions. Walruses. Walrus dongs. Classic Ologies. We sit down with Luis A Hückstädt , PhD and talk about blubber, ocean currents, psychedelic teeth, whisker tech, receding ice, boops, snoots, barks, butt nubbins and whether or not that one seal from the video actually felt bashful about getting that fish cake? Or was it a sea lion? Which is which? Spoiler: you’ll find out in this episode of Ologies: Pinnipedology. Follow Luis on Twitter: https://twitter.com/luishuckstadt And Instagram: ...
May 25, 2021•1 hr 14 min•Transcript available on Metacast Ohulloh! This is not your regular Ologies episode (which will come on Tuesday per usual.) It’s actually not an Ologies episode! This is a fun little bonus GUEST podcast we're dropping in our feed. Real Good is a show that started during the beginning of COVID to highlight different non-profits helping with the pandemic — but soon revealed that many problems that became so acute during quarantine had existed in people's lives for a long time prior. We care a lot about the issues they address (rac...
May 22, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Transcript available on Metacast Mustard gossip. Knotweed recipes. Cow parsnips. Serviceberry appreciation. Hogweed warnings. Dead man’s fingers. The incredibly knowledgeable and entertaining Alexis Nikole Nelson a.k.a. @BlackForager walks us through Foraging Ecology with a ginormous bushel of tips & tricks for finding edibles at all times of the year, from blossoms to fungus. Belly up for some invasive snacks, elusive mushrooms, magnolia cookies, mugwort potatoes, violet cocktails, foraging guides, weed trivia and tips to avoi...
May 18, 2021•1 hr 23 min•Transcript available on Metacast Bones. Shells. Reefs. Teeth. Biomineralogy. The wonderful UCLA geochemist Rob Ulrich answers a giant pile of questions such as: How do crystalline structures materialize out of thin air and water? How do squishy animals make such hard shells? What’s the difference between a shell and an exoskeleton? What’s the noise you hear when you listen to a seashell? What’s up with ocean acidification? How do you keep a fiddle leaf tree alive? How do you meet new friends without battling LA traffic? Start b...
May 12, 2021•1 hr 3 min•Transcript available on Metacast Talking dogs. Rolled Rs. That dangly thing in the back of your throat. Speech impediments. Alternative forms of communication. And talking cats. World famous speech pathologist by day, dog whisperer also by day, Christina Hunger MA, CCC-SLP joins us to talk about what those letters after her name mean, helping people literally find their voice, AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication), different types of language and communication, and how she applied the same principles to gift her dog ...
May 04, 2021•1 hr 12 min•Transcript available on Metacast Shipwrecks. Treasure. Sunken planes. Scuttled submarines. New life forming around old machinery. There’s an -ology for that -- just ask Maritime Archaeologist and wreck nerd Chanelle Zaphiropoulos. This absolutely charming and passionate scuba diver, history buff and antiquities scholar dishes about pirates, warships, admirals worth admiring, and ships ranging in size from water taxis to the Costa Concordia and Titanic. Also world record diving stats, war graves, how owning a fountain pen can be...
Apr 27, 2021•2 hr 37 min•Transcript available on Metacast Real skulls. Fake pistols. Vegan steaks. Onstage bonfires. Cursed productions. Industry secrets and more with the world’s most lovable and beloved prop master, Professor Jay Duckworth aka @Proptologist on TikTok. A veteran of stage and screen and now an adjunct professor at Pace University, Jay chats about props vs. wardrobe vs. set design, how he keeps tracks of the thousands of items used to make a set feel real, what it was like to work on Hamilton from the very beginning, a prop master’s too...
Apr 21, 2021•1 hr 16 min•Transcript available on Metacast Because one bears is not enough bears, SIX more ursinologists join to answer your questions about polar bear fur, monogamy, that scene from "The Revenant" and more. Five chapters of bear life, from mindblowing mating strategies to how bears get from point A to B, media portrayals of these beautiful beasts and how to save them. Also: do bears want you to sing to them? Bear biologists and conservationists Dr. Thea Bechshoft, Dr. Lana Ciarniello, Drew Hamilton, Wes Larson, Tsalani Lassiter & Daniel...
Apr 14, 2021•2 hr 34 min•Transcript available on Metacast Grizzlies. Pandas. Black bears. Chonkers. The episode you’ve begged for with scientist, explorer, and Ursinologist Chris Morgan. Why are bear ears so cute? What’s up with hibernation? How do you play nice with bears? What is it like to hug them? How creepy is Teddy Ruxpin? Panda patterns, fat bear competitions, tooth nubbins, land “bridges,” camping tips and more with host of “The Wild” podcast and your new favorite bedtime story teller. Also: bear butt plugs. Really. Listen to The Wild podcast ...
Apr 07, 2021•2 hr 30 min•Transcript available on Metacast This encore includes tons of previously cut and never-before-heard bonus material (and maybe an eggregious number of sidenotes) about how perfect and weird eggs are. The biggest eggs! The smallest eggs! The people arrested for stealing the most eggs! Oologist Dr. John Bates gives Alie a tour of the egg vault at the Field Museum of Chicago and it was a barrage of beautiful sights and shocking facts about bird butts. Get ready for speckly eggs, falcon tales, delicate treasures, snake nesting, pige...
Mar 30, 2021•1 hr 7 min•Transcript available on Metacast PART 2 with legit professional Fanthropologist Meredith Levine. In this thrilling conclusion, we take Patreon questions and address stans vs. fans, cults and fandom, how fan fiction circumvents the studio system, how showrunners feel about fan suggestions, fangirling, fanboying and a novel term for that plus a bonus tables-are-turned interview about your weird dad’s favorite stuff. Fanthroplogy: a riveting field. Once again, WHO KNEW? Meredith did. Listen to Part 1 here: alieward.com/ologies/fan...
Mar 23, 2021•47 min•Transcript available on Metacast Why does some music give us butterflies? Why do we loooove certain comic books, social media accounts or TV characters? What story does your toothpaste tell? Legit professional Fanthropologist Meredith Levine is a fount of fandom knowledge and we chat all about everything from cosplay to K-Pop, Star Wars, Frasier, Trekkies, fan-fic, how influencer culture works, the algorithms, and how loving what we love is a form of self-care. WHO KNEW? Meredith did. Follow Meredith Levine at Twitter.com/mered...
Mar 16, 2021•1 hr•Transcript available on Metacast What’s in pee? Should you donate a kidney to a stranger? Which hurts worse: childbirth or kidney stones? Why are some kidneys the size of footballs? March is World Kidney Month and before you shrug it off: 15% of adults have chronic kidney disease -- and most don’t even know it. This episode could save a life. Transplant Nephrologist Dr. Samira Farouk chats about how nephrology is for cool kids, how transplant chains work, legends about bathtubs filled with ice, how dialysis works, where nephrol...
Mar 09, 2021•1 hr 23 min•Transcript available on Metacast They are numerous. They are patient. They are COMING for the United States in droves this spring: They are cicadas. *The* Cicada guy Dr. Gene Kritsky joins to chat all about the annual cicadas you may see every summer vs. the periodical ones that cycle through the states in broods of giant numbers. Learn how they survive underground for decades, what they are doing down there, all about their lifecycle, who eats them and why, plus get inspired to take a cicada safari, download Cicada Safari , an...
Mar 03, 2021•1 hr 12 min•Transcript available on Metacast Yes, an entire episode on butts. Primatologist and anthropologist Natalia Reagan joins to chat about the caboose: why do we have butts? Why do we like butts? How do we appreciate ours even more? She drops knowledge on bidets, wiping, twerking, the mystical field of Rumpology, how our derrieres have our back, plus butt dimples, and crack formations. Also: some personal revelations and getting back on your feet after a curveball. This one is goofy as hell and you’re in for more puns than you’ll kn...
Feb 23, 2021•1 hr 5 min•Transcript available on Metacast This one’s got it all: teeny tiny cellular factories, obscure trivia, historical gossip, sick beats, mitochondrial relevancy, viral popularity, a backstory that with charm you to death, sports cars, lab coats, smelly vats, Space Camp and mysteries of the brain. Raven The Science Maven has a background in molecular biology and is getting her Ph.D in Science Communication and shares stories from both disciplines, while Alie generally does her best to suppress high pitched noises of excitement. Lea...
Feb 16, 2021•1 hr 15 min•Transcript available on Metacast You might only know carob as not-chocolate, which is a tragedy of its disco-era branding. This tough, gnarly, drought-resistant plant is the real-life Giving Tree, explains passionate Carobologist Megan Lynch. Dripping with leathery banana-shaped legume pods, this tree quietly dots suburban streets but has kept people alive through wars and famines, can feed livestock, makes beautiful furniture, and might cure ailments from neurodegenerative diseases to the dark depths of your irritable bowels. ...
Feb 10, 2021•1 hr 20 min•Transcript available on Metacast Part 2 is here! Gamestop, #stonks, Universal Basic Income, how to incentivize things that are good for us, whether or not kids should have an allowance, Trekonomics and more. Economist, professor and “Freakonomics” co-author Steven Levitt joins to chat about everything from being cheap and what decision making costs our minds to the worth of the Amazon rainforest. Rising economics star and Harvard Fellow Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman graces us with her thoughts on the subreddit WallStreetBets, how we...
Feb 02, 2021•55 min•Transcript available on Metacast Choices! Trade-offs! Money! How much should you save? And how much should stimulus checks be? Don’t be scared by the term “economics,” especially since it doesn’t end in -ology. This 2-part Economic Sociology bonanza addresses the behavior that motivates the fiscal systems of the world, from avocado toast to retirement funds. Economist, professor and “Freakonomics” co-author Steven Levitt joins to chat about why we learn too much of the wrong math and how everything from marriage to dinner parti...
Jan 26, 2021•1 hr 18 min•Transcript available on Metacast A LOST EPISODE! Three years in the making, this interview features vials of vile creatures, worm drama, febrile hallucinations, spooning, and unfortunate snacks. It has waited a long time to meet you, so let’s get weird, take a trip back to summer of 2017 -- before Ologies existed -- and unearth one of the very first, never-before-heard interviews. Alie absolutely bungles her way through a chat with Dr. Anouk Gouvras, a London-based parasitologist studying the flatworms that cause schistosomiasi...
Jan 19, 2021•49 min•Transcript available on Metacast RATS: They love pizza. They invade taquerias at midnight. They scurry. They cuddle. They outsmart. They inspire movies that inspire musicals. Proving that not just woodsy megafauna can be charismatic, rats have lives we would never suspect. Globally-lauded Urban Rodentologist Dr. Robert Corrigan, or Bobby if you like, has been studying these animals in their big-city ecosystem for decades and he is a wonder-filled joy. Learn about rats’ origin story, the difference between a rat and a mouse, whe...
Jan 12, 2021•1 hr 19 min•Transcript available on Metacast The Coronasode we’ve been waiting for! Vaccines. Finally. But what does this mean? As a Vaccine Infodemiologist and science communication lead for The COVID Tracking Project , Jessica Malaty Rivera specializes in infectious disease epidemics and the surge of misinformation that accompanies them. The very first human trials of the COVID-19 vaccine occurred in March 2020, and Alie asks Jessica one million questions about the differences between the two available vaccines, rollout schedules, herd i...
Jan 05, 2021•2 hr 36 min•Transcript available on Metacast Part 2 of a very special duo! The fresh catch-up interview to learn what the world’s most charming and enthusiastic tree expert, Casey Clapp, has been up to since his 2018 episode aired. He’s been busy. Listen to hear if he’s gotten more pine cone tattoos, what other trees he hates, which ones he gives 10/10, musical blunders, winter pagan traditions, and why trees may play a huge role in his personality. Also: his new podcast for your ears and heart. Follow Casey Clapp at Instagram.com/Clapp4Tr...
Dec 29, 2020•24 min•Transcript available on Metacast Part 1 of a very special duo: Do trees have feelings? How do they talk? How old can they get? Are there any tree stories that will make me cry? Spoiler: YES. This episode aired in May 2018 and is worth a revisit, especially since Part 2 is a brand new 2020 interview with possibly the world's most enthusiastic tree expert, J. Casey Clapp. Learn about his many tree tattoos, new additions to those tattoos, how roots communicate to each other, "crown shyness,” social media shyness and the mental hea...
Dec 29, 2020•2 hr 30 min•Transcript available on Metacast This specific episode was cited in The New Yorker this week , so we’re giving it an encore refresh with bonus material and a 2020 update from Dr. Esposito herself! Scorpions: the victims of undue shade. If you've ever wanted to impress a date with weird facts THIS IS THE EPISODE FOR YOU. A handful of people on planet Earth have a PhD in scorpions and Dr. Lauren Esposito is one of them. She spills the beans on how venom works, what's up with the blacklight glow effect, how dangerous they *really*...
Dec 22, 2020•1 hr 14 min•Transcript available on Metacast A long snout. Hundreds of teeth. Scales that could slice you. What is a gar and should we fear it? Should we hug it? One of the world’s most passionate and knowledgeable experts on this ancient, mysterious fish joins to make you fall in love with these slimy longbois. Dr. Solomon David is affable, charming, enthusiastic and absolutely shameless when it comes to fish puns. Slip into some hip waders and jump in the muck to learn all about a creature that -- despite decades of mudslinging -- is not...
Dec 15, 2020•1 hr 14 min•Transcript available on Metacast Gaze into the cosmos and wonder at broken satellites, retired rockets and shattered contraptions. Archaeologist Dr. Alice Gorman is a leading expert on orbital debris and chats about what’s up there, how it got there, and how to get it down. Strap in to hear about everything from Sputnik to sports cars, flaming garbage bonking us, alien clutter, collision potential, the most adorable space rubbish, cosmic burials and how one does this type of archeology without boarding a rocket. Also: steaming ...
Dec 08, 2020•1 hr 17 min•Transcript available on Metacast Alligators, crocodiles and … a shut-down nuclear weapons plant? The excitement never ends when you’re Laura Kojima, an Alligator Ecotoxicologist. A longtime reptile cheerleader, Laura has passion to match some truly bananas stories about field work, tail smacks, gator jaws, mercury levels, swamp boats, and crocodilian evolution, overbites, and locomotion. Her incredible work keeps people -- and the gators -- safer in toxic waters and she recalls her favorite alligator bite and the one animal tha...
Dec 01, 2020•1 hr 24 min•Transcript available on Metacast Gratitude: what’s the deal? Does it really make us happier? Even when the world seems terrible? Or is being appreciative a bunch of hokey flim-flam? Author Neil Pasricha started a blog of 1000 Awesome Things in 2008 and it led him down rabbit holes looking into the science of gratitude and how to better survive some really tough times. Learn about your new morning ritual, how much of happiness is genetically determined, why you should sniff a tree, honeymoon drama, simple appreciation, singing w...
Nov 24, 2020•1 hr 26 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
