Volcanoes. Trees. Drunk butterflies. Mars missions. Slug sex. Death. Beauty standards. Anxiety busters. Beer science. Bee drama. Take away a pocket full of science knowledge and charming, bizarre stories about what fuels these professional -ologists' obsessions. Humorist and science correspondent Alie Ward asks smart people stupid questions and the answers might change your life.
415 episodes transcribedLyme Disease! Powassan virus! That Lonestar tick meat allergy! Paralysis ticks! Acarology taught us all about the eight-legged villains that aim for o...
What IS an island? How do birds and plants and mammals GET there? Why do we like going to islands? Dr. Andy Kraemer studies how life populates and sur...
Ticks: They’re tiny. They’re thirsty. They’re drooling vectors of various illnesses and they want nothing more than to cuddle up to your darkest crevi...
What happens to the brain under extreme stress? Why do past traumas haunt us? What kind of therapies work for veterans? And what can we do in day-to-d...
Why do we bone? Why should we have kids? When should we have kids? Crickets might answer all these questions. Dr. Amy Worthington of Creighton Univers...
Announcement: BILL NYE HAS A PODCAST. And Alie's his first guest. Bill Nye’s on a mission to change the world, one phone call at a time and yer ol’ Da...
Mushrooms! Psilocybin! Humungous fungus! Black mold! Foraging! The incredibly charming and warm Dr. Tom Volk, world-renown mushroom expert, welcomes A...
Toaaaaads! Friend or foe? Dive into a toad hollow with bufologist and charming human Priya Nanjappa, who is a wealth of knowledge and a font of affect...
THAT'S RIGHT IT'S A MINISOHDA FROM MINNESOHDA. On the last stop of a six-state Midwest tour interviewing -ologists for future episodes, your ol' Dadwa...
"Addiction doesn't have to be a bummer!," quoth addictionologist Erin Parisi, who has some uplifting and hopeful tales from her professional life. But...
Hagfish: these floppy hot dogs of the deep sea deserve our undying respect. Tim Winegard is a professional hagfishologist (YES IT'S A WORD) at Chapman...
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 pl...
After last week's heavy episode, Alie takes a little break with a Field Trip to one of her favorite places, the Natural History Museum of LA County. H...
In a world saturated with CSI spinoffs and true crime documentaries, we look at a criminology subset focusing not on the pathology of the killers, but...
ALIENS! EXTRATERRESTRIALS! MARTIANS! Let's. Get. Into. It. The phenomenal Dr. Kevin Peter Hand of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory dishes on the ocean...
Video games! Tabletop games! IRL role-play gaming! The ... lottery? Dr. Jane McGonigal is a video game developer, TED speaker, bestselling author and...
The brilliant and dazzling Helen Zaltzman, host of The Allusionist podcast and person who technically for a living researches the origins of language...
This episode, and Dr. Shane Campbell-Staton, are a true joy. The UCLA professor, host of the Biology of Superheroes Podcast and Thermophysiologist tal...
WHO ARE WE? Personality researcher & psychology professor Dr. Simine Vazire dishes about introverts, extroverts, self-esteem, sociopaths, neuroticism,...
Love! Romance! Intimate relationships! Marriage! Divorce! Remarriage! Clowns! This episode has it all. The wonderfully warm Dr. Benjamin Karney of the...
