Turkey time isn't only Thanksgiving. Turkey time is all the time. Because they are winged, wattled wonders. I'll next be interviewing an anthropologist who studies turkeys and their relationships to humans. What do you want to know about the gobbling galiform?
Deadline: Sunday, January 18 at 5pm PST
*This episode is published and ready to hear wherever you get podcasts. Let's talk about it.*
WHAT IS A GROUNDHOG? What's their deal? Why do they have their own holiday?
I got myself to UCLA during the winter break and peppered renowned marmot expert Dr. Dan Blumstein with questions about large rodents, their dens, scandals, butts, parenthood, how to celebrate Groundhog Day, romantic advice you should not take, what to do if you want a marmot as a pet, w...
2026-01-14 20:12:29 +0000 UTC View Post*This episode is published and ready to hear wherever you get podcasts. Let's talk about it!*
This one will surely stick with you. In all of our nearly 500* episodes, Dr. Viki Hansen is one of the most enthusiastic ologists I have ever encountered. Brilliant, charming, informative, and contagiously curious: you will love her.
We've got gassy veils! Orange sunlight! Alien life?
So listen up for space probes, dazzling terrain, myths, melting machiner...
2026-01-08 06:39:57 +0000 UTC View PostLA: JANUARY 15th! $15! Let's hang out.
Teuthology squid expert Dr. Sarah McAnulty of Skyoe a Scientist will be in town and we’re throwing a $15 live event downtown to make science and political art and just hang out. Tickets going fast so go grab 'em.
1/15/26 in LA for $15. Spread the word.
Who can make it??
See you in a few weeks,
Ol Ward
2025-12-31 20:13:16 +0000 UTC View PostWe got a good one for you. SUCH A GOOD ONE. I’m posting this from a car en route to the first annual TikTok Awards, so please root on our friend Alexis Nikole Nelson and send good vibes for her nominations tonight!
And enjoy the platypus info dump!
Duck bills. Beaver tails. Underground lairs. Eggs. Milk.
Venom? A platypus has it all. Scholar, conservationist, and Ornithorhynchologist Dr. Tahneal Hawke of @platypus_protector is here to run through the baffling anatomy and ...
2025-12-19 00:12:25 +0000 UTC View Post
I need some schooling on groundhogs because I didn't even know they're the same thing as woodchucks. What else don't I know?! I set up an interview with a marmot ecologist to find out. Tell me what you want to know about groundhogs in the comments -- I might ask your question in the episode.
Deadline: Friday, December 19 at 5pm PST
2025-12-17 00:10:27 +0000 UTC View Post
STI stands for "sexually transmitted infection," an update from sexually transmitted disease (STD) and veneral disease (VD). Whatever you call them, I'll be asking an expert about them. This expert is a professor, researcher, author, and medical consultant for the CDC's Division of STD Prevention. Her education approach is both scientific and sex-positive so this will be a great discussion on STI prevention, diagnosis and treatment. Leave your questions in the comments below! And let me know ...
2025-12-13 00:28:27 +0000 UTC View Post
This episode is published and ready to hear wherever you get your podcasts.
I hope you're hungry for some dehydrated casserole because the lovely Maggie Coblentz and I chatted all about food in space: the tastes, the smells, the process, the nutritional value, the best, the worst, the sanctioned, the smuggled, and why she has some on her desk.
Did you listen? Let's talk about it in the comments! This one was a ... blast.
In gravity we trust,
Father P...
2025-12-12 01:45:22 +0000 UTC View Post
This week I'm interviewing a global geologist who focuses on the evolution of Earth's sister planet, Venus. She specifically studies "crustal plateau formation, deformation belt formation, coronae evolution, circular low formation, lowland processes, Artemis superplume development, the formation of Ishtar Terra, tessera-terrain evolution, and mechanisms of heat global transfer." What questions do you have about planet Venus?
Deadline: Thursday, December 11 at 5pm PST
2025-12-09 21:19:09 +0000 UTC View PostAaah, somehow I forgot to post this yesterday! We finally have an episode on FERNS and the Ologist is as charming and hilarious and enthusiastic as they come. Dr. Fay-Wei Li loves ferns, and he will delight you with facts about spores, Lady Gaga, fossil ferns, dinosaurs, transgenic crops, and how to treat your houseplants.
Have you listened yet? What did you think? And if you have fern advice, leave it in the comments. (We also of course have Tyler Thrasher's 2025-12-04 23:57:52 +0000 UTC View Post
Hope everyone traveling is safe and enjoying some downtime. I'm grateful for so much this year: the safety and comfort I have, a dream job, and luckily my health. But I know it's come at a price that others have had to pay, and that there are billions who are not so lucky. So in a cunty little move for Indigenous History Month I thought we'd hook up again with Dr. Dirk Moses for a brand-new interview on humanitarian law, the crimes of atrocity we're witness to, and the genocides that will tak...
2025-11-28 22:34:43 +0000 UTC View Post
Next up: an interview on butt health with a researcher, professor, and board-certified colorectal surgeon. They wrote a comprehensive book on constipation and can also talk about hemorrhoids, fissures, fistulas, IBS, colorectal cancer, and other butt stuff. Leave your questions in the comments! And let me know if you don't want your name read in the episode.
Deadline: Sunday, November 23 at 5pm PST
THANK YOU, BROOKLYN. And thank you Patrons. The audience last night at the Bell House was fucking awesome. Wow. Thank you thank you thank you for coming.
If you missed it, it was a chaotic jumble of different segments I wanted to try out, and I got to hear your secrets and fix a few problems and orchestrate a makeover and possibly a love affair.
I also forgot the whole point of the show, which was that the Ologies we covered (Oratology, Eastern Bluebird Zoomusicology, Campanology ...
2025-11-18 18:36:14 +0000 UTC View PostTo get our episodes sounding the best, we're curious: What is the primary audio device you use for listening to Ologies?
2025-11-13 22:45:30 +0000 UTC View PostThis episode is published and ready to hear wherever you get podcasts. Let's talk about it!
Owls owls owls owls owls. Are they the best birds? Depends on who you ask. (Yes.) Please gaze into a tree and listen to the dulcet sounds of one Dr. R.J. "Rocky" Gutiérrez talking about his field work adventures, why he headed out West, owl eyes, beak clacks, face feathers, hoots, roosts, nests, parenting advice from owls and so much more.
AND: of course it's a 2-parter....
2025-11-05 18:55:51 +0000 UTC View Post
A plant that's seedless and flowerless? Here you go: FERNS. Do they have wood? Are they toxic? Can they cross pollinate? Are they prehistoric? I don't know! So I'll be asking an author, professor and prominent plant evolutionary biologist who discovered a new fern genus and named it after Lady Gaga. What questions about ferns do you want answered?
Deadline: Sunday, November 2 at 5pm PST
2025-10-30 22:06:45 +0000 UTC View Post
**This episode is up and ready to hear wherever you get podcasts.**
We’re rounding out Spooktober with a look back at vintage forensics and Historical Toxicology with Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Deborah Blum who authored “The Poisoner’s Handbook.” She is a delight and her love for chemistry and history is contagious.
Also Aqua Tofana, arsenic, old lace, Mr. Yuck, plant toxins and so much more. Did you listen? What did you think?
Also for your Spooktober gatherings,...
2025-10-29 20:51:10 +0000 UTC View PostThis episode is published and ready to hear wherever you get podcasts!
Okay. So. Evil.
What is it? Does it exist? Says who? How evil do you have to be to BE evil? What can we do about it? In this Spooktober episode with Dr. Kenneth MacKendrick, we dive into it.
Have you listened? What did you think?
Rubbing my palms together over a lowered gaze,
Count Podula Ward
2025-10-23 02:13:37 +0000 UTC View Post
This episode is published and ready to listen to wherever you get podcast.
HEAR ME OUT. It's cockroaches. But, like, not just the ones you hate.
Dr. Dominic Evangelista is a cockroach scientist and he let me ask him approximately one million questions about what makes a roach a roach, where they live in the wild, which ones are the most beautiful, what their personalities are like, what to do if you don't want a cockroach as a roommate, what to do if you'd LOVE o...
2025-10-16 19:34:13 +0000 UTC View Post
Astronauts need to eat, and it turns out that making food that’s safe, nutritious, and tasty in space is not easy. Next week I'm interviewing a scientist who researches space food. How does taste and smell transform in weightlessness? What cooking equipment is used in zero gravity? What cultural considerations are taken when creating menus? Do astronauts really eat freeze-dried Neapolitan ice cream? Post your questions in the comments!
Deadline: Sunday, October 12 at 5pm PST
2025-10-09 21:51:38 +0000 UTC View PostGeo Rutherford is here! The creator of Haunted Hydrology and the author of "Spooky Lakes: 25 Strange and Mysterious Lakes that Dot Our Planet" chats all about: mudbank bones, river wrecks, salty seas, pink ponds, poison dust devils, steamy streams, the dark history of The Great Lakes, a stump that controls the weather, goo lagoons, the lakes she wants to see the most, and how a drought can shiver your spine.
It’s a Spooktober spectacular, folks. Also, Patron-only pre-sale link:
<... 2025-10-08 19:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostOkay, this makes it official. THE FIRST EVER OLOGIES SHOW is in New York at the Bell House on Monday, Nov. 17.
Tickets went on sale today but ONLY for Patrons! Here's the presale link: https://www.ticketmaster.com/event/30006345FA86634E
Passcode: PODFATHER
Tickets for general public go on sale 10/9 but this advance link is live now! I am so excited to pilot this show idea and s...
2025-10-06 23:46:47 +0000 UTC View PostLet's call it Serpopyschology. And let's kick off Spooktober 2025.
In this episode with Dr. Frank McAndrew, we chat: dates that give you the willies, Weary Willie the Clown, haunted dolls, college goths, dark alleyways, evolutionary neurobiology, what NOT to get Oprah, the line between horror and comedy, the phobia of balloons, dating tips, and why you should re-evaluate your bathmat.
Did you know there was a field of study on what makes something creepy? Now you do. Let's discus...
2025-10-03 22:08:59 +0000 UTC View Post
This weekend I'm interviewing a biology professor with expertise in predator-prey interactions, specifically animal defensive behaviors, adaptations, and mechanisms. Quills, shells, spines, chemicals. Camouflage, distraction, mimicry, playing dead. What should I ask the professor? Leave your questions in the comments!
Deadline: Saturday, September 27 at 5pm PST
2025-09-25 21:16:00 +0000 UTC View Post**This episode is published and ready to hear wherever you get podcasts.**
Storming the Bastille. Facing off with tanks. Canceling a streaming subscription.
Y'ALL LIKE REVOLUTIONS?
We spoke with Dr. Jack Goldstone -- the world's foremost expert in revolutions and social change -- and covered as much as we could about why they happen, and how. (And yes there are protest tips.)
This one is a fascinating look at history, and our historical present. Also some tips on the...
2025-09-25 16:47:19 +0000 UTC View Post
Guys! I'm interviewing Geo Rutherford about spooky lakes! You've been requesting an episode with Geo for YEARS ever since her videos blew up on TikTok and Instagram. She's the perfect guest for a Spooktober episode. IYKYK.
Geo studies lakes that are mysterious due to natural phenomena and scientific oddities (rather than conspi...
2025-09-20 00:12:39 +0000 UTC View PostThis episode is published and ready to hear wherever you get podcasts.
It's Mary Roach. And it's me, freaking out about talking to her. The absolute legend science writer of Stiff, Bonk, Gulp, and Packing for Mars and more chats about swapping out human body parts and her new book, Replaceable You, which I devoured.
2025-09-17 17:15:20 +0000 UTC View PostThey live in your kitchens, bathrooms, and nightmares. I was afraid of backlash if I posted a photo of them. Cockroaches! What questions do you have for an evolutionary biologist who specializes in roaches?
Deadline: Wednesday, September 17 at 5pm PST
2025-09-15 01:58:55 +0000 UTC View PostThis episode is up and published and ready to hear wherever you get podcasts.
The traditional 8th anniversary gift is pottery so to mark the September 2017 start of Ologies, we just published a lovely new Ceramology episode with Potted History's wonderful father-daughter ceramicists and historians Graham and Sarah Lord Taylor.
I love this one, and I hope it inspires you to gaze at some porcelain or earthenware or into a slick puddle to get your hands mucky. 2025-09-11 02:49:26 +0000 UTC View Post
In grade school we laughed at the word "nudibranch" because we were saying "nude-y." Well, nudibranchs are indeed "nude-y" -- they're molluscs without shells and their naked bodies are some of the most vibrant in the ocean. What do you want to know about these charismatic sea slugs? Leave your questions in the comments!
Deadline: Friday, September 12 at 5pm PST
2025-09-09 21:47:24 +0000 UTC View Post