Crows have funerals? CROWS HAVE FUNERALS. The inky black bird with the big brain warns and maybe mourns around their fallen friends and Dr. Kaeli Swift is here to tell us all about it. As an avid wildlife researcher and corvid specialist, she's observed death behaviors that will shock you to your bones and ruffle your hackles -- while somehow also making you cry about peanuts. Also: so much inspiration to keep being yourself and to work hard toward what you love. She is a hero.

Dr. Kaeli Swift's Blog, YouTube, Twitter & Instagram

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Sound editing by Steven Ray Morris

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Grab your fire extinguisher and hang on to your eyebrows, we’re building FIRES today. Now, this is pyrotechnology in the anthropological sense; the kind covered in hair metal concert venue liability insurance will have to wait for another day, no no, these are the kind your ancestors made. Get ready for sharp rocks, hairy jello, sooty caves, glowing coals, iron sparks, burnt feet, wolf skulls, fluffy fungus, molten metal, ember tending and more with Yale anthropologist and pyrotechnologist, Dr. Ellery Frahm.

Follow Dr. Frahm on Bluesky

Check out his website

Donations went to: https://www.armeniafund.org/

More links and info at alieward.com/ologies/pyrotechnology

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Sound editing by Jarrett Sleeper of MindJam Media & Steven Ray Morris

Transcripts by Emily White of www.thewordary.com/

Website by https://www.kellyrdwyer.com/

Support the show: http://Patreon.com/ologies

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Teeth. Tails. Concentric nipples. This not-at-all-rodent has the distinction of being North America’s sole marsupial and so Alie hunted down lauded Opossumologist Dr. Lisa Walsh and launched an absolute torrent of giddy questions. How many ticks do they really eat, can we keep them as pets, how do we all convincingly feign death, opossum vs. possum, fingerprints, orphaned babies, the best possum jokes, the worst ones, venom immunity, bifurcated dongs, space portal vageens, being equally ugly and adorable, the rise of the memes, why we scream at our own asses, and more. Open a space in your heart for these critters.

Follow Dr. Walsh at Twitter.com/spoutsoffacts ,

Donations went to: https://www.kidneyfund.org/ & https://opossumsocietyus.org/

More links and info at alieward.com/ologies/opossumology

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Sound editing by Jarrett Sleeper of MindJam Media & Steven Ray Morris

Transcripts by Emily White of www.thewordary.com/

Website by https://www.kellyrdwyer.com/

Support the show: http://Patreon.com/ologies

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How ya like them apples?! Well, liquified. And fermented. Author, podcaster, cider-maker and globally lauded beverage historian Gabe Cook, aka The Ciderologist, is an enthusiastic champion of this tragically overlooked drink, and he joins with a bushel full of facts, well-spun yarns and tasting tips. Belly up for a foaming glass of friendly competition, bucolic farmhouses, DIY cider tips, film flam busters, cider recommendations from a pro, and a little ASMR. Cider: that cool friend in the corner who is too shy to boast about itself, so its wingman speaks up.

His website: https://www.theciderologist.com/

Follow him at https://twitter.com/theciderologist and https://www.instagram.com/ciderologist

First book, Ciderology: https://www.amazon.com/Ciderology-History-Heritage-Craft-Revolution/dp/1846015650

His NEW book, Modern British Ciders: https://camra.org.uk/modern-british-cider/

A donation went to: https://tinychanges.com/

More links and info at alieward.com/ologies/ciderology

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Follow twitter.com/ologies or instagram.com/ologies

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Sound editing by Jarrett Sleeper of MindJam Media & Steven Ray Morris

Transcripts by Emily White of www.thewordary.com/

Website by https://www.kellyrdwyer.com/

Support the show: http://Patreon.com/ologies

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HAPPINESS RESEARCH, straight up. What is happiness? How do our circumstances affect happiness? Why is the word “gratitude” kinda cringey? What can we do to feel better? Should we feel guilty for feeling happy? When is positivity “toxic?” Yale cognitive scientist, Eudemonologist, and host of The Happiness Lab podcast Dr. Laurie Santos chats about how scientists measure human happiness and what their research has shown helps achieve it, even during the worst of times. Also: silver medal face & countering counterfactuals, which will make sense when you listen.

Follow Dr. Lauri Santos https://instagram.com/lauriesantosofficial

Her podcast: https://www.happinesslab.fm

Donations went to DonorsChoose.org

More links and info at alieward.com/ologies/eudemonology

Sponsors of Ologies: alieward.com/ologies-sponsors

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Sound editing by Jarrett Sleeper of MindJam Media & Steven Ray Morris

Transcripts by Emily White of www.thewordary.com/

Website by https://www.kellyrdwyer.com/

Support the show: http://Patreon.com/ologies

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Art meets science! Problems meet solutions! Climate change meets … hope? In this atypical episode, things get casual as hell as Alie sits down to talk about Functional Magic: an illustration non-profit started by filmmaker, Emmy-nominated television editor and longtime friend Andy Hall. (Note: Functional Magic began as the Drawdown Design Project but has since been re-named!) When he’s not having to edit Alie on Innovation Nation, Andy is the founder and creative director of the Drawdown Design Project, which commissioned some of the world’s most sought-after artists to illustrate climate solutions outlined by Drawdown.org. What resulted was the just-released limited-edition 200 print run of ENGAGE, EMPOWER, CULTIVATE and ELECTRIFY. Andy walks me through the passion, the production and the process of raising money for rainforests while making something gorgeous and uplifting. Also: I used to serve snacks on film sets.

Get one of the 200 limited-edition Drawdown Design Project prints

Follow Functional Magic on Instagram and maybe win a poster!

More info on climate solutions at Drawdown.org

More about the illustrators

ENGAGE by Brian Steely

CULTIVATE by Tula Lotay

EMPOWER by Khary Randolph

ELECTRIFY by Malleus

A donation went to Rainforest Coalition

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Sound editing by Jarrett Sleeper of MindJam Media & Steven Ray Morris

Transcripts by Emily White of The Wordary

Website by Kelly R. Dwyer

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Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson. You loved her Oceanology episode and now she is in your feed to address everyone’s agonizing internal question: IS MY CARBON FOOTPRINT BS?! I don’t drop a lot of podcast episodes into my precious Ologies feed, but this topic was so wonderfully covered by Dr. Johnson and co-hot Alex Blumberg that I had to do it. And as a bonus, stay tuned for Wednesday’s episode between me and my old friend C. Andrew Hall, the creative director of the non-profit illustration collective, the Drawdown Design Project. I’ve been consulting with him for 2 years on a giant project that just dropped and I think you’ll love what he has to say about our individual roles and responsibilities in climate change.

So yes: onward with “How to Save a Planet.”

Listen to Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson’s Oceanology episode: https://www.alieward.com/ologies/oceanology2

Drawdown Design project: https://drawdowndesignproject.org/

Follow the Drawdown Design Project: https://www.instagram.com/drawdowndesignproject/

Buy Dr. Johnson’s book! https://www.allwecansave.earth

Her podcast: “How to Save a Planet:” https://gimletmedia.com/shows/howtosaveaplanet

Dr. Johnson's collective: https://www.allwecansave.earth/

Dr. Johnson on Twitter @ayanaeliza and Instagram @ayanaeliza

Dr. Johnson's website: ayanaelizabeth.com

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More links at www.alieward.com

Sound editing by Steven Ray Morris

Theme song by Nick Thorburn

Support the show: http://Patreon.com/ologies

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ANNOUNCEMENT: SMOLOGIES NOW HAS ITS OWN FEED! SUBSCRIBE  FOR NEW EPISODES EVERY THURSDAY. 

Subscribe to Smologies: https://pod.link/1746567248

YA LIKE BEES? You will -- after this short, edited-for-all-ages Smologies cut of our classic Melittology episode featuring President of the Urban Beekeepers Association, Amanda “Mandy” Shaw. We chat about honeybees vs. native ones, hives vs. nests, honey, how to become a beekeeper, social structures, why a queen becomes a queen, how to keep Mason bees as outdoor pets, if you should eat honey to deal with seasonal allergies, and why planting some flowers could make you and the bees pretty happy.

Listen to the ORIGINAL, juicy, swear-filled version of Melittology

More Smologies episodes

Follow Mandy on Twitter and Instagram

Mandy’s podcast!

Mandy Shaw’s Bella Beek: Handcrafted Beekeeping Veils, Tools and Gifts

Donations were made to Pollinator Partnership and Xerces Society

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Sound editing by Zeke Thomas Rodrigues & Jarrett Sleeper of MindJam Media and Steven Ray Morris

Smologies theme song by Harold Malcolm

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Cultural burns. Prescribed blazes. A healthy forest. What exactly is “good fire?” Let’s ask Indigenous fire scientist Dr. Amy Christianson, who is a co-host of the podcast ...Good Fire. This wonderfully generous and informed scholar took a quick break from her Canadian wilderness vacation to fill me in on Indigenous history, collaborations between Western science & First Nations elders, Aboriginal thoughts on cultural burns, flim-flam, evacuations, snowmelt, hunting strategies, land stewardship, happy trees, climate strategies, and the social science behind wildfire education. Also learning from Native wildfire fighters. Huge thanks to her and Matt Kristoff -- who also hosts the Your Forest Podcast -- for allowing us to use excerpts from their interview to launch Good Fire. Subscribe to both podcasts to get more ecological knowledge in your ears.

Follow Dr. Amy Christianson on Twitter 

Listen to the “Good Fire” podcast

Also great: Your Forest podcast

A donation was made to Indigenous Residential School Survivors 

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Sound editing by Jarrett Sleeper of MindJam Media & Steven Ray Morris

Transcripts by Emily White of The Wordary

Website by Kelly R. Dwyer

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As Smashmouth said, “My world’s on fire, how ‘bout yours?” Why yes, Mr. Mouth, it is, indeed, on fire. As so many of us around the globe are sharing in this burning sensation, what better time than now to sit down and fire off a lot of questions at Fire Ecologist, Dr. Gavin Jones. We talk about what fire is, how hot it burns, fire trends, tinderboxes, lots and lots of forest fire flim-flam, tolerant wombats, Angelina Jolie Movies, cunning pine cones, thick bark, Indigenous fire stewardship and more. This episode might get you pretty heated but that’ll only release seeds of new ideas and hope, because it's serotinous. That bad joke will make sense after you listen.

Follow Dr. Gavin Jones on Twitter 

A donation was made to The Common Good Community Foundation 

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Transcripts & bleeped episodes

Become a patron of Ologies for as little as a buck a month

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Follow @ologies on Twitter and Instagram

Follow @alieward on Twitter and Instagram

Sound editing by Jarrett Sleeper of MindJam Media & Steven Ray Morris

Transcripts by Emily White of The Wordary

Website by Kelly R. Dwyer

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.