Smologies with Alie Ward

By Alie WardScience Education Kids & Family Education for Kids

Ranking
18th
on Education for Kids
Favorites
169
Followers
Typical duration
28 min
per episode

Based on Podcast App listening data

Smologies with Alie Ward episodes

October 15 DANCING SPIDERS with Sebastian Echeverri
They dance. They make songs. They will steal your heart. They are spiders. Jumping spiders, specifically, and impassioned spider scientist Dr. Sebastian Echeverri is on board to tell you all about their dances. How far can a jumping spider jump? What makes a good spider dancer? How do they learn their moves? Why are they so cute? Can you sample their drumming and make a sick industrial-EDM track that feels like you’re in a Berlin discotheque? Buckle up for the grooviest Spooktober of your life.
BUY the track “Habronattus: Multimodal Display” on Bandcamp
Created by Jason Scardamalia and featuring recordings by Dr. Damian Elias with proceeds going toward spider research
Visit Dr. Sebastian Echeverri’s website
Follow Dr. Sebastian Echeverri on Bluesky and Instagram
Donations went to Entomologists of Color and Xerces.org
Full-length (*not* G-rated) Kinetic Salticidology episode + tons of science links
More kid-friendly Smologies episodes!
Become a patron of Ologies for as little as a buck a month
OlogiesMerch.com has hats, shirts, hoodies, totes!
Follow Ologies on Instagram and Bluesky
Follow Alie Ward on Instagram and TikTok
Sound editing by Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio Productions, Jake Chaffee, Jarrett Sleeper of MindJam Media & Steven Ray Morris
Made possible by work from Noel Dilworth, Susan Hale, Kelly R. Dwyer, Aveline Malek and Erin Talbert
Smologies theme song by Harold Malcolm

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
31 min
October 10 APPLES with Susan K. Brown
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com
for information about our collection and use of personal data for
advertising.
31 min
October 01 OWLS with R.J. Gutiérrez
OWLS. FINALLY. In no particular order: what’s up with their eyes, legs, hoots, nests, necks, barfs? Is it ok to hoot back at them? What do you mean one of their toes is reversible? Go take a walk or sit on a porch in the dusk and make friends with Rocky. Dr. R.J. “Rocky” Gutiérrez is a celebrated researcher, Professor Emeritus at the University of Minnesota, a legend in the owl world, and simply one of the loveliest ologists. He’ll take us on a trip next to a river, scrambling up some trees, over rocky terrain and through the forest to learn why owls are so magnetic. Yeah, I called owls the best bird. Not backing down.

Follow Dr. Gutiérrez on Google Scholar
Donations went to the International Owl Center and Northcoast Environmental Center
Full-length (*not* G-rated) Strigiformology episodes + tons of science links
More kid-friendly Smologies episodes!
Become a patron of Ologies for as little as a buck a month
OlogiesMerch.com has hats, shirts, hoodies, totes!
Follow Ologies on Instagram and Bluesky
Follow Alie Ward on Instagram and TikTok
Sound editing by Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio Productions and Jake Chaffee
Made possible by work from Noel Dilworth, Susan Hale, Kelly R. Dwyer, Aveline Malek and Erin Talbert
Smologies theme song by Harold Malcolm

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
30 min
September 25 BRAIN CHEMICALS with Crystal Dilworth
Serotonin! Dopamine! Norepinephrine! Neurotransmitters: what's their deal? Dr. Crystal Dilworth, aka Dr. Brain, stops by to have a spirited discussion about how chemical messengers change our moods and behaviors. We chat about sleep, focus, happiness, depression, anxiety, what chemicals drive us to get off the couch, ADHD, the microbiome, and so much more of what goes into making our noggins work they way they do.

Visit Dr. Dilworth's website and follow her on Instagram
A donation went to The Geena Davis Institute
Full-length (*not* G-rated) Molecular Neurobiology episode + tons of science links
More kid-friendly Smologies episodes!
Become a patron of Ologies for as little as a buck a month
OlogiesMerch.com has hats, shirts, hoodies, totes!
Follow Ologies on Instagram and Bluesky
Follow Alie Ward on Instagram and TikTok
Sound editing by Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio Productions, Jake Chaffee, Jarrett Sleeper of MindJam Media, and Steven Ray Morris
Made possible by work from Noel Dilworth, Susan Hale, Kelly R. Dwyer, Aveline Malek and Erin Talbert
Smologies theme song by Harold Malcolm

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
30 min
September 18 SPACE FOOD with Maggie Coblentz
Dehydrated eggs. Airborne tortillas. Pouches of chicken. Tang. Work up an appetite for space food with artist, designer and Astrobromatologist, Maggie Coblentz. We talk micro-gardening in space, recycled water, dehydrated beef, velcro fatigue, the problem with crumbs in zero gravity, how to make barbecued wings in orbit, and what’s being done to make space food more delicious.

Visit Maggie’s website and follow her on Instagram
A donation went to AstroAccess
Pods Fight Poverty is raising money for Rwandan families via GiveDirectly.org/ologies
Full-length (*not* G-rated) Astrobromatology episode + tons of science links
More kid-friendly Smologies episodes!
Become a patron of Ologies for as little as a buck a month
OlogiesMerch.com has hats, shirts, hoodies, totes!
Follow Ologies on Instagram and Bluesky
Follow Alie Ward on Instagram and TikTok
Sound editing by Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio Productions and Jake Chaffee
Made possible by work from Noel Dilworth, Susan Hale, Kelly R. Dwyer, Aveline Malek and Erin Talbert
Smologies theme song by Harold Malcolm

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
27 min
September 10 FERNS with Fay-Wei Li
Fronds. Forest dwellers. Spores. Houseplants. Gametophytes? We’ve got ferns. The charming and hilarious professor, pteridologist and author of “Ferns: Lessons in Survival from Earth’s Most Adaptable Plants,” Dr. Fay-Wei Li, tells me all aboutwhat makes ferns such oddities in the plant world, fern evolution, why they have beef with flowering plants, tips for growing your own fern gully, whether they have roots or rhyzomes or friends, and how ferns could help cool down a warming planet or grow better crops. This episode is, in Fay-Wei’s words, “ferntastic.”
Visit Dr. Li’s lab website and follow him on Google Scholar
Buy his book, Ferns: Lessons in Survival from Earth’s Most Adaptable Plants, on Bookshop.org or Amazon
A donation went to the ASPT Herbarium Emergency Fund
Full-length (*not* G-rated) Pteridology episode + tons of science links
More kid-friendly Smologies episodes!
Become a patron of Ologies for as little as a buck a month
OlogiesMerch.com has hats, shirts, hoodies, totes!
Follow Ologies on Instagram and Bluesky
Follow Alie Ward on Instagram and TikTok
Sound editing by Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio Productions and Jake Chaffee
Made possible by work from Noel Dilworth, Susan Hale, Kelly R. Dwyer, Aveline Malek and Erin Talbert
Smologies theme song by Harold Malcolm

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
28 min
September 03 BEAVERS with Rob Rich
Orange teeth! Multi-purpose tails! Architecture with twigs! Field naturalist, conservationist, wildlife tracker and “beaver believer” Rob Rich works with the National Wildlife Federation’s coordination of the Montana Beaver Working Group and answers all of our Castorological questions about: baby beavers, tooth tools, lodges, dams, the sound of water, the slap of a tail, beavers throughout history and in your dreams forever.

Follow Rob Rich on LinkedIn
A donation went to Tracker Certification North America
Full-length (*not* G-rated) Castorology episode + tons of science links
More kid-friendly Smologies episodes!
Become a patron of Ologies for as little as a buck a month
OlogiesMerch.com has hats, shirts, hoodies, totes!
Follow Ologies on Instagram and Bluesky
Follow Alie Ward on Instagram and TikTok
Sound editing by Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio Productions & Jake Chaffee
Made possible by work from Noel Dilworth, Susan Hale, Kelly R. Dwyer, Aveline Malek and Erin Talbert
Smologies theme song by Harold Malcolm

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
28 min
August 27 GOOD FIRE with Amy Christianson
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, thoughts on cultural burns, flim-flam, evacuations, hunting strategies, land stewardship, learning from Indigenous wildfire fighters, Two-Eyed Seeing and more. Huge thanks to her and Matt Kristoff -- who also hosts the Your Forest Podcast -- for allowing us to use excerpts from their Good Fire interview. Subscribe to both podcasts to get more ecological knowledge in your ears.
Follow Dr. Amy Christianson on Bluesky
Check out the Good Fire podcast and the Your Forest podcast
A donation was made to Indigenous Residential School Survivors
Full-length (*not* G-rated) Indigenous Fire Ecology episode + tons of science links
More kid-friendly Smologies episodes!
Become a patron of Ologies for as little as a buck a month
OlogiesMerch.com has hats, shirts, hoodies, totes!
Follow Ologies on Instagram and Bluesky
Follow Alie Ward on Instagram and TikTok
Sound editing by Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio Productions, Jake Chaffee, Jarrett Sleeper of MindJam Media & Steven Ray Morris
Made possible by work from Noel Dilworth, Susan Hale, Kelly R. Dwyer, Aveline Malek and Erin Talbert
Smologies theme song by Harold Malcolm

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
29 min
August 14 WILDFIRES with Gavin Jones
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, 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 Bluesky
A donation was made to The Common Good Community Foundation
Full-length (*not* G-rated) Fire Ecolology episode + tons of science links
More kid-friendly Smologies episodes!
Become a patron of Ologies for as little as a buck a month
OlogiesMerch.com has hats, shirts, hoodies, totes!
Follow Ologies on Instagram and Bluesky
Follow Alie Ward on Instagram and TikTok
Sound editing by Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio Productions, Jake Chaffee, Jarrett Sleeper of MindJam Media & Steven Ray Morris
Made possible by work from Noel Dilworth, Susan Hale, Kelly R. Dwyer, Aveline Malek and Erin Talbert
Smologies theme song by Harold Malcolm

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
30 min
August 11 WASPS with Eric Eaton
Wasps!? Don’t even THINK of skipping this one, my beautiful chickens. You’re about to change your outlook on the most maligned winged sky babies, and we are delighted that author, bug dude, and spheksologist Eric Eaton is about to change your mind and fill your heart with respect and appreciation. Hunker down for itty bitty critters, papery nests, stinger myths, bug corsets, gardening secrets, and snack vaults. Get ready to hear about the misunderstood and beautifully diverse world of wasps, from the teeny tiny to the large and legendary. Wasps: they’re not as mean as you think.
Buy Eric's book wherever books are sold
Check out Eric’s website and follow him on Bluesky
A donation went to Xerces.org
Full-length (*not* G-rated) Spheksology episode + tons of science links
More kid-friendly Smologies episodes!
Become a patron of Ologies for as little as a buck a month
OlogiesMerch.com has hats, shirts, hoodies, totes!
Follow Ologies on Instagram and Bluesky
Follow Alie Ward on Instagram and TikTok
Sound editing by Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio Productions, Jake Chaffee, Jarrett Sleeper of MindJam Media & Steven Ray Morris
Made possible by work from Noel Dilworth, Susan Hale, Kelly R. Dwyer, Aveline Malek and Erin Talbert
Smologies theme song by Harold Malcolm

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

About Smologies with Alie Ward

From the publisher's feed

Ologies → Smologies. It’s all of the science, with none of the swearing! Smologies are shortened, kid-friendly episodes of the award-winning science podcast, Ologies, which covers topics from Toads…