Odd Pod: ‘Ologies with Alie Ward’ comedically explores scientific topics with experts
“Ologies with Alie Ward” is an educational podcast teaching listeners about a plethora of disciplines. On episodes, she’ll “ask smart people stupid questions” about their professional obsessions, chatting with scientists and experts about the history of each -ology and what their jobs are like. Hear about topics like drunk butterflies, cats, TikTokology, forensic ecology, pyrotechnology, and more. What results in episodes are insightful and comedic conversations that could alter the way you think about the world.
This podcast is super popular on the science charts. Since 2017, “Ologies with Alie Ward” has released over 230 episodes and has received over 15,000 reviews on Apple Podcasts. The average run time for episodes is an hour, and feel free to start at any episode since they’re topic-driven.
During spooky season, Podsauce listened to the “UFOlogy” episode featuring Sarah Scoles, a science journalist/author of the books Making Contact and They Are Already Here: UFO Culture and Why We See Saucers, and Dr. Kate Dorsch, a scholar in the History and Sociology of Science. This episode covered UAP (Unexplained Aerial Phenomenon), Roswell, abduction trends, alien parades, secret military missions, energy vortexes, UFO sighting statistics, fighter pilot sightings, and more. We learned that UFOology started in 1947, and the guests even shared their own wacky experiences in the field.
Dorsch tells us, “People have been seeing things in the sky for as long as we have written human records.” But UFOs and flying saucers are particular to the post-WWII, Cold War era. They were driven by atomic anxiety, concerns of an unknown enemy and surveillance states, nuclear threats and the unrestrained power and growth of technology. Listen to the entire 70-minute episode to learn more about UFOs.
On a recent episode of Podsauce, “Ologies” was the Odd Pod Pick of the Week. Host Dax mentioned episodes on Eudemonology (the study of happiness), opossumology (opossums), selachimorphology (sharks), matrimoniology (marriage), nephrology (kidneys), and cicadology (cicadas). He recommends the series to anyone looking to broaden their mind with a fun podcast series.
Recent episodes explored booster shots, wolves, Squid Game, dancing spiders, and veterinary biology, just to name a few topics. There was also an episode on ciderology geared toward foodies.
In addition to podcasting, Alie is an Emmy Award-winning science correspondent for the CBS series Innovation Nation and hosts Did I Mention Invention on the CW, among other projects.
The series “Ologies with Alie Ward” cannot be missed. It is a fascinating history of culture, human explanations of the unexplainable, science and more. Check out new, weekly episodes wherever you listen to your podcasts.
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