Bonus Episode: ICYMI Moments of 2025 with newly beloved Ologists

Summary

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Ologies with Alie Ward

Bonus Episode: ICYMI Moments of 2025 with Newly Beloved Ologists

Release Date: February 17, 2026
Host: Alie Ward
Guests: Dr. West Ely, Dr. Emily Taylor, Dr. Tim Bean, Dr. Rebecca Lewison, Julia Hotz, Evan Pridmore, Dr. Ali Luks, and others

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Episode Overview

This bonus "In Case You Missed It" (ICYMI) episode is a lively, science-packed highlight reel, revisiting the best, funniest, and weirdest moments from Ologies’ 2025 episodes. Host Alie Ward serves up “small plates” of science, featuring expert snippets on everything from dog feet to mental health to hippo territory marking (yes, with poop). Whether you’re a seasoned Ologies listener or new to the show, this greatest-hits sampler is designed to inspire curiosity, provide practical takeaways, and fuel your next first-date fun fact arsenal.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Science (and Joy) of Dog Paw Smell

Segment: [03:30–05:00]

• Speakers: Alie Ward, Dr. Emily Taylor
• Listeners ask: Why do dog paws smell like corn chips?
• Alie investigates: "Apparently it's like a fungus or like something that, like some kind of chemical that's emitted. But yeah, the corn, like the Frito feet, it just. I love that smell." [03:45, Alie Ward]
• Dr. Taylor mentions the distinctive yeasty scent of dog ears, which dog owners come to love about their own pets.
• Scientific explanation: The “corn chip” smell comes from harmless bacteria (Pseudomonas and Proteus) mixing with dog sweat and saliva.

Porcupine & Hedgehog Misconceptions

Segment: [05:19–06:40]

• Speaker: Dr. Tim Bean
• Top misconception: "That they shoot their quills. That's number one. Yeah. So they don't shoot quills." [05:19, Dr. Tim Bean]
• Quills only detach if significant pressure is applied (e.g., being thwacked by a tail).
• Porcupines = rodents; hedgehogs are not rodents—broadly different creature lineages despite similar defense mechanisms.

Hippo Poop—Ecology’s Unsung Hero

Segment: [07:26–09:36]

• Speaker: Dr. Rebecca Lewison
• Hippo excrement is “really important nutrients for the water areas … where they live. And there's some evidence that, like when hippo populations decline, like fish populations also decline.” [07:30, Dr. Rebecca Lewison]
• Males use their tails to spray poop and urine, likely marking territory.
• Discussion highlights the hippo’s ecosystem engineering role—a surprisingly affectionate take on aquatic dung-spraying.

Rattlesnake Rattling & Squirrel Tactics

Segment: [10:38–14:18]

• Speakers: Dr. Emily Taylor, Julia Hotz, others
• Rattlesnakes’ tails are not filled with “little beans”; instead, linked keratin segments make the sound.
• Squirrels flag their tails differently to gopher snakes and rattlesnakes; ground squirrels can actually heat up their tails when a pit viper is present, making it visible in infrared:
  • “They shunt blood to their tails and it lights up like a lightsaber in the rattlesnake's face.” [13:08, Dr. Emily Taylor]
• Squirrels also confront and sometimes attack snakes—nature is tough!

Hobbies as Medicine: The Connection Cure

Segment: [15:38–22:22]

• Speaker: Julia Hotz
• Doctors worldwide are prescribing "social prescriptions": movement, nature, art, service, belonging.
• “Our bodies respond to that kind of movement. Right. We increase our levels of serotonin, we increase our endorphins.” [16:37, Julia Hotz]
• Alie and Julia discuss how urban living, technology, and convenience can foster disconnection.
• Artistic and service-based activities documented as stress reducers (see Drexel University study on art and cortisol).
• “So city dwellers, give us parks or give us death, like for real.” [18:36, Alie Ward]

Gentle Medicine: Treating Long Covid

Segment: [28:52–33:20]

• Speaker: Dr. West Ely
• Dr. Ely emphasizes humility, deep listening, and “making the patient big and me small”:
  • “I just approach it on my knees... because I am there to serve them and to try and make them big and me small.” [29:49, Dr. West Ely]
• Details his process of understanding patient histories, urging providers to drop bias and listen.
• Advocates for treating patients as whole beings, not just as a disease or set of symptoms.

Understanding OCD & Perfectionism

Segment: [37:32–39:12]

• Speaker: Dr. Joseph Ferrari
• OCD vs. perfectionism: OCPD (personality disorder) involves low insight, inflexibility; OCD perfectionism is anxiety- and compulsion-driven.
• Procrastination can be linked to OCD via task avoidance; Dr. Ferrari's prescription: “Just do the thing!” Exposure, response, prevention is tough but effective.

Medieval Margins: Snails, Dicks & Memes

Segment: [42:39–46:47]

• Speaker: Evan Pridmore
• Evan discusses “penis trees” and anthropomorphic snails in medieval manuscripts.
• These bizarre images reflected social anxieties—snails as a stand-in for the ostracized Lombards, marginalized by historical events.
• “So because of that, a lot of people hated the Lombards... they were slimy.” [47:02, Evan Pridmore]

Smell & Social Bias in Literature

Segment: [47:49–53:35]

• Speaker: Dr. Ali Luks
• Smell in literature reflects both fascination and ‘othering’:
  • "The whole point of smell really is for us to notice new things in our environment... So my former supervisor... says that smell is the sense of discrimination. It helps us distinguish the ripe from the rotten and the good from the bad." [48:04, Dr. Ali Luks]
• Garlic and onions in food historically used to mark outsider groups (Italians, Jews).
• Public bans on “smelly” foods (e.g., samosas) reveal underlying racial/class biases.
• "I think we should take it seriously, actually. It's worth having those conversations, I think." [53:11, Dr. Ali Luks]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Dog Paw Smell: “An ex of mine called it Puppy Crack because like, it's just such an addicting smell.” — Alie Ward [04:00]
• Hippo Poop: “There’s just spreading the love. Right? They're spreading what they do best.” — Dr. Rebecca Lewison [09:25]
• Rattlesnake Rattles: “They shunt blood to their tails and it lights up like a lightsaber in the rattlesnake’s face.” — Dr. Emily Taylor [13:08]
• Connection Cure: “By the end of the episode, you’re gonna be applying for a personalized license plate that reads MNASB forever.” — Alie Ward [16:16]
• Medicine with Heart: “I am there to serve them and to try and make them big and me small.” — Dr. West Ely [29:51]
• Procrastination Advice: “Just do it now.” — Dr. Joseph Ferrari [41:50]
• Medieval Margins: “There’s an incredible calendar that you can get, like a wall calendar that just has different medieval penis trees for every month. And frankly, I need that in wallpaper.” — Evan Pridmore [43:39]
• Garlic Stigma: “At the heart of bristling at a so-called difference in odor was essentially the fear of otherness.” — Alie Ward referencing research [50:31]
• Social Food Biases: “You know, fish and chips are really smelly as well. But you’re not isolating that as a thing that you're not allowed to bring into this public space.” — Dr. Ali Luks [53:17]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [03:30] – Dog paw Frito-feet explained
• [05:19] – Porcupine & hedgehog myths
• [07:26] – Hippo poop, ecology, and aquatic food webs
• [10:38] – Rattlesnake tails: how they rattle and why
• [13:08] – Squirrel tail warming and infrared defense
• [15:38] – “Connection Cure” – doctors prescribing hobbies & belonging
• [18:36] – Nature and city life effects on mental health
• [28:52] – Dr. Ely on patient-centered care and Long Covid
• [37:32] – OCD, OCPD, and perfectionism explained
• [42:39] – Medieval memes: penis trees, snails, symbolism
• [47:49] – Olfactory literature, garlic stigma, cultural food biases
• [53:35] – Encouragement to explore more Ologies episodes

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Overall Tone

Alie Ward’s approach is playful, irreverent, and earnestly enthusiastic about both science and the quirks of the experts she hosts. Humor, pop culture references ("Happy people just don't shoot their husbands. They just don't." [17:21]), and surprising connections make every fact a treat.

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For More

• Explore full episodes on each science, referenced in this episode and linked in the Ologies show notes.
• For a kid-friendly spin, check out "Smologies."
• Support Ologies via Patreon or pick up themed merch supporting causes like the National Immigration Law Center.

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Whether you missed these episodes or want a refresher, Ologies’ 2025 ICYMI delivers dazzling science and delightfully weird wisdom—guaranteed to wow at your next trivia night.

Transcript

[Dr. West Ely]

Adobe Acrobat Studio.

[Allie Ward]

Your team's home base.

[Dr. West Ely]

Collaborate within a shared PDF space.

[Allie Ward]

You've got your docs, your plans, your specs and then invite the crew to build what's next. Talk up the teamworks an updated render. They think that this design could be a contender. And when somebody wonders what's the next steps, AI helps you finish the rest.

[Dr. West Ely]

Bolts are tight now.

[Allie Ward]

Your plan's refined. Run a smoother business when you're on the line. Do that with Acrobat. Learn [e-mail] Dothatwith Acrobat well, the holidays.

[Dr. West Ely]

Have come and gone once again.

[Allie Ward]

But if you've forgotten to get that.

[Dr. West Ely]

Special someone in your life a gift.

[Allie Ward]

Well, Mint Mobile is extending their holiday.

[Dr. West Ely]

Offer of half off unlimited wireless.

[Allie Ward]

So here's the idea. You get it now. You call it an early present for next year. What do you have to lose? Give it a [e-mail] Switch limited time.

[Pharmaceutical Advertiser]

50% off regular price for new customers. Upfront payment required $45 for 3 months, $90 for 6 month or $180 for 12 month plan taxes and fees. Extra speeds may slow after 50 gigabytes.

[Dr. Rebecca Lewison]

Per month when network is busy see.

[Allie Ward]

Terms oh hey, it's the bobby pin hiding in your hair overnight. Oh hey, it's the woman on the swamp tour who won't stop screaming Yeehaw. Oh hey, it's a 13 year old poodle in a Baby Bjorn. Oh hey, it's yesterday's medication in your jeans pocket. Oops. Oh hey, it's that festival bracelet you're still wearing on Monday. Oh hey, it's the fish soup that you spilled all over the kitchen which actually did happen to me. Oh hey, it's your aunt who always carries Kleenex. Oh hey, it's the bowl that's chipped but not chipped enough to throw it away. Oh hey, it's the guy at the falafel truck who gives you extra hummus. ALIE Ward what the hell was all that? It was a year's worth of openings and if you hadn't memorized all of them, you are definitely in the right place for an episode of. In case you missed it, this one is like tapas. It's small plates that will leave you hungry for more. So we wanted to put this out because 2025 was a bit of a blur and we're in kind of a storm of distraction. There's so much good science and really charming, heartwarming stories that you may not have heard. So our esteemed editors Jake and Mercedes pulled the best bits from from last year. So you can refresh your memory. Catch up. You can send this to a friend who maybe needs a sample of Ologies to get hooked. Oh, and if you need Kid Friendly episodes, we have them in their own feed. They're called smologies S M O L O G I E S and you can get them for free wherever you get podcasts. So we'll get right into it. But first, thank you so much to patrons of the show who submitted questions for all of these episodes and who support ologies for as little as a dollar a month. Via patreon.com Ologies thank you to everyone out there in ologies merch from ologiesmerch.com we have a special announce this episode about some new merch and thanks always to folks who for zero dollars just make my day. Usually by leaving reviews for me to read, such as this fresh one from Goodshot Jansen, who wrote I hope for a future where everyone embraces the active science championed by good old adword. Goodshot Jansen, Good review. I thank you. Onward. Let's get into some of the best bits with the loveliest guests. Because it's not just what we learned, but you know what? It's the friends we made along the way in this 2025 best of episode of in case you missed it with 10 of your favorite or soon to be favorite Olog. So ethno sinologist David Ian Howe told us how wolves become things like poodles, from loitering to nibble our mastodon leftovers, and then evolving from wild beasts into our hairy, stinky little children. Now on that topic, Ruben Plasmo, Minty McGee, Stacy Pinkowitz, Harper Atlas, and Jaden Guildenstern want to know what is the deal with the smell of dog paws? It brings me instant joy and calm. Why do they smell like corn chips? Why do they smell like Fritos? Why? Why? Why? Everyone wants to know. An ex of mine called it Puppy Crack because like, it's just such an addicting smell. Apparently it's like a fungus or like something that, like some kind of chemical that's emitted. But yeah, the corn, like the Frito feet, it just. I love that smell.

[Dr. Emily Taylor]

And then the inside of their ears.

[Allie Ward]

Too is like a very distinct smell. It's like a yeasty smell that you're like, that's my doggy.

[Dr. West Ely]

Yeah, exactly.

[Allie Ward]

And then everyone loves their own dog's like, smell.

[Dr. Emily Taylor]

But then other people be like, your dog, dude.

[Allie Ward]

And I'm like, no, he does not. He smells amazing. And yes, listener Ren? S, whose special interest is dogs. They say that corn chip foot flavor is due to a combination of bacteria, Pseudomonas and Proteus, which combine with spit and sweat to produce a yeasty smell. And I read up on it. Tends to be harmless. Although those bacteria can sometimes be present in UTIs and dogs. And you can wipe down your pup's feet and trim the hair on the paw pads to keep them fresh. But in general, huffing their little mitts while you spoon them should be harmless. Not a harmless canoodle. You can ask Dr. Tim Bean, who is an erythrozenologist, what's the most annoying misconception about porcupines?

[Dr. Tim Bean]

That they shoot their quills. That's number one. Yeah. So they don't shoot quills. Yeah, no, porcupines shoot their quills. You have to be pretty aggressive to get quilled.

[Allie Ward]

When the quills come out in a predator, do they just kind of pop out easily like a Lego snapping off? Or is it, like, painful, like getting. Getting your mustache waxed?

[Dr. Tim Bean]

For the porcupine, they have this special mechanism where, like, they're not just going to come out day to day. You actually have to push into the skin. So, like something pushes on the top of the quill and then that, like, releases the muscle that's holding it in and then they come out. Oh, so it is sort of like waxing your mustache or legs or whatever. If you just pull the quill out, that would probably be super painful. But if they take their tail and like, thwack a dog's face that like, engages this release mechanism that I think.

[Allie Ward]

Probably does not hurt the porcupines. At least the dog would like to have a word.

[Dr. Tim Bean]

And then number two, I guess I would say is the confusion over hedgehogs versus porcupines. Oh, yeah. So you know, hedgehogs are not even rodents. And so it totally evolved independently and same physical structure. They're also keratinized, but yeah, totally different species.

[Allie Ward]

So, yes, a porcupine is a rodent. Can you believe that? Also, if you love rodents, if you are a person who can't get enough of rodents, especially the ones of unusual size, please enjoy our beaver and capybara episodes. We also have one on urban rodentology about sewer rats. Not to be missed. I cry during it. We also have a very recent groundhog deep dive. So you know what, though? Don't listen to our Lutronology otters episode because a, they're not rodents. But if you want Incredibly juicy otter gossip and shit talking that will change your life and come up in every subsequent first date conversation. Then otters is for you. Oh, speaking of shit talking, boy. Hippo poop spraying discuss. Do they have middens? Do they just go wherever? There must be so much of it.

[Dr. Rebecca Lewison]

That is definitely true. There is so much of it. And we actually think that hippo poop, and not just the poop itself, but like all of the compounds like silica and silicon that's in there are really important nutrients for the water areas, the wetlands, the rivers, the lakes where they live. And there's some evidence that, like when hippo populations decline, like fish populations also decline.

[Allie Ward]

Thank you, patron and first time question asker Allison Ludwig for asking, do tilapia really swim behind them and eat their poo? Allison Ludwig. They do so to gits and shiggles and Emma Henson, who asked, I have to befriend one before I die. How do I go about this? The answer is to become a tilapia. You're never going to be bored, you're never going to be hungry. Every day is a feast.

[Dr. Rebecca Lewison]

It is true that hippos, when we ask, like, where does a hippo poop? The answer is anywhere it wants. Mostly it is in the water. But with males, we do see that marking behavior. Another crazy thing. Ready for this?

[Allie Ward]

Not really.

[Dr. Rebecca Lewison]

So what males do is they come out of the water, they start peeing and then that spray, they spray it backwards and then with their tail, use that to like spread with the stream of the pee and the poop coming out. It's gross and yet extremely effective. And I think it's territory marking. Although we don't really know this because we really only see males do that. So we think they're marking their territory. You'll see it as they come out of the water. They kind of do this at a couple places. Sometimes they'll smush it against, like a tree or, you know, a rock. And we think, again, we don't know this for sure, but we think it's dominant males marking their territory.

[Allie Ward]

Oh, my God.

[Dr. Rebecca Lewison]

Yep.

[Allie Ward]

Which I've seen it in people's, like, horrified zoo videos, But I hope that that's like a blessing.

[Dr. Rebecca Lewison]

There's just spreading the love. Right? They're spreading what they do best. And it is one of the things they do best. They're really important nutrient movers and ecosystem engineers in that way.

[Allie Ward]

Really the most environmentally friendly graffiti you can ask for. So do enjoy that hippopotamology episode with Dr. Rebecca Lewison, because you'll learn about cocaine hippos living in the wrong part of the world, why pygmy hippos are so elusive. And if a hippo does want to commit homicide on you. Also, if you do like graffiti that's made out of paint, you can enjoy the modern Toikographology episode with Conrad Benner about graffiti art and history and why Philadelphia of all places, is the mural and the public art capital of the world. What were we talking about? Okay, we were talking about hippo tails as a piss sprinkler. And it makes rattlesnake tail etiquette seem just downright cordial in comparison. Actually, in case you missed it, here's a sample of the crotologie episode with rattlesnake enthusiast and advocate and I would dare say friend, Dr. Emily Taylor, who kind of us us into a den of some riveting, quivering knowledge.

[Dr. Emily Taylor]

Lots of snakes shake their tails and they do it when they're stressed out. And that's actually evolutionarily ancient that snakes shake their little tails when they're stressed out. But rattlesnakes basically evolved kind of a maraca on the end of it to make a big ruckus. It's a defensive mechanism. And so rattlesnakes are specifically two genera, Cordless and Cisteris, two types of vipers. And they are different from all other snakes because they have a rattle on their tail, which is like modified keratin. So modified scales. It's made like your finger and it makes that rattling noise saying back the.

[Allie Ward]

Heck away, please go. And are the rattles rattling against each other or are there little beans in there making the noise?

[Dr. Emily Taylor]

I'm gonna explain it my best, but it is not filled with little things.

[Allie Ward]

Okay.

[Dr. Emily Taylor]

It's actually insane. Like what you're seeing from the outside is each segment is just a part of the actual segment on the inside. And it's the most intricate thing you've ever seen. Like forget, you know, seashell shape, like being intricate. This is just incredible. There's like a cross section you can look at where you can see how they loosely hook into one another. So when this snake shakes its tail, shaker muscle, which is four times faster than hummingbird wings can beat.

[Allie Ward]

No.

[Dr. Rebecca Lewison]

Yeah. What?

[Dr. Emily Taylor]

They bang against each other and make that high pitched noise. And then one hypothesis is that ancient ancestors of rattlesnakes would use their little tails as a lure to bring in maybe small birds or other rodents that thought it was a worm.

[Allie Ward]

No.

[Evan Pridmore]

Yeah.

[Dr. Emily Taylor]

And eventually this thing was co opted for defense. So we don't really know for sure, except that it's been pretty recent. Rattlesnakes have evolved in the past 12 to 14 million years.

[Allie Ward]

Oh, okay. And how long have snakes been around?

[Dr. Emily Taylor]

A lot longer than that. Many, many, many, many millions of years. More than that. But certainly the ancestors of rattlesnakes were shaking those little tails when they were stressed out for many millions of years before that.

[Allie Ward]

Is it kind of like how squirrels shake their tails when they're threatened?

[Dr. Emily Taylor]

Well, it's funny that you say that because squirrels in particular will shake their tails in a specific way when they see a rattlesnake.

[Allie Ward]

What?

[Julia Hotz]

How?

[Dr. Emily Taylor]

Yeah, so actually when I'm out in the field, I can see a California ground squirrel from a distance and I can tell if it's shaking its tail at a snake.

[Allie Ward]

No. What does it do?

[Dr. Emily Taylor]

So they have this really specific tail flagging behavior where it will waggle back and forth and then stop. Waggle back and forth and then stop kind of sticking up. And are you ready to have your mind blown? Because this is crazy. They'll do it to both gopher snakes and rattlesnakes because both of them could eat the squirrel. And they're basically saying to the gopher snake or rattlesnake, I see you don't even bother hunting. You're not going to sneak up on me. Well, somebody had the brilliant idea of filming the squirrel shaking its tail using a heat sensitive infrared camera. And as people out there might know, rattlesnakes actually have heat sensitive pits on their face so they can see this infrared radiation. Gopher snakes don't. The squirrels know this instinctively and they shunt blood to their tails and it lights up like a lightsaber in the rattlesnake's face. Only when it's a rattlesnake. When it's a gopher snake, they don't bother doing that. The tail stays cold.

[Allie Ward]

No. Incredible. And so that heat definitely shows up for the pit viper. And it's saying, all right, all right, you see me, I can't sneak up on you.

[Dr. Emily Taylor]

And they'll leave. Usually they'll leave after that and go hunt somewh. It can have that element of surprise.

[Allie Ward]

So the pit vipers, they're seeing this hot little tail and they just move on.

[Dr. Emily Taylor]

Yeah, they'll basically pick up and move on and hunt somewhere else because they're ambush foragers. They're waiting for some unsuspecting rodent to run by.

[Allie Ward]

Surprise, surprise.

[Dr. Emily Taylor]

If the squirrel already knows they're there, then they might as well not bother. Plus, the Squirrels can get in their face, they throw dirt at them, they kick them, and sometimes they even bite them. Sometimes they even kill them.

[Allie Ward]

And again, if you're like, feed me all the ground squirrel trivia, we have a scoridiology episode with squirrel expert Dr. Karen Monroe, as well as that recent groundhog episode with Dr. Daniel Blumstein. Because, yes, groundhogs are whistle, pigs are land, beavers are woodchucks, and they are all ground squirrels. Now, if those facts make you want to go into a field to critter spot and touch actual grass, because you need more joy and you could better your mental health, and you feel like you are digging your fingernails into a crumbling ledge of a cliff, in terms of your sanity, I'm right there with you. Jules Hotz, author of the book the Connection Cure, is here to change your life for the better, Help you get back in a better place with her salugenology episode about why you, as a human on Earth, require hobbies to live and thrive. Like, required to be alive longer and better. And in this episode, which was our Most popular of 2025, I asked Jules if doctors actually prescribe HOB. Like, if they write it down on a pad so that you take it seriously, because it's easy to listen and go, yeah, like, I've got to stay vigilant of modern horrors. And I got a doom scroll through nonsense and algorithmic ads, hobbies and pastimes. Sounds nice, but how do we make it work?

[Julia Hotz]

First, let me talk about the different kinds of social prescriptions that there are and why they are what they are. So I've written this book, the Connection Cure, which is all about how doctors in 30 countries around the world, including the U.S. more on that, are actually prescribing this. And it's not just doctors. It's therapists, it's nurses, it's community health workers, it's social workers. And we can also talk about why, like, why now are they doing this? But you'd asked about, like, the kinds of prescriptions, and from my research, it pretty much comes down to five core ingredients. Let's say it comes down to movement, nature, art, service, and belonging.

[Allie Ward]

Oh, wow. Once again. Movement, nature, art, service, and belonging. By the end of the episode, you're gonna be applying for a personalized license plate that reads MNASB forever.

[Dr. Rebecca Lewison]

I got it.

[Allie Ward]

Thanks.

[Julia Hotz]

And so there's a couple of reasons for that. And the first one is, like, in these 30 countries, you know, these were the types of social prescriptions that people kind of kept organically, independently, landing on and we know this from the data that part of this has to do with the way we as humans are wired to be in these kinds of environments. Right? Like think about us tens of thousands of years ago. We were out there trying to survive on the big bad one. We had to move our bodies. And so it was adaptive for us to be able to move our bodies well. And our bodies respond to that kind of movement. Right. We increase our levels of serotonin, we increase our endorphins.

[Dr. Rebecca Lewison]

Right.

[Julia Hotz]

It's not just, you know, Elle Woods.

[Dr. Ali Luks]

Endorphins make you happy.

[Allie Ward]

Happy people just don't shoot their husbands. They just don't.

[Julia Hotz]

Endorphins make you happy. Happy people don't shoot their husbands. That whole line, like that's true.

[Dr. Emily Taylor]

You sure about that movement?

[Julia Hotz]

And that's not that controversial, Right. Doctors have been saying for 50 years, exercise more, exercise more nature. Same is true there. It actually restores our attention such that when we leave a natural setting, we feel more calm, we feel more restored, we feel like we're actually better at focusing.

[Allie Ward]

That's so funny because I love running and walking and if I do it on a treadmill inside of a gym, it feels really different than me going to the local lake and seeing people and seeing dogs. And I always see that guy running at the same time. And there's spiders in the trees and I never put a lot of weight into that. I just think it's a preference. But it's actually probably chemically like helping my brain.

[Julia Hotz]

And you find that, wow, it's not just in our heads, like there's some serious antidepressant anxiety relieving effects of being in nature. And I think it comes down to the way we evolve to love and pay attention to nature.

[Allie Ward]

So this was a 2015 study titled Nature Experience reduces rumination and subgenual Prefrontal Cortex Activation. In the Journal of the Proceedings of the National Academy, we have Sciences of United States of America. And it notes that more than half of the world's population lives in urban settings. And while urbanization has many benefits, it's also associated with increased levels of mental illness, including depression. And in fact, it says city dwellers have a 20% higher risk of anxiety disorders and a 40% higher risk of mood disorders as compared to people in rural areas. And I thought maybe that was all just having cheaper rent. But the paper details that those 90 minute walks and the effects on rumination centers of the brain. And it concludes that nature experience may improve mental well being and accessible natural areas within cities. May be a critical resource for mental health in our rapidly urbanizing world. So city dwellers give us parks or give us death, like for real. But what else do all human animals need for enrichment? So there's movement, there's nature, there's belonging.

[Julia Hotz]

There'S art, there's belonging, there's art. Art's another one I love. People think, oh, art, you know, that's nice. But like really? Doctors are going to prescribe that. Researchers from Drexley University looked at what happened after just 45 minutes of engaging subjects in an artistic activity and found that they had significantly reduced their levels of cortisol of stress.

[Allie Ward]

No way.

[Julia Hotz]

And this is not that novel. I mean, art therapy has been around as a discipline. There's something about the way engaging with art sort of helps us shift our perspective and realize, like, hey, we're not alone. But yeah, that also comes down to the way I think we as humans trying to make it in the big bad wild. We told stories with each other, we painted on caves, we made jewelry, we tried to seek out and talk about the beauty in the world. So there's something very primal about that too.

[Allie Ward]

Well, let's get depressed. How are we living? That is not hitting these bases because I don't know a lot of people who are like thriving at the moment. Tbh. Like I know people who are succeeding. But on a day to day, how is your mental health doing? Is a struggle?

[Julia Hotz]

Absolutely. Well, you're asking the great question because that's exactly how I felt when I wrote this book. Sort of in the throes of the pandemic especially. And I think it was no coincidence that rates of stress, rates of loneliness, rates of anxiety, depression, all these things going up, up, up, up, up, up.

[Allie Ward]

Could see the recent long Covid episode too.

[Julia Hotz]

Now we go back to like our evolutionary needs for survival, movement, nature, art, service and belonging. They weren't just a nice to have if I have time, you needed to do this to survive. And importantly, you couldn't do it alone. Like, yeah, you try to survive out there in the big bad wild on your own.

[Allie Ward]

Good luck.

[Julia Hotz]

But now, of course, as I talk to you from my Brooklyn apartment, I can have all of my basic needs met without leaving. I need food, I can order it, I want entertainment, I can stream it. I want to feel a sense of belonging. Maybe I'll turn on a TV show where I'm feeling a connection to the characters. So I think it's become easier and easier for us to choose an environment that disconnects us, us from these things. And yet when you describe to me the difference between running outside and running, you know, on a treadmill, intuitively, you know that these things are good for us. And it's not just intuitive, right? There's a ton, a ton, a ton of data showing that these five things in particular have profound effects for our mood, our energy, our attention levels, our longevity.

[Allie Ward]

So listen to the Salugenology episode with Julia Hotz on how to implement hobbies to keep yourself alive and continuing to destroy your foes and improve your mental health. And since the Cellular Genealogy episode came out last year, I started walking and running outside again. I've joined some ukulele meetups with strangers I never would have met, which has gotten me out of my head and phone. And those slumps that sneak up on us when we neglect to live are easier to get through because life, hopefully, it's a long game. You have to pace yourself to stay in it. And just like you need breaks, let's take a quick one. Now for sponsors of the show who enable us to donate to a cause each. And I'm so excited to finally announce some new merch to keep you inspired and vocal in support of human rights. We collaborated with artist, author, and Los Angeles County Public defender Andrea Diaz. And this new merch honors whistles, markers, megaphones, cameras documenting ice raids and other human rights abuses, first aid kits and masking up against crowd dispersal aerosols. These have become vital tools for protest work. And in this new design, those objects of resistance surround a passage from our Revolutionology episode with scholar Dr. Jack Goldstone. And the quote from Dr. Goldstone reads, One day with a million people in the streets, that's a holiday. That's not a campaign. What you need is to have people in the streets for months on end, despite rain, despite snow, past revolutions. That's how they showed their resolve to stand against the government. Proceeds from this brand new merch benefit the cause of Andy's choosing, which is the National Immigration Law center, which advances laws and policies that center human dignity and benefit us all, such as a healthcare and safety net system that allows everyone to thrive, labor laws that empower all workers to fulfill their potential, and federal policies that recognize migration as a global phenomenon that transforms societies for the better. And the National Immigration Law center fights for a society where everyone has the freedom to thrive, no matter how much money we have of what we look like or where we were born. And they work at the intersection of immigrant, economic, gender and racial justice. So get a shirt or tote with that quote and design and support that work while inspiring others and keeping yourself going while you are fighting the good fight. And for more on Andy Diaz and her work, including a kid's book about the judicial system. She's amazing. It's titled Jury Trial ABC. You can find her on Instagram and TikTok at afternoon underscore recess or afternoon recession. Thank you so much Andy DS for doing that. And yes, we will put a link to that new merch in our show notes. Or you can go to ologiesmerch.com also thanks to sponsors of the show who let us donate to a community and or a global cause every week. Listen, this is a science podcast. You know that a balanced diet is a very important component of a healthy lifestyle. Also, we know that there are some nutrient gaps that can happen due to a lot of different factors. Those factors can be cereal for dinner or running late for the bus. Ritual has a team of scientists. They poured over thousands of studies to identify some common gaps between what human beings need and what human beings are consuming across these different life stages. And they have an essential for women 18 multi it has nine key nutrients in two delayed release capsules designed for the best absorption. I've been taking Ritual for years. I love that it's a multi the egg you can take on an empty stomach. Here's what I do though is I take it at night and I find that I have more energy in the morning. It's a little easier for me to get out of bed. They also have high quality clean ingredients. All their products are vegan, tested for heavy metals, common allergens, all that. So instead of striving for perfect health, aim for supporting foundational health. Save 25% on your first month at ritual.comologies that's ritual.comologies for 25 off your first month. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. But you knew that.

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[Allie Ward]

Use PDF spaces to generate a presentation. Grab your docs, your permits, your mobile AI levels of your pitch gets it in a groove. Choose a template with your timeless cool. Come on now, let's flex those tools. Draft, design, deliver, make it sing. AI builds the deck so you can build that thing. Do that, do that, do that with Acrobat. Learn [e-mail] Dothatwith Acrobat. TaxAct knows every small business owner has different tax filing needs. With TaxAct you can file yourself with the help of an expert or taxact can do it all for you. You're the boss, the head honcho, the top banana. And TaxAct is like your loyal, trusty tax aide, ready to pounce on any tax needs you might have. TaxAct is dying to pounce on some small business tax needs. TaxAct. Let's get them over with.

[Dr. West Ely]

Well, the holidays have come and gone.

[Allie Ward]

Once again, but if you've forgotten to.

[Dr. West Ely]

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[Allie Ward]

A gift, well, Mint Mobile is extending.

[Dr. West Ely]

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[Allie Ward]

So here's the idea. You get it now, you call it.

[Dr. West Ely]

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[Allie Ward]

What do you have to lose? Give it a [e-mail] switch limited time.

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[Dr. Rebecca Lewison]

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[Allie Ward]

Okay, so now that we have done a little something for our heart and our courage, let's move on to our immune systems. We had a really great post viral Epidemiology episode with the Lovely and caring Dr. West Ely, who is a world expert in long Covid treatment and research. So if you know anyone who's dealing with chronic illness or long Covid or struggling after a virus, he's your guy. But as a doctor, you're very patient centered and you wrote a whole book about how the way that we look at how we treat patients needs to shift a little bit. And you know, you don't hear a lot of doctors being like, I went to a patient's bedside and talked to her for a while. Like, it doesn't. I feel like that doesn't happen very often. How do you approach this kind of care, especially for a disease that is still. Our knowledge is still developing. And you might be the fifth doctor that someone's seen because no one believes them. What's your philosophy and how to care for patients with this?

[Dr. West Ely]

All I can say, Allie, is that a lot happens in my mind when you ask me that question, but I just approach it on my knees. And what I mean by that is actually on my knees, you know, kneel down before this person because I am there to serve them and to try and make them big and me small. And by that I mean that there's nothing I can ever do to earn the privilege of being with people who are suffering in this regard. And our patients who are suffering with Long Covid have been through so much and not listened to that. The way I want to start this relationship is to listen. I want to hear, who are you? How are you suffering? What makes you you? I start oftentimes by simple questions like, can you just tell me? I call them Ely's four questions. What are your favorite hobbies, your favorite music, your favorite food, and your pets names? Because once I know these things about people, you know that they love Bob Dylan and you know, they love Chinese fusion, and their dog's name is Bacchus, the God of wine. And their favorite hobbies is that they work on cars in their spare time or a. I go, oh, my gosh, this is an entire person, mind, body, and spirit. Wes, never allow yourself to think of this person as a diseased heart or kidneys or stomach or brain. This is a whole person, Wes. I see who I can. And we love it. I'm an ICU doctor. I start at the bedside, and I love taking care of critically ill people. And that was why I got it wrong at the very beginning with Long Covid. Because we had all these COVID patients in the ICU on the ventilators, and no doubt they left with tremendously bad post intensive care syndrome pics. But it's a really beautiful thing to be able to be let in people, let you into their life.

[Allie Ward]

If you suspect you have Long Covid and you go to a doctor, how do you feel like doctors should approach this? If there are any doctors listening or if there's any patients who could have some kind of game plan, what is the arc of treatment or seeing A patient, like in an idealized way, the.

[Dr. West Ely]

First thing that the doctor, the nurse practitioner, the pa, the nurse, anybody needs to do is say, let me get rid of my biases, get rid of my presuppositions and any judgments of you at all. I'm talking to the patient. I mean, you don't have to say this out loud. This is just the mental approach. And let me just see who you are and tell me your story. So I need to be a sleuth. Here, here, let's understand. When did you get Covid, exactly? And what documentation do you have of that? Covid. So let's. Let's see, you know, okay, In January of 2022, you got Covid. That was your second bout. Before that, you had no symptoms. But on the second round of COVID you're telling me that in late February, eight weeks later, you got wham hit. You couldn't go back to work, you were bedbound, and you couldn't think clearly. Okay, that's a seven to eight week time frame that fits perfectly for the disease state of Long Covid. Now tell me, how did your symptoms evolve? What did you try to do to fix it? How did it get worse or better? And what have you tried since? And so it's just being a good history taker and a good listener. I'm not Buddhist, but this great Tao te Ching number 65 in Buddhism says the ancient masters taught the student to not know, because if the student thinks they know, they cannot be taught. But if you know, you don't know. So when you come to me with your complaints, I don't know how you're suffering, yet I have to suspend judgment and listen to you. And that's where we start. And all good clinicians should start with that.

[Allie Ward]

So, yeah, that's a great post. Viral epidemiology episode with a doctor who approaches his work and his patients with such a warm heart. Another doctor we love, Dr. Herman Taylor, approaches your heart with warmth in our cardiology episode, in case you missed it, it's such a good one. So many great questions. Jenna Congdon wanted to know.

[Evan Pridmore]

Hey, so my question is regarding EKG tracings in the wild. You see them on logos, on people's tattoos kind of everywhere, and very often they're really inaccurate and pretty funny if you know what you're looking at. My husband and I both work in healthcare, and we play a little game of pointing out these really wrong EKG tracings and trying to diagnose them. Do you notice when you see really wacky EKG lines and try to make up in your head what they could be if they were in real life. I have seen one that just didn't make any sense and was so inaccurate on the side of an ambulance. So let me know if you play this game, too.

[Allie Ward]

Oh, all the time. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's in logos.

[Dr. West Ely]

Where, you know, critical parts of the.

[Allie Ward]

Waveforms are missing that would either not exist in nature or be totally alarming. But we're okay in terms of not getting too upset about that? Actually, we kind of like the attention that people are thinking about their hearts in that way. And if you're like, heh, heh, heh, yes, but you have no idea what Jenna or Dr. Taylor are talking about. Congratulations. You are Alie Ward. Come along as I figure out what those waves mean. Okay, so on an ekg, there's a little bump above the baseline followed by that big spike, which then comes down, dips a little below the baseline, and then another bump, like the first one, but a little bigger. Very, very simply, that first small bump is a P wave, and that represents the electrical activity in the atria, the two atriums. And the big spike, or QRS complex is what that big spike is called, is the ventricle electrical activity. And then the third bump, a little bigger than that P wave, is called a T wave, and that's when the heart is at rest. And if these rhythms are off, then that could indicate an issue under the hood. Buddy, you got something going on. And an irregular beat is called an arrhythmia. An afib, or atrial fibrillation, is an irregular and some say chaotic heart rhythm that needs to be monitored to make sure that it doesn't cause blood clots or a stroke down the line. Now, how many beats a minute should you have? What's the good tempo you want to shoot for? So 60 to 100 is in the healthy range, but consistently over 100 is what's known as tachycardia, which means fast heart. And if you're in good cardiovascular shape, you might have a lower resting heart rate because your myocardium is strong enough, where a heartbeat blasts enough blood out, so it can kind of slow down the pace. It's breezing along. Conversely, a weaker heart has to kind of frantically beat faster to get blood to where it needs to go. If you're thinking about your heart beating and you're thinking too hard about it, just take a deep breath, get some oxygen in your blood. You're good and safe. If you do want to pump up that cardiac muscle again. See our salugenology episode, which will convince you to start riding your bike again or taking neighborhood walks or just joining a Zumba class or doing what you can. All of that is good for the heart and brain and for people who have had deep struggles with their brain. I get it. I'm with you. Especially if we're talking OCD or even a blush of it or maybe someone you love might have it. Dr. Wayne Goodman is the guy when it comes to research on this condition. Like, he invented the scale by which OCD is diagnosed. He's great. We learned so much. And how about for people who are verbal and aware of their own rituals? And is there ever an overlap that gets misdiagnosed where people maybe don't realize they have OCD or don't realize that they have autism? Like eating the same meal, say, or sitting in the same spot?

[Dr. Joseph Ferrari]

It's something who's very ritualized. Yeah, yeah. That isn't necessarily ocd. The other thing I would say is, although you can have a monosymptomatic picture, meaning that maybe just one type of ocd, Most patients with OCD check off different boxes. Sometimes when I'm not sure myself, I have more confidence in the diagnosis when I find that over time, some of their obsessions and compulsions have changed and that they check off different ones.

[Allie Ward]

What about executive function and perfectionism or avoidance? Things like that. People who might have trouble. Yeah, like for example, me getting set into work or work avoidance patrons. Matt Sekafian Kuxjember Issa. A perfectionist, but not ocd. Haver and Alex Rose, first time question asker, who asked quite simply, why is perfection OCD such a bitch? Where is the line between perfectionism and ocd?

[Dr. Joseph Ferrari]

There is another condition, obsessive compulsive personality disorder, that sometimes it's hard to distinguish that from ocd. But that diagnosis implies more perfectionism and insistence that others kind of follow rules. And generally speaking, people with OCPD don't have a lot of insight. Generally what I found is that it's their family members who say, you really need to see somebody because you're driving me crazy with wanting to do things in your way all the time or in a certain way all the time. So there is some connection, but I think they're distinct most of the time.

[Allie Ward]

And other experts note that the core difference lies in the motivation behind perfectionist tendencies. Is it a high standard? Is there a certain goal in mind? OCD related perfectionism, however, may come from a Place of extreme anxiety, catastrophizing self criticism and doubt. So one compulsion is avoidance. And a 1994 study titled Procrastination tendencies among Obsessive Compulsives and Their Relatives did find a correlation between OCD and task avoidance. The author of that study is world renowned procrastination expert Dr. Joseph Ferrari. And if you're like, you should do an episode with him. I did volitional psychology. We did it. It's linked in the show notes. His big advice is like, just do the thing. He even signed my copy of his book Still Procrastinating. The no Regrets Guide to Getting It Done with the scrawl. Just do it now. All caps. At the time I was like, joe, I can't, so fuck me, I guess. And then I learned much later that just do it now was just a little brusque and a less gentle type of exposure response prevention, essentially. So until you stop procrastinating, you will not realize that procrastinating and compulsive avoidance is worse than than the thing you're afraid to do poorly. And because of a therapist who understood erp, I have since adopted two phrases which are essentially like bite sized takeaways that have helped me more than anything else to tackle my decades long plague of putting off the highest stakes tasks and avoiding them. So I used to know myself as a last minute person. That was just like my vibe. Now when I see an email or a form or a thing I have to write and I avoid it because what if I do it wrong? I tell myself I'm a person who does things at the first minute. So that when a task or email or decision or a draft of something comes up, I decide or I start it that first minute or that first day, do not let it grow mold. So I just say I'm a person who does things at the first minute to have me just jump right into something. The other thing that exposure response prevention has taught me to say to myself all the time is worst things first. So what do you dread the most? Do it first. If you don't want to do it. Well, it's therapy to get it done. And after a while you say, wow, okay, I did a bunch of things I would have otherwise avoid. They did not kill me and I did not do such a bad job that my whole life collapsed. So look, I made this episode and so far I have not died or killed anyone in the process. Hooray. So yeah, if you have to confront something you want to avoid, I'm sorry, the Best clinical therapy is doing it, do it quickly. Like it's bad news because it's exactly what you don't want to hear. I know, but that's good news because it's so straightforward, effective, and it's simple. So, yeah, exposure, response, prevention. It's a bitch, but it works. Not timely, however, is medieval manuscript drafting, especially when what you're bedazzling in the margins are snails. Bitch. What are you talking about? You're asking me? I'm talking about scholar Evan Pridmore, who studies 700-year-old books and researchers why so many of them feature snails, but in general, what medieval memes are some of your favorites? Obviously cupping your own eyeballs in each palm.

[Evan Pridmore]

Yeah, classic.

[Allie Ward]

Solid. What are some that are going around right now that you really enjoy getting some light of day?

[Evan Pridmore]

Ooh, okay, so I would say nuns harvesting dicks off of trees. Always a good one.

[Allie Ward]

What story was that telling?

[Evan Pridmore]

It's basically a symbol of fertility, et cetera. Yeah, it's a good one.

[Allie Ward]

Take for example, the 14th century illustrations for a medieval love handbook called Romance of the Rose, which features a nun in a brown robe and a veil reaching upwards toward a branch to pluck a hefty dong from among the leaves. And she's carrying a basket. It's also filled with dongs. And it reminds me of like the opening credits of some celebrity cooking show. Just our star walking through a sun drenched orchard harvesting goodies, only it's a nun and their dicks. And this wasn't just in the Romance of the Rose. There was an absolute bumper crop of this imagery at the time.

[Evan Pridmore]

There's an incredible calendar that you can get, like a wall calendar that just has different medieval penis trees for every month. And frankly, I need that in wallpaper.

[Allie Ward]

Forget your books in the background.

[Evan Pridmore]

Yeah, exactly. That's where it's at.

[Allie Ward]

We got a better idea. What are some other ones going around?

[Evan Pridmore]

So one of my favorites this always comes up is medieval artists didn't know how to draw animals. And to be fair, a lot of the animals do look completely silly. Medieval dogs, medieval cats. My favorite one is a medieval oyster because it just looks like it has a frowny face, which I didn't even think oysters had faces. But, you know, interpretation, creative license. If you just look at them on the surface. Yeah, they look hysterical and they don't make any sense.

[Allie Ward]

I feel like a lot of the animals have human faces in a way that's unsettling maybe. I mean, to the point of oysters having mouths.

[Evan Pridmore]

Yeah, part of my research is why a lot of animals have human features and vice versa. And it was very much a common trend to assign animal features to or assign human behaviorisms to animals, therefore you would depict them that way. So, of course, we still have some of these things like peacocks being pro or lions for bravery. So things like that.

[Allie Ward]

How are snails on that scale? How did people look upon snails? I mean, they're slow and they are gooey.

[Evan Pridmore]

They are. They're slimy.

[Allie Ward]

Yeah. They can retract, but they're also romantic. They toss darts at each other. That's sweet.

[Dr. Rebecca Lewison]

Yeah.

[Allie Ward]

So snails in medieval art, when did this become a motif?

[Evan Pridmore]

So, first of all, as a preface, medieval art, a lot of it is symbolic or non literal. Now, the actual theme of snails being used as what we would call badpage imagery, which means bottom of the page imagery, which is kind of where that marginal illumination really comes into play. And that whole theme of, like, grotesques or the sort of funny motifs didn't really start until around the 11th, 12th centuries, and it didn't really take off until the 13th and 14th centuries. So the 13th century, especially the late 13th century, was like. Like 1270 to about 1320 was like the high period for snails. And there's a lot of different reasons for that, but the main one, the most predominant theory and the one that's most widely accepted, is that it is, unfortunately, a xenophobic response to a group of people living in Europe at that time.

[Allie Ward]

How were they depicted in that way? How did that signify a group of people? And what group?

[Evan Pridmore]

The group is called the Lombards. So it's a group of people from the Lombardy region and. And there was a lot of sour grapes against them because they successfully sacked Rome multiple times to the point that they were only actually driven off by Charlemagne in the 9th century.

[Allie Ward]

And a side note, the Lombards came from the small tribe of Germanic origin, and between the mid-500s to late-700s, about 75 years after the fall of the Roman Empire, the Lombards absolutely kicked ass in what is now Italy.

[Evan Pridmore]

So because of that, a lot of people hated the Lombards. They were not legally allowed to own land, they were ostracized and they were barred from most professions because they couldn't go into things like apprenticeships or schools, et cetera. So one of the things that they were able to turn to was usury and money lending, which was seen as a greedy, frowned upon practice. In other words, they were slimy.

[Allie Ward]

Got it. So a lot of drama, a lot of historical context and Gossip about people who are now bones. So make sure to listen to that medieval codicology episode with Evan Pridmore. And as long as we are hitting the books, the famed Dr. Ali Luks, who went viral a few years back for her dissertation on olfactory descriptions in books, finally joined to talk about enlisting our nose when we are reading with our eyes. And what about some other smells in novels and in poetry, the way that. That people are portrayed, do you find that that goes through their bodily smells or their food smells or their perfumes? Like what types of notes? What do those notes draw on a lot?

[Dr. Ali Luks]

Gosh, big question. The nice thing about literature is that very often it kind of replicates but also intensifies life. So all of those things can be found in literature. You know, comments on people's bodily smells, comments on people's food, especially when that food is kind of new to someone. The whole point of smell really is for us to notice new things in our environment. So my former supervisor, Steve Connor, says that smell is the sense of discrimination. It helps us distinguish the ripe from the rotten and the good from the bad. And that's its kind of function for us. So very often in real life, as in literature, smell kind of acts as a way of sometimes othering people, but also kind of registering discomfort with the otherness of people and their weird ways.

[Allie Ward]

And behaviors and foods and a few people. Fran, Izzy B. And Erin White wanted to know about food, and Fran said, why do so many white Americans especially claim to hate the smell of garlic or garlic bread breath? They've never noticed anyone with bad garlic breath. And garlic is delicious. However, coffee breath is terrible. And Izzy B. Wanted to know. I'm curious about if there's connections between the smells of cultural cuisines mentioned. Indian or Mexican cuisine, for example, or diet culture and racism, classism, other prejudices. So, yeah, the different smells of different types of cuisine and how that gets mentioned.

[Dr. Ali Luks]

Oh, gosh, there's so much, so much interesting stuff there. So I've actually read, not recently, but read quite a lot of academic work on the smell of garlic and the kind of particular socio political and historical situations in which people being averse to the smell of garlic arises and how it relates to not always necessarily racism, but certainly xenophobia. So against, for example, Italians, I think is maybe the most obvious now, but also the Jewish community where garlic and onions were used in their kind of traditional cooking.

[Allie Ward]

Okay, so I'm mostly Italian, like 75%, so I honestly did not know that the waft of simmering onions or garlic could possibly be perceived poorly. Like, what else does food taste like? I don't like it. I like it very much.

[Evan Pridmore]

I, I think.

[Allie Ward]

Did we add salt and pepper? I think we needed salt and pepper.

[Evan Pridmore]

No, there's no salt and pepper in it.

[Allie Ward]

And there's this 2016 paper out of the history department of King's College London titled Grease and Sweat, Race and smell in 18th century English culture. And it notes that at the heart of bristling at a so called difference in odor was essentially the fear of otherness. And given our two part vampirology episode about Eastern European folklore and garlic as a repellent for the undead, there were likely deep fears and associations made with certain food smells. And the paper mentions that under oppression, any group associated with poverty is associated with contamination.

[Dr. Ali Luks]

It brought up this enormous discourse about the smell of garlic and it became this kind of foundational derogatory feature of that group and became a bit of a trope basically. So that's that coffee breath. Coffee breath reminded me of this novel called Come Join Our Disease by Sam Byers, who writes so wonderfully about the smells associated with the commute, kind of the work commute and the like long incubated farts and like dehydrated spit and like it's incredibly like just so precise the way he's able to evoke these particular smells. And I think, you know, stale coffee breath is one of those things that he locates as well as a kind of pervasive feature of the London commute especially.

[Allie Ward]

We have a whole episode about coffee and yes, we delve into coffee breath in it and it turns out it's not so much the coffee itself, but it's the things that you are splashing into the coffee like creamers and milks and sugars. And by you I mean me, and by splashing I mean pouring liberally. And those are what make your mouth mouth a mid morning stink bog. But that whole episode is stellar. Now what about lunch though?

[Dr. Ali Luks]

And then the other question was about kind of racism and ethnic cuisines. We actually talk about this a fair amount, I think in public discourse. The kind of the idea that people will go to, to school or to their workplace and they'll bring with them a lunch that is specific to their culture. You know, the food that they grew up eating, which is really comforting to them and other people will kind of turn their nose up and make them feel bad about eating it. And we've seen actually like bans on this kind of thing in public libraries, you know, where you'll say like, don't bring in smelly foods. And sometimes they'll specify what kind of smelly foods they mean. And they'll say things like, you know, samosa. And you think, well, you know, fish and chips are really smelly as well. But you're not isolating that as a thing that you're not allowed to bring into this public space. So that clearly has some kind of racial component to it. I think we should take it seriously, actually. It's worth having those conversations, I think.

[Allie Ward]

So ask a collection of experts your curious questions and please do catch up on any one of the stellar ologists that you may have missed in 2025. They're all are all absolute bangers of episodes. I loved each one of the ologists. To find those episodes, just check the show notes, which will take you to more info about the guest and their research. We also have that new merch designed by Andy diaz [e-mail] or in the link in the show notes with proceeds going to the National Immigration Law Center. So get one for a friend too if you can. Or consider donating what you can to that cause. We are at Ologies on bluesky and Instagram. I'm Allie Ward with one L on both that new Ologies merch. Again, Ologies Merch Smallogies are our G rated shorter versions. They're in their own podcast feed. Just look for S M O L O G I E S or hit the link in the Show Notes. Thank you again to patrons of the show who support for as little as a dollar a month via patreon.com ologies thank you also to Aaron Talbert who admins Theologies podcast Facebook group. Aveline Malik makes our professional transcripts. Kelly R DW does the website. Noel Dilworth Scheduling produced all of these episodes. Our best of managing directors is Susan Hale. Jake Chaffee and lead editor Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio made these episodes happen. Each one and they pulled the clips and put them together for this bonus episode. Nick Thorburn made the theme music and if you stick around till the very end, you know, I may tell you a secret this week. The secret is that this episode was supposed to go up at the end of the year in 2025 and I just kept putting it off. So I it went from a best of 2025 to an in case you missed it episode. Also, I didn't know that in case you missed it meant in case you miss like I C y m I I didn't know what that meant on the Internet for like years and it always annoyed me. And then I was like, I should just look it up. Also, I thought cinga migra meant know your rights for like a long time. And then I was like, oh, litology, that's not what it means. And I like it even more. Look it up. Okay, bye bye. Some great stuff in there.

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[Allie Ward]

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