Fast science talk with useful tangents.
Science... sort of is a conversational science-comedy show where Ryan and rotating guests chase real ideas through jokes, detours, and plain-English questions. Recent episodes move from wasps and apple orchards to wok cooking, speculative spacecraft, AGU reporting, and the science hiding inside everyday habits.
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Science... sort of is a science-comedy conversation show with a strong appetite for the half-serious borderlands around knowledge. Ryan hosts episodes that bring in guests and returning friends, then lets the conversation find its shape through questions and interruptions. The result is brisk and informal. It is not a polished lecture, and that is the point. Recent episodes have covered wasps, apple orchards, wok cooking, AGU interviews, speculative spacecraft, and the scientific plausibility of Project Hail Mary. The show is comfortable moving from an academic affiliation to the taste of cider, then back toward the biology that made the tangent relevant in the first place. It likes mechanisms. It also likes jokes about how messy it is to explain them out loud. The J. Kenji Lopez-Alt episode turns cookware into a surprisingly rich practical-science object, comparing a wok with cast iron and Dutch ovens through frying, steaming, braising, and stovetop cleanup. The Project Hail Mary special uses book-club energy to talk through alien atmospheres, sound, spin gravity, and engineering compromises without sanding off the fun of the fiction. Episodes with Ben Tippett, Kelly Wienersmith, Patrick, Joe, Abe, and others lean into recurring chemistry, with familiar voices nudging each other back toward the topic after detours. Those detours are part of the show’s editorial identity. Drinks segments can wander through coffee beans, burdock tea, sassafras, beer, cider, mulled wine, or cannabis seltzer, turning small rituals into loose prompts for science-adjacent conversation. The humor is dry, playful, and sometimes blunt, but the center stays warm. Guests often carry the technical depth while the table supplies pacing, skepticism, and ordinary-language checks. That makes dense subjects feel less sealed off. It also lets practical curiosity sit beside absurd examples without either one cancelling the other out. Science... sort of suits listeners who want pop science with personality, especially when the route to the answer includes a few wrong turns, corrections, and oddly useful side roads.
Made for: For curious listeners who like pop science, food science, speculative fiction, field reporting, and interviews that still feel like a table conversation. It especially suits people who enjoy jokes and detours alongside real explanations.
What sets it apart: The show’s edge is its balance of guests and lived-in banter: technical ideas are clarified through interruptions, analogies, drinks, food, books, and ordinary annoyances. It feels less like a lecture than a smart conversation that keeps catching itself becoming educational.
Conversations about things that are science, things that are sort of science, and things that wish they were science.A member of the Brachiolope Media Network.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Scientific ideas become practical questions here, tested through informed conversation, concrete comparisons, and an easy tolerance for productive tangents.
Ryan anchors Science... sort of with an unusually elastic kind of curiosity. A conversation with Dr. Andrew Forbes starts from research on wasps, while J. Kenji Lopez-Alt turns the wok into a practical discussion of cooking technique and versatility.
A spinning spaceship and a wok full of fries: your curiosity has excellent range.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A loose, funny Science Sort Of episode where skipping strikes leads to drinks, chemistry, and social awkwardness.
Skipping strikes gives this Science Sort Of episode a deliberately loose path into things that fly through the air. The recording starts with awkward off-mic material Ryan says cannot make the podcast, then settles as Dr. Patrick Vaughn Wheatley returns and Dr.
A practical case for the wok as a versatile everyday pan.
Science Sort Of frames this episode around a simple kitchen question: what can a wok do that the pan already on the stove cannot? Ryan's conversation with cookbook author and YouTuber J.
A loose, tea-flecked conversation that ends on fact checking and villain books.
Science Sort Of episode 345, "Evil Prevails," keeps its footing by moving from Ben Tippett's puppy story to burdock tea, then on to Ryan North's new villain book and the craft of fact checking.
Wasps, apples, and a grounded science conversation with an easy, meandering rhythm.
Science Sort Of keeps its focus on wasps, bringing Ryan back together with Kelly Wienersmith and Dr. Andrew Forbes of the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa.
A book club episode that keeps science and sort of science in lively tension.
Special Edition 16 frames Project Hail Mary as a book club episode, and its main draw is the steady push and pull between science and sort of science.
A warm, wandering science chat where vodka etymology and pineapple fermentation turn everyday details into odd little facts.
Episode 267 starts with Ryan and Kelly Wienersmith circling the heat in the DMV and Houston before wandering into the strange sound of phrases like "learn them" and "itch it." The appeal is less a tidy argument than the way their back-and-forth keeps opening little doors: a…
A playful science chat that moves from echo jokes to wasps, parasites, and Super Bowl Sunday chatter.
Science Sort Of opens in a playful register, moving from an echo gag to a Superb Owl and Super Bowl joke before turning toward the idea of getting into the brain of one wasp to understand another.
Science trivia with maximum side quests.
Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser build single reported stories around one scientific question.
Flora Lichtman interviews scientists, from gut-health researchers to Queen's Brian May.
Steven Novella and a rotating panel dissect weekly science news and debunk pseudoscience claims.
Long interviews with neuroscientists and philosophers on consciousness, decision-making, and whether AI is anything like a brain.
Bob McDonald anchors weekly multi-segment interviews on new research, from cricket courtship to moon missions.
Hosts Ryan and Kelly Wienersmith interview Misha Gopko, a PhD student from Russia, about his research on parasite manipulation in fish.
Host Ryan interviews Dr.
Kelly Wiener Smith discusses her research on the Cryptkeeper wasp, a parasitoid that manipulates gall wasps to die stuck in tree crypts.
Scientists used a laser on a Swiss mountain to guide lightning away from observatories.
Science Sort Of episode 346 features Ryan and J.
Science Sort Of episode 345, 'Evil Prevails,' brings back Ryan North to discuss How to Take Over the World, Practical Schemes and Scientific Solutions for the Aspiring Supervillain.
Science...
Science Sort Of special edition 16 is a book club discussion of Andy Weir's Project Hail Mary, with Ryan, Joe Batwinis, and Tim Dobbs talking from Paris and the U.S.
The hosts banter about drinks and off-topic chatter before introducing the episode's theme 'The World Without Us' and welcoming back a co-host.
The hosts introduce an interview they conducted at a conference, joking about their roles and the theme of training science.
The hosts discuss the origin of the phrase 'feeling your oats' with humorous banter before introducing the show.