Exolore: facts-based fictional worldbuilding

Dec 28, 2023

Moiya invites food sustainability expert Alice Guillaume to imagine a world without food inequities. What they come up with is bright, colorful, and spectacularly diverse for something so genetically similar. 

HOSTED by Dr. Moiya McTier (@GoAstroMo), astrophysicist and folklorist

GUEST

1. Alice Guillaume manages the

Dec 14, 2023

Moiya returns to her conversation about constructing languages. They talk mouth and nose shapes, the relevance of trees, and the brain-melting subject of sentence word order in different languages. 

HOSTED by Dr. Moiya McTier (@GoAstroMo), astrophysicist and folklorist

GUESTS

1. Dr. Jessie Sams is a linguist and conlanger...

Nov 30, 2023

A sociologist, a biologist, and an astrophysicist walk into a zoom room and discuss what it would be like if everyone had three parents. Here's a hint: it gets complicated real fast. We discuss speculative science, the difficulty of large collaborations, mating types, and ~bedroom activity~

HOSTED by Dr. Moiya McTier (

Nov 16, 2023

What does it take to build a fictional culture from scratch? How can you respectfully draw inspiration from real-world cultures? Two anthropologists join me to share their tips!

HOSTED by Dr. Moiya McTier (@GoAstroMo), astrophysicist and folklorist

GUESTS

1. Dr. Carole McGranahan is an anthropology professor at...

Nov 2, 2023

What causes seasons on Earth? Our planet's axial tilt! But what might life be like on a world with no tilt at all?

HOSTED by Moiya McTier (@GoAstroMo), astrophysicist and folklorist

GUESTS

1. Maureen Kahiu is a Masters student of plant sciences at Penn State with a focus on turf grass pathology. She also has...