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It's Okay to Be Smart

It's Okay to Be Smart

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Join host Joe Hanson as he explores the eccentricities of the scientific world. From physics and astronomy, to biology and neuroscience, nothing is off-limits in this quirky exploration of all science has to offer.

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Many hot air balloons taking off into the sky.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 3 / Ep 10
5 minutes 55 seconds
Grade Level: 9 - 10
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Man in glasses and cardigan holds palms together with lips parted in mid-speech. He stands before a green background with white scratches.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 5 / Ep 13
5 minutes 23 seconds
Grade Level: 10 - 12
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Digital art shows the Titanic ship half sunk into the ocean with a large iceberg next to it.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 6 / Ep 3
5 minutes 23 seconds
Grade Level: 10 - 12
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Diagram. A little human figure with two dotted lines and two crisscrossed lines that represent light. In the middle of the lines is an almond shape that is labeled, “Lens.” The dotted lines lead up to a dark vertical line that is labeled, “Sensor/Retina.” Next to the dark line is an upside down human next to a right side up human that is labeled, “What you see.” Text, “Bending Light.”
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 6 / Ep 8
8 minutes 9 seconds
Grade Level: 7 - 12
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Infographic shows stacks of paper above text labels. The first is a tall white stack of paper labeled, “Endorse, Human-caused global Warming is Real.” The second is a yellow stack of paper falls down and is labeled, “Excluded, No Position.” The third is a very short stack of red paper is labeled, “Reject, Human-caused global warming is not real.”
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 6 / Ep 10
6 minutes 34 seconds
Grade Level: 7 - 12
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Diagram shows brain nerve cells branching like plant roots.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 6 / Ep 11
8 minutes 19 seconds
Grade Level: 7 - 12
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Man talks to us with his eyebrows furrowed a bit as he stands in front of a black background.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 6 / Ep 12
4 minutes 59 seconds
Grade Level: 7 - 12
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Man talks to us next to a framed image that looks like roots in the ground.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 6 / Ep 17
6 minutes 24 seconds
Grade Level: 7 - 12
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Graphic shows a gray fish with a fart cloud next to it. Inside the fart cloud is text that reads, “It’s Okay To be Fart.”
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 6 / Ep 18
5 minutes 6 seconds
Grade Level: 10 - 12
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Scatter plot graph plots the relationship between spices per recipe and mean annual temperature in Celsius. The higher the temperature the more spices per recipe. Next to the graph is a small map of the world with different foods and spices in the continents.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 6 / Ep 19
5 minutes 37 seconds
Grade Level: 9 - 12
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Eight different screens with the same man’s face. He makes different exaggerated expressions like smirking, pouting, surprised, grimacing, and more.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 6 / Ep 20
4 minutes 20 seconds
Grade Level: 7 - 12
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Diagram. Eight small strands with one or two red lines on them that represent DNA. The red lines are labeled two, six, seven, nine, ten, fourteen, fifteen, and X.” Next to the smaller strands is a bigger strand that is labeled “Twelve, NANOG, broken NANOG, pseudogenes.”
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 6 / Ep 21
6 minutes 57 seconds
Grade Level: 7 - 12
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Different math equations and graphs are drawn, with a butterfly as the backdrop.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 7 / Ep 7
9 minutes 17 seconds
Grade Level: 10 - 12
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Sixteen eyeballs, each with different eye color. Caption: Martin-Schultz scale.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 7 / Ep 9
5 minutes 37 seconds
Grade Level: 9 - 12
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A group of animals, a gorilla, a rhino, a lemur cat, and a scaled lizard.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 7 / Ep 10
5 minutes 55 seconds
Grade Level: 9 - 12
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Seven different butterflies, where four are placed at the corners facing the butterfly at the center and two at either side of the central butterfly.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 7 / Ep 11
11 minutes 12 seconds
Grade Level: 10 - 12
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An animal with the body of a lion, an extra goat head on its back, and a snake instead of a tail. Caption: Chimera.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 7 / Ep 14
9 minutes 43 seconds
Grade Level: 10 - 12
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A view of Moon in the dark sky. Caption: Maria, Latin for seas, and Sea of Tranquility, Mare Tranquillitatis.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 7 / Ep 15
10 minutes 31 seconds
Grade Level: 10 - 12
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A star filled night sky. Caption: P B S.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 7 / Ep 16
10 minutes 26 seconds
Grade Level: 10 - 12
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Sunlight is shining through in a forest with large number of trees.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 7 / Ep 17
5 minutes 27 seconds
Grade Level: 10 - 12
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A comparison of passive echolocation used in vehicles and active echolocation in dolphins.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 7 / Ep 18
16 minutes 8 seconds
Grade Level: 9 - 12
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Eggs of Screech owl, Turkey vulture, Audubon's Caracara, Kingfisher, Common Murree, Yellow Billed. Caption: Stoddard Et Al. Science 20 17.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 7 / Ep 19
7 minutes 23 seconds
Grade Level: 10 - 12
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Two different types of bacteria are seen all over a human outline. Caption: 37.2 trillion and 39 trillion.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 7 / Ep 20
11 minutes 24 seconds
Grade Level: 10 - 12
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Collage with black and white illustration of a twelfth century Chinese man holding out a scrap of paper. A red lantern on a pole overhead. Red prohibited symbol covers image of 2 gold bars.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 7 / Ep 21
9 minutes 36 seconds
Grade Level: 10 - 12
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The sample particles enter the mass spectrometer, which is accelerated, and then separated according to their individual mass of the particles by a magnet.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 7 / Ep 22
11 minutes 20 seconds
Grade Level: 10 - 12
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An enlarged view of the cells lining the retina is shown from an eyeball. A colorful and a black and white picture of parrot are shown on either side of the eyeball.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 7 / Ep 23
8 minutes 56 seconds
Grade Level: 10 - 12
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A photo depicts many branches of a large tree.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 7 / Ep 24
8 minutes 51 seconds
Grade Level: 10 - 12
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Man with glasses raises eyebrows and parts lips mid-speech. Toys and books are on bookshelves in background.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 7 / Ep 25
13 minutes 11 seconds
Grade Level: 10 - 12
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An illustration depicts the sinuses present in a human skull.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 7 / Ep 26
11 minutes 57 seconds
Grade Level: 9 - 12
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A world map illustrates the amount of bug species consumed, on a scale from 0 to 300 plus.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 7 / Ep 27
14 minutes 58 seconds
Grade Level: 9 - 12
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An illustration depicts the recycling machine, and a recycled product.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 7 / Ep 28
11 minutes 11 seconds
Grade Level: 9 - 12
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A graph plots pressure in Pascal’s versus temperature in degrees Celsius. The horizontal axis is marked at negative 5, 0, and 100. The vertical axis ranges from 1 kilo Pascal to 100 Mega Pascal’s in increments of exponents of 10. At 1 atmospheric pressure water is in solid ice at negative 5 degrees to 0 degrees, in liquid state from 0 degrees to 100 degrees Celsius, and in vapor form above 100 degrees Celsius.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 7 / Ep 29
7 minutes 22 seconds
Grade Level: 9 - 12
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An astronaut Don Pettit talks to host Joe Hanson. A rocket is seen in the background.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 7 / Ep 30
11 minutes 30 seconds
Grade Level: 9 - 12
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An aerial view of a canopy of trees.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 8 / Ep 1
10 minutes 44 seconds
Grade Level: 10 - 12
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A scale shows world population. 2 billion people will be added by 20 50 to the 7 billion at present. A number, 2 X, is shown over the food crops, wheat and corn.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 8 / Ep 2
6 minutes 28 seconds
Grade Level: 10 - 12
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A woman holds a wailing infant in her arms.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 8 / Ep 3
8 minutes 19 seconds
Grade Level: 10 - 12
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A battery gauge has 14 blocks, where 7 blocks are full. The grades of the battery gauge reads, from top to bottom, as follows. Gamma rays, X rays, U V, visible rays, and infrared. An arrow points from visible light to infrared.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 8 / Ep 4
8 minutes 23 seconds
Grade Level: 10 - 12
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A cartoon shows Benjamin Franklin sleeping on a bed. Sunlight pours into the room through an open window.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 8 / Ep 5
12 minutes 19 seconds
Grade Level: 10 - 12
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Line graph titled, "Exponential Growth, Covid-19." Y axis reads, "Cases open parentheses Outside of China close parentheses" and X axis reads, "Feb twelfth" at left and "March fifteenth" at right. Pink dots gradually curve upward from left to right where they're labeled "X, 1 point 4."
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 8 / Ep 6
7 minutes 35 seconds
Grade Level: 10 - 12
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Aerial view of man in glasses looking up at camera as he wipes his hands with a paper towel next to kitchen sink.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 8 / Ep 7
13 minutes 12 seconds
Grade Level: 10 - 12
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Man in glasses and zip sweatshirt parts lips in mid-speech. Bookshelves line wall in background. Title card reads, ''Cerebellum."
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 8 / Ep 8
9 minutes 52 seconds
Grade Level: 10 - 12
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Orange glare flares out from bright central object and is surrounded by flecks of colored light in outer space.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 8 / Ep 9
10 minutes 52 seconds
Grade Level: 10 - 12
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2 red lines branch off from a red dot at the top connecting to red dots that continue to branch off in twos 5 times to form a crown-shaped contagion.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 8 / Ep 10
2 minutes 13 seconds
Grade Level: 10 - 12
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Man with his baseball cap backwards, sits crisscross in a grassy garden outside.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 8 / Ep 11
9 minutes 57 seconds
Grade Level: 10 - 12
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Man in glasses parts lips in mid-speech. Bookshelves and art supplies line walls in background. Title card reads, "How to fly. Stay in the air."
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 8 / Ep 13
13 minutes 39 seconds
Grade Level: 10 - 12
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Two people standing apart, both wearing surgical masks.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 8 / Ep 16
7 minutes 25 seconds
Grade Level: 9 - 12
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Man in glasses and blue collared shirt gestures with hands out and lips pursed in mid-speech.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 8 / Ep 17
12 minutes 54 seconds
Grade Level: 10 - 12
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Man talks to us while moving his hands.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 8 / Ep 18
8 minutes 56 seconds
Grade Level: 10 - 12
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Woman sits in a room with a space mural and a bookcase behind her. There’s an image of a spring coil next to her.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 8 / Ep 19
12 minutes 21 seconds
Grade Level: 7 - 12
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Man sits and talks to us in a room with a bookcase with books and different knick-knacks on the shelf such as a Gundam toy, a mini globe, and a space rocket.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 8 / Ep 20
11 minutes 37 seconds
Grade Level: 10 - 12
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Red and orange digital atom with four electrons and a positive charge nucleus is next to a purple and yellow atom with four electrons and a positive charge nucleus. Text reads, “Atoms don't actually look like this.”
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 8 / Ep 21
8 minutes 7 seconds
Grade Level: 10 - 12
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Man looks at us with a stern expression and points his finger up like he’s telling us to stop. Behind him is a bookcase filled with books and knick-knacks like a Gundam toy, little bird figurines, and a small globe.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 8 / Ep 22
15 minutes 32 seconds
Grade Level: 10 - 12
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Man talks to us in a room with a bookcase filled with books and knick-knacks like bird figurines, a Gundam toy, and a small globe. Next to his head is a cartoon overlay of a person being electrocuted coming out of an outhouse.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 8 / Ep 23
8 minutes 1 seconds
Grade Level: 10 - 12
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Digital rendering shows a group of purple, green, and red clumps fused together.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 8 / Ep 24
11 minutes 20 seconds
Grade Level: 10 - 12
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Man lifts his sunglasses in shock and shows how red and sunburnt his face is. Next to him is an albino man under a glass dome. There are yellow squiggly rays behind them to represent sunrays.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 8 / Ep 25
5 minutes 42 seconds
Grade Level: 10 - 12
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Man looks at us as he sits in a room with a bookcase filled with books and knick-knacks such as Gundam toys, bird figurines, and dinosaur skeleton miniatures. A white rectangle labeled, “Self-Centered" is next to text that reads, “Other Oriented.”
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 8 / Ep 26
16 minutes 42 seconds
Grade Level: 10 - 12
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Man in glasses gestures with hand and parts lips in mid-speech. Toys and books on shelves displayed in background. Text at right reads, "Gimme that science!"
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 8 / Ep 27
14 minutes 48 seconds
Grade Level: 10 - 12
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Digital DNA strands with two orange arrows measure the width and length of the DNA. Text reads, “34A, 21A.”
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 9 / Ep 2
22 minutes 49 seconds
Grade Level: 10 - 12
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Man talks to us in a room with a bookcase filled with books and knick-knacks like a Gundam toy, small globe, and a model of a space rocket.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 9 / Ep 3
19 minutes 27 seconds
Grade Level: 10 - 12
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Digital illustration of an underground tunnel that goes from San Francisco to New York City.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 9 / Ep 4
11 minutes 58 seconds
Grade Level: 10 - 12
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View of Earth from space with arrows showing the ocean currents.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 9 / Ep 5
12 minutes 44 seconds
Grade Level: 10 - 12
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Neon green cartoon eel swimming in water with small fish swimming around it.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 9 / Ep 6
11 minutes 18 seconds
Grade Level: 10 - 12
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Man sits at a desk that has a computer, wires, and electrical and lab equipment on it. He holds a blue wire to a battery. Behind him is a bookcase filled with books and knick-knacks like a framed butterfly and different dinosaur skeleton miniatures.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 9 / Ep 7
18 minutes 49 seconds
Grade Level: 10 - 12
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Man speaks to camera while sitting in a room with a bookcase that is filled with books and knick-knacks such as a Gundam toy, a mini globe, and a spaceship.
It's Okay to Be Smart
Season 9 / Ep 9
12 minutes 31 seconds
Grade Level: 10 - 12
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