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Quirks and Quarks

CBC Radio"s Quirks and Quarks covers the quirks of the expanding universe to the quarks within a single atom... and everything in between.

science earth sciences

All Episodes

00:54:09

The recipe for finding life on other planets, and...

Quirks and Quarks ·

2025/02/28

Big birds with bitty brains are still kind of brightWe’ve learned a lot about the remarkable intelligence of birds like crows and parrots, but not much work has been done on large flightless birds. A new study that explored the problem-solving abilities of emus, ostriches and rheas suggests that some of these birdy behemoths have impressive cognition too. In a first-of-its-kind study, a team led by University of Bristol’s Fay Clark trained the birds to use puzzles to get food, and they found that

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00:54:09

Is it Dark Energy, or is time just different in...

Quirks and Quarks ·

2025/02/21

Scientists are recruiting elephant seals to learn more about the oceans’ twilight zoneBelow about 200 metres there’s still a lot going on in the ocean, but it’s tremendously hard to observe and understand even with modern technology. Scientists from the University of California, Santa Cruz have maintained a long-term monitoring study of elephant seals. The team, including PhD candidate Allison Payne, has discovered they can use the seals as scientific sentinels, to help humans better understand the

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00:54:09

How AI is transforming science, and more...

Quirks and Quarks ·

2025/02/14

As soon as the last ice age glaciers melted, Indigenous people occupied this siteA recently discovered archaeological site in Saskatchewan, dated to just less than 11,000 years ago is the oldest settlement in the region by about 1,500 years. It also is evidence that Indigenous people settled there as soon as the environment could support them after the glaciers disappeared. Glenn Stuart, from the University of Saskatchewan, is one of the archaeologists working along with local Indigenous community

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00:54:09

The rapidly changing Arctic, and more

Quirks and Quarks ·

2025/02/07

A little bit of scratching can do some good, but too much can hurtScratching an itch can feel great, so scientists decided to dig into why that is the case since we know too much scratching isn’t good for us. Dr. Dan Kaplan, a professor of dermatology and immunology at the University of Pittsburgh, said they found that scratching drives inflammation to the skin, which, in light moderation, helps to fight bacterial skin infections. But he warns that continual or excessive scratching can prolong an

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00:54:09

Technology to preserve biodiversity and more…

Quirks and Quarks ·

2025/01/31

Bits of Bennu have building blocks of lifeNASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission took six years to travel to the asteroid Bennu and return samples to Earth. Now, the first results from the analysis of these rocks are being released. Researchers found evidence of salty water, as well as the elements necessary for life, such as amino acids and the building blocks for RNA and DNA. We spoke with Kim Tait, senior curator of mineralogy at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, and co-author of one of the recent studies,

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00:54:09

Solving mysteries in our solar system, and more

Quirks and Quarks ·

2025/01/24

Reintroducing Hawaii’s sacred crow to the wildThe world’s most endangered crow, the Hawaiian crow or or ʻalalā, is making tentative steps towards a comeback. After going extinct in the wild, only 120 birds remain in captivity, in two facilities operated by the San Diego Zoo. Over the years, researchers have attempted reintroductions in the bird's native habitat on the Big Island of Hawaii, but those efforts have all been unsuccessful. Recently, the team tried something different - reintroducing the

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00:54:09

Climate scientists as physicians of the planet, and more

Quirks and Quarks ·

2025/01/17

Ancient human ancestors didn’t eat meat, and so couldn’t build big brainsOne of the main reasons scientists think we became so smart is because at some point in our evolutionary past, our ancestors started eating energy-dense meat to fuel the growth of large brains. However it hasn’t been clear when this started. Using a new technology, scientists were able to analyze the tooth enamel of seven 3.5 million year old Australopithecines to directly measure their meat consumption. Tina Lüdecke, from the

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00:54:09

How crocheted hats help scientists learn about cats,...

Quirks and Quarks ·

2025/01/10

Was Rome’s fall due to heavy metal poisoning making Romans dumber?Ice cores that preserve traces of atmospheric pollutants through history have revealed that industrial activity by Romans – particularly the use and production of lead – meant the air the Romans breathed was heavily contaminated. The levels were high enough to cause neurological problems, including a drop in cognitive function across the population. Joe McConnell and his team at the Desert Research Institute published their findings

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00:54:09

Our Listener Question Show

Quirks and Quarks ·

2025/01/03

Genevieve Willis from London, Ontario asks: Is there any evidence to suggest that “getting cold” by, say, dressing inadequately in cold weather, or sitting in a cold draft, actually increases our susceptibility to illness?For the frigid answer, we spoke with Michael Kennedy who is an associate professor of exercise physiology at the University of Alberta.Jim Raso from St. Albert Alberta wrote us: My question has to do with our sense of time passing. As I have gotten older – I am 73 now – I noticed

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00:54:09

Silly seals sabotage serious science and more…

Quirks and Quarks ·

2024/12/27

Some optimistic and positive science news to end the year.For rats, anticipation of a pleasurable event is a pleasure in itselfOne day early in the pandemic, behavioural neuroscientist Kelly Lambert from the University of Richmond went to check on her rats. The rats responded with excitement when they saw her, anticipating the treats they were about to receive. That inspired her to pivot her research to study the effects that anticipating pleasurable experiences could have on the brain. She’s found

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00:54:09

Our holiday science book show

Quirks and Quarks ·

2024/12/20

How ancient artifacts emerge from melting iceAs Earth’s glaciers and ice sheets melt due to global warming, they are revealing rare archaeological treasures released from a frozen time capsule. These objects are often made of organic material – human and animal remains and wooden tools that only survive in ice. In her book, The Age of Melt: What glaciers, ice mummies, and ancient artifacts teach us about climate, culture, and a future without ice, Lisa Baril tells the story of the archaeologists

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00:54:09

The Human Cell Atlas: ‘Google Maps’ for our bodies,...

Quirks and Quarks ·

2024/12/13

A NASA probe is going to touch the Sun for ChristmasThe Parker Solar Probe is going to be making its closest approach to our Sun on Dec. 24, diving at 800,000 km/h into the corona of our star and getting within 6.5 million kilometers to the solar surface. It’s the culmination of a successful mission during which the probe has measured the solar wind and flown through solar storms. We speak with C. Alex Young, the Associate Director for Science Communication in the Heliophysics Division at NASA's

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00:54:09

Hacking photosynthesis — how we'll improve on Mother...

Quirks and Quarks ·

2024/12/06

Early people in North America had mammoth appetitesThe people of the Clovis culture, who lived across Ice Age North America 13,000 years ago, left behind many tools and artifacts that suggest they were skilled hunters. And now chemical analysis of the incredibly rare find of bones of a Clovis child has given us the first direct evidence of what they were eating. The research, co-led by James Chatters of McMaster University, revealed they were “super-carnivores” whose diet mostly consisted of mammoth

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00:54:09

Exploring the limits of human longevity, and more

Quirks and Quarks ·

2024/11/29

What the dinosaurs left behind tells the story of their rise to dominanceBones aren’t the only thing we can use to understand the dinosaurs. A new study of a rich trove of fossilized feces and vomit is telling the story of how dinosaurs diversified and came to dominate the planet starting 230 million years ago. Paleontologist Martin Qvarnström from Uppsala University in Sweden said it appears that the secret to dinosaurs’ success is in their ability to adapt to their changing environment. Their

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00:54:09

A brain ‘car wash’ could prevent neurological...

Quirks and Quarks ·

2024/11/22

Octopus camouflage is incredibly hard workOctopuses have the remarkable ability to change their appearance in the blink of an eye – assuming new skin coloration and patterns for camouflage or communication. A new study in the journal PNAS has explored how much energy this takes, and it turns out transforming themselves is a workout harder than you’d ever get at the gym. Dr. Kirt Onthank is a professor of Biology at Walla Walla University and known as The Octopus Guy on social media.Bigger isn’t

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00:54:09

An environmental historian looks at our symbiosis...

Quirks and Quarks ·

2024/11/15

Canadian bird flu case raises potential pandemic concernsA teen in BC critically ill with H5N1 bird flu has raised concerns about a new pandemic, since it’s not clear how they acquired the virus. Researchers are closely monitoring the virus as it spreads, primarily among animals for changes that could indicate it spreading more easily in humans. Matthew Miller, the Canada Research Chair of Viral Pandemics from McMaster University, says the timing of this case is particularly concerning given the

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00:54:09

New fishing technology could save endangered Right...

Quirks and Quarks ·

2024/11/08

Blood drinking bats can suck energy out of their protein-rich mealsVampire bats are famous for exclusively drinking blood, but they’re also surprisingly good runners. And part of why that’s surprising is that blood contains very little carbohydrates or fat, which most other mammals rely on for fuel. So Kenneth Welch and Giulia Rossi at University of Toronto Scarborough ran bats on a specially-designed treadmill to find out more. They discovered that the bats can almost instantly convert the amino

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00:54:09

The science of art appreciation, and more

Quirks and Quarks ·

2024/11/01

There’s no time like this time for Standard TimeIn most of Canada and the US, our clocks are “falling back” an hour as we switch to Standard time for the winter and as usual we’re hearing mutterings about abandoning the time change.. Chronobiologists like Malcolm von Schantz, who study our internal circadian rhythms, are saying that if we do ditch the practice, we should revert to standard time instead of having permanent daylight time, because morning light is very important to regulating our

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00:54:09

The amazing, brilliant, fascinating world of spiders...

Quirks and Quarks ·

2024/10/25

A Zombie star’s outburst could soon be appearing in the night skyIn 1946 a stellar explosion brightened the night sky as the result of a zombie star going nova 3,000 light-years away reached Earth. The nova soon dimmed, but scientists are expecting a repeat performance any day now. NASA astrophysicist Elizabeth Hayes, the project scientist of the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, described it as a white dwarf star devouring so much of its companion star that it reaches a critical threshold resulting

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00:54:09

Can we dump antacids in the ocean to soak up carbon...

Quirks and Quarks ·

2024/10/18

Canaries in the coal mine — a report on Canada’s bird life is an environmental report cardUsing millions of observations, collected over 50 years, from bird watchers across the country, the conservation group Birds Canada and Environment and Climate Change Canada have released a report called The State of Canada’s Birds. The big takeaways are that many bird species, such as grassland birds and arctic birds, are in trouble because of climate change, damage to habitat and other causes. The good news

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