10
10,000 steps really are good for you, Astronomers thrilled by JWST, garbage
picking cockatoos, on thin ice with Canadian glaciologists and red skies at
night?
Sept. 16, 2022
Science says 10,000 steps are actually a health benefit sweet spot; What the James Webb Space Telescope really saw this summer; Garbage-picking Australian cockatoos are in an arms race with homeowners; Scientists get back to work on Canada’s Glaciers after COVID interruptions; Quirks listener question - Red sky at night?
Tags: cbc, science & medicine, cbc radio, public radio, early universe
Older Episodes
This week we launch our season with our Summer in the Field program. For many of us, summer is the time for things like beaches, bike rides, and BBQs. For many scientists, however, summertime is also when they are at their busiest, travelling to remote locations to get up close …
We're on our summer break, so no new podcasts before our new season starts Sep 10. Check out our website at cbc.ca/quirks to listen to previous episodes.
We end our season with our ever-popular, always fascinating listener question show. In this show we'll answer listener questions like: Why humans don't have a tail - even though we have a tailbone? What would happen to your body if you were to die in space? Why the immune system …
Black Death origins, chicken domestication, the life of a mastodon, elephant
seal whiskers and ‘The Secret Perfume of Birds’
June 17, 2022
The Black Death was history’s most lethal plague. Now we know where it started; When we first kept chickens it was likely because they were pretty, not tasty; Fossil tusks tell the life story of a mastodon that died by violence; Elephant seals feel their way to prey using whiskers …
Astronomers make the music of the cosmos, by turning data into sound; Evidence suggests that humans omletted Australian Thunderbirds to extinction; New Hubble image proves there’s life in the old space telescope; Why removing invasive species can help ecosystems battle climate change; A paleontologist reconstructs what Earth sounded like through …
Why wild baby parrots babble like human babies; A mysterious stone found in the Egyptian desert is made of supernova stuff; Buzzing bats mimic hornets to deter predatory owls; Scallops will ‘go into the light’; A Canadian researcher makes the case for admiring the mighty mushroom.
This salamander is an unlikely but agile, aerial amphibian; Headbutting animals can accumulate brain damage; We can use the cables that carry the internet as environmental sensors; Plants that can survive extreme conditions could help us engineer more resilient crops; What we lose as we lose most of the world’s …
Study says climate change could cause us to lose sleep – in more ways than one; Scientists successfully grow plants in moon dust; Fossil preserves critical evidence for how trilobites had sex half a billion years ago; A scientist recreates avian soundscapes so we can hear what we’re missing; How …
Oyster shell mountains show history of sustainable Indigenous fisheries; Seagrass is hiding a submerged sweet CO2 secret; Saving the Mekong delta in six (not) easy steps; Researchers can read a bird’s brain to tell what it’s about to sing; The first COVID-19 vaccines were a medical miracle – the next …
With only 10 left, scientists say this tiny porpoise could survive – if we let it; Mars probe detects a whole lot of shaking going on; New heat-to- electricity device could make large thermal batteries a reality; A venomous marine worm with metal teeth reveals its secrets; Meet the Canadian …
Avian flu outbreak not currently a threat to humans, but awful for our feathered friends; Prehistoric people enjoyed “moving pictures” by combining rock art and firelight; The dingo genome tells a story of an animal that’s not quite dog or wolf; Joggers may be trying to make an effort, but …
Ridges on the surface of an icy Jupiter moon could mean water – and life; Ecotourists could be giving rare tropical iguanas diabetes; Dolphins whistle at each other to keep in touch with distant friends; Walking in the footsteps of the biggest dinosaurs; Humans have ravaged the world’s coral reefs, …
Fifteen-year-old Tai Poole won’t rest until he’s uncovered the mysteries of the universe, one probing question at a time. In Season 4 of his Webby-winning podcast, Tai talks to everyone from NASA scientists to stand-up comedians to his equally curious little brother Kien. If you’ve ever wondered if we can …
Legless fossils, smells of the past, research with Russia, sleeping sharks and
the new story of the first peoples in the Americas.
April 14, 2022
The first land animal to go legless three hundred million years ago; What did history smell like? New field of science aims to find out; This Canadian researcher was trapped on a Russian ship as war broke out; Sharks sleep, sometimes with their eyes wide open; A new book puts …
Plastic pollution is all over the arctic Monkeys consume fermenting fruit, likely for the extra calories from alcohol Biologists record and translate the songs of the manatee Indigenous-led conservation program saves caribou herd from extinction The Vikings might have left Greenland when it turned into brown-land Quirks Question - Do …
New human genome, lion cuddle chemical, Pluto’s ice volcanoes, deconstructing
de-extinction, giant crocodiles in BC
April 1, 2022
Scientists sequence complete, gap-free human genome for the first time; Oxytocin helps aggressive rescue lions chill out in sanctuaries; Pluto’s strange landscape includes 7 km tall ice volcanoes; Deconstructing de- extinction; Giant crocodiles left trackways in northeastern BC 95 million years ago.
Boa breathing, green fire retardant vampire bat evolution, building urban
biodiversity and fungal leather
March 25, 2022
How do snakes breathe when eating huge meals?; A new chemistry for green fire retardants; How vampire bats had to evolve to live on blood alone; How do we build urban biodiversity as cities continue to grow?; Waste food fed to fungi is turned into faux leather.
Baleen whales eat much more than we thought — and fertilize the oceans doing it; Understanding the most important greenhouse gas — water vapour; Fossil evidence suggests sabre-tooth cats cared for each other when injured; Deep-sea pioneer looks back on a career chasing light in the deep, dark ocean; Do …
Fire ordinarily helps the boreal's black spruce trees. Now it threatens them too; ‘Culturally cosmopolitan’ Bronze Age mummies found in China have surprising origins; Scientists peer into the depths of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot; Metal impregnated mandibles give these ants a razor-sharp bite; Andew Weaver, Canadian climate scientist turned-politician, on …