On October 9, 1975, CBC listeners across the country heard David Suzuki introduce the very first episode of Quirks & Quarks. 50 years and thousands of interviews later, Quirks is still going strong, bringing wonders from the world of science to listeners, old and new.

On October 7, 2025 we celebrated with an anniversary show in front of a live audience at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario. We had guests from a range of scientific disciplines looking at what we’ve learned in the last 50 years, and hazarding some risky predictions about what the next half century could hold. 

Our panelists were:

Evan Fraser, Director of Arrell Food Institute and Professor of Geography at the University of Guelph, co-chair of the Canadian Food Policy Advisory Council, a fellow of the Pierre Elliot Trudeau foundation, and a fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society.

Katie Mack, Hawking Chair in Cosmology and Science Communication at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics.

Luke Stark, Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Information & Media Studies at Western University in London, Ontario, and a Canadian Institute for Advanced Research Azrieli Global Scholar with the Future Flourishing Program.

Laura Tozer, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of Toronto and director of the Climate Policy & Action Lab at the Department of Physical and Environmental Sciences at the University of Toronto Scarborough.

Ana Luisa Trejos, a professor in the Department Electrical and Computer Engineering and the School of Biomedical Engineering and Canada Research chair in wearable mechatronics at Western University in London, Ontario.

Yvonne Bombard, professor at the University of Toronto and scientist and Canada Research Chair at St. Michael’s Hospital, Unity Health Toronto, where she directs the Genomics Health Services Research Program.