Quirks and Quarks

Archaeologists excavating a 13,800-year-old site in Alaska have uncovered a treasure trove of artifacts and domestic features that shed new light on the life and culture of the people who settled into the region. Hunter-gatherers lived at this site, known as Shég’ Xdaltth’i’, near the end of the last Ice Age when the Bering Land Bridge provided a passageway between mainland Russia and Alaska.

Also today: 

• Long space missions may raise astronauts’ risk of hip fractures
• Jet-lagged seabirds fly off course
• Bad dads and supermales. The life-altering effects of estrogen on fish
• Battery researcher wins Canada’s top science prize

For more information about today’s episode, visit cbc.ca/quirks.

The biting dynamics of the world’s deadliest mosquitoes: meet the researcher who rolled up her sleeves and endured more than 1,000 mosquito bites, all to understand how these deadly little creatures bite and guzzle our blood.

Also today: 

• Astronomers spot ghostly green star
• Stubby-legged sled dogs pull loads better
• Inside the stinky, spooky, magical world of bogs
• How a Zombie-like state lets cancer cells escape chemo

For more information about today’s episode, visit cbc.ca/quirks.

DNA samples from the oldest living land animal show how good genes and limited biochemical wear and tear have given a giant tortoise named Jonathan an extended lifespan. The genetic switches that control the genes for DNA repair and metabolism more closely matched his much younger relatives. 

Also today: 

• What fossilized vomit reveals about ancient sea monsters
• Meet the Nobel-winning physicist who hunts for ghost particles at the South Pole
• What Jonathan, the 194-year-old tortoise, can teach us about defying death
• Nuclear clocks begin ticking — and could become the world’s most precise timekeepers

For more information about today’s episode, visit cbc.ca/quirks.

We talk to two of this year’s newest Nobel Laureates, Dr. Karl Deisseroth and Peter Hegemann, about their discoveries in optogenetics, a technique that has transformed what we know about the brain — all thanks to a light-detecting algal protein.

Also today: 

• Gut microbes can encourage fever after vaccination
• Weather forecasters are less confident in their predictions these days. Here’s why
• What raccoons and other wild brains can teach us about ourselves

Quirks & Quarks has been nominated for a Signal Award! You can vote for us here. 

For more information about today’s episode, visit cbc.ca/quirks.

Black holes are voracious eaters, but they’re also quite messy, and often after devouring a star, they’ll let out a big burp, launching jets of high energy particles through space. Now, in a recent study, a team of astrophysicists has figured out the formula behind the timing of these burps.

Also today: 

• Skiing, hiking and roads are taking a toll on wolverines
• The buzzy, chirpy sounds of the Jurassic forest
• A notorious invasive species has been here a lot longer than we thought. Does that matter?
• Anomalies suggest King Tut’s tomb may conceal hidden chambers

Quirks & Quarks has been nominated for a Signal Award! You can vote for us here. 

For more information about today’s episode, visit cbc.ca/quirks. 

The El Niño underway in the Pacific Ocean is a natural climate phenomenon but its warming effects are being boosted by climate change. Researchers recently used corals growing around the Galapagos Islands to create a local temperature record of the ocean going back 1,000 years.

Also today: 

• Massive study redraws bat family tree and uncovers genetic oddities
• How the Surinam toad uses star-shaped fingertip lobes to ‘see’ its prey
• T. rex tooth enamel reveals these dinosaurs were warm-blooded
• Why great white sharks are converging on the East Coast

Quirks & Quarks has been nominated for a Signal Award! You can vote for us here.  

For more information about today’s episode, visit cbc.ca/quirks. 

The El Niño underway in the Pacific Ocean has been called extraordinary, supersized and likely record-breaking. And while El Niño is a natural climate phenomenon, its warming effects are being boosted by climate change. Julia Cole, a paleoclimatologist at the University of Michigan, recently used corals growing around the Galapagos Islands to create a local temperature record of the ocean going back 1,000 years to add to what they've learned from similar studies elsewhere in the Pacific. She said the temperature record in this area of the East Pacific indicates that the El Niños from the last 40 to 50 years are unlike anything the area experienced in the last millennium. Her study was published in the journal Science.

It’s long been a mystery why one particular avian dinosaur was the only kind to survive mass extinction, but the recent discovery of a perfectly preserved fossilized feather, found in a cherry-sized piece of dinosaur poop, offers new clues.

Also today: 

• Why citizen scientists buried thousands of undies
• How climate change tipped the scales on a catastrophic Himalayan avalanche
• Why an AI leap has left mathematicians feeling uneasy
• Why scientists put teeny-tiny micro-trackers on chimney swifts

Quirks & Quarks has been nominated for a Signal Award! You can vote for us here.

For more information about today’s episode, visit cbc.ca/quirks. 

Summer is fieldwork time for many scientists. We talk to researchers who have been busy hiking on fresh lava, capturing thousands of ticks, shooing away moose from their study sites, and even spelunking for Neanderthals — all in the ever-important quest for data.

Quirks & Quarks has been taking your burning questions for 50 years. And while we thought we might have answered every question there is, our listeners proved there are always more science questions for us to tackle. Including:

• What does the black hole orbit?
• What do you sweat out in a sauna?
• Why are robins' eggs blue?
• What if we no longer had a moon?
• Did dinosaurs produce milk?
• Were there ever giant humans?