The high seas are beyond the reach of international law – and beyond the beat of most reporters. But Pulitzer-Prize-winner and former New York Times journalist, Ian Urbina, has sailed into uncharted territories. Urbina sets out on a years-long quest to investigate murder at sea, modern slave labour, environmental crimes and quixotic adventurers. Part travelog, part true-crime thriller, this 7-part series takes listeners to places where the laws of the land no longer exist. The Outlaw Ocean is brought to you by CBC Podcasts and the LA Times and produced by The Outlaw Ocean Project. More episodes are available at http://hyperurl.co/theoutlawocean

Brain cells play Pong; DNA shows the Black Death had a huge impact on our evolution; This penguin lays two eggs so it can throw one away; Black hole’s digestive delays; In time for a Halloween tipple? A new book about the science of spirits;

Did life on Mars exterminate itself?; Hand raised-wolves are as attached to their human caregivers as dogs; Oldest African dinosaur discovery sheds light on dinosaur origins; 100,000 years ago humans in Africa were distilling powerful glue; Neanderthal genome earns a Nobel prize; Ray Kurzweil on downloading the mind.

Nobel Prize for quantum entanglement; The mystery of the missing bear toes; Painting a picture of the Chicxulub tsunami; Ancient DNA and the roots of Anglo-Saxon England; The “Support our Science” movement pushes to boost funding for young scientists.

The DART mission – Has NASA shown it can save us from disaster?; What has the ‘Trump of the Tropics’ done to the lungs of the planet?; Birds in North America benefited from COVID lockdowns. In the UK, not so much; Megalodon was truly a monster; Indigenous Astronomy – reconciliation and the sky.

A new book lets the Milky Way speak for itself - and it’s kind of a jerk; Watch out for the quiet ones – The smartest racoons are the most docile; 375 million years ago an animal crawled out of the water - then noped right back in; Seventeen bodies found in a medieval well were likely from a 12th century hate-crime; The science of a city’s summer smells; Quirks listener question - Food caching.

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?

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 and personal with nature.

On today’s show you’ll hear from a marine biologist studying the recovery of sea stars from a devastating wasting disease, wetland scientists working with indigenous land guardians to map landscapes for conservation, a paleontologist prospecting in the Yukon for ice-age fossils, a biologist studying the world’s most southerly polar bears, a team of scientists trying to understand the world’s foggiest place off the Atlantic coast, a team of forestry researchers looking into multi-season ‘zombie fires’ and a young academic beginning a world tour to research jellyfish.

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 doesn't permanently get rid of herpes viruses?

Why the Earth hasn't cooled through 4 billion years of floating in frigid space?

Why we can't remember our early years of life?

Why mammal poop is brown while bird poop is white?

And much, much more.