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Quirks & Quarks podcast on demand - Join host Bob McDonald each week to find out the latest in science, technology, medicine and the environment. We cover the quirks of the expanding universe to the quarks within a single atom.and everything in between. We interrupt your usual Quirks & Quarks podcast feed with a little bonus this week. It's called 'Tai Asks Why' and it's hosted by a curious young fellow named Tai Poole - an 11-year old! - who's on a mission to solve the mysteries of life, love and science.
Should we have humans in space? A Quirks & Quarks public debate
In our first ever Quirks & Quarks public debate, recorded live in Toronto, astronaut Chris Hadfield, cosmologist Renée Hložek, planetary scientist Marianne Mader and space flight historian Amy Shira Teitel weigh in on whether we should leave space to the robots. An extended podcast edition includes Q&A segments not in the radio broadcast.
In our first ever Quirks & Quarks public debate, recorded live in Toronto, astronaut Chris Hadfield, cosmologist Renée Hložek, planetary scientist Marianne Mader and space flight historian Amy Shira Teitel weigh in on whether we should leave space to the robots. An extended podcast edition includes Q&A segments not in the radio broadcast.
Download Should we have humans in space? A Quirks & Quarks public debate
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A diet of microplastic, Canada's northern limits, elephants smell numbers, depression genetics, magnetic therapy for concussion and aurorae on other planets.
We're consuming a lot of plastic and have no idea of the risks; Canada is using science to lay claim to the North Pole; The elephant's mathematical trunk can smell numbers; Depressing conclusion as new research reverses 25 years of research; Concussion symptoms reversed in mice using magnetic therapy; Do auroras occur on other planets and moons?
We're consuming a lot of plastic and have no idea of the risks; Canada is using science to lay claim to the North Pole; The elephant's mathematical trunk can smell numbers; Depressing conclusion as new research reverses 25 years of research; Concussion symptoms reversed in mice using magnetic therapy; Do auroras occur on other planets and moons?
Download A diet of microplastic, Canada's northern limits, elephants smell numbers, depression genetics, magnetic therapy for concussion and aurorae on other planets.
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The benefits of video games, composting corpses, brewing ancient beer, right whales in the wrong place and supernovas and bipedalism
Video games aren't corrupting young minds - they may be building them; Don't bury or cremate - soon you may compost your corpse; Drink like an Egyptian - 5000 year old yeast is resurrected to brew ancient beer; Right whales were in the wrong place because of the wrong climate; Did our ancestors evolve to walk upright because of supernovae?
Video games aren't corrupting young minds - they may be building them; Don't bury or cremate - soon you may compost your corpse; Drink like an Egyptian - 5000 year old yeast is resurrected to brew ancient beer; Right whales were in the wrong place because of the wrong climate; Did our ancestors evolve to walk upright because of supernovae?
Download The benefits of video games, composting corpses, brewing ancient beer, right whales in the wrong place and supernovas and bipedalism
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Sharks on a bird diet, fossils of fungus, 'lifelike' machines, giant beaver extinction, the beauty of calculus and oil spill dispersants
Flying food for fish? Tiger sharks are somehow eating songbirds; Fungus fossils shows the complexity of Earth's life a billion-years-ago; Scientists create robot-like biomaterial with key traits of life; Ancient beavers as big as bears died out because of their woodless diet; No, really, calculus can be beautiful and this mathematician will tell us why; What happens to oil spills after dispersant is used?
Flying food for fish? Tiger sharks are somehow eating songbirds; Fungus fossils shows the complexity of Earth's life a billion-years-ago; Scientists create robot-like biomaterial with key traits of life; Ancient beavers as big as bears died out because of their woodless diet; No, really, calculus can be beautiful and this mathematician will tell us why; What happens to oil spills after dispersant is used?
Download Sharks on a bird diet, fossils of fungus, 'lifelike' machines, giant beaver extinction, the beauty of calculus and oil spill dispersants
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Solving our plastics problem, Mystery of the missing brain cells, overeating processed food, smartphones detect ear infections, moonquakes, and why geese honk while migrating
We need plastics - how do we avoid choking the planet with them?; Learning from tragedy - a baby lacking critical brain cells and a medical detective story; Processed food is full of bad stuff, but the real problem is you eat too much of it; 'Siri, does my baby have an ear infection?' An app does medical diagnosis; Moonquakes show the moon is still geologically 'alive; Why do Canada geese honk while migrating?
We need plastics - how do we avoid choking the planet with them?; Learning from tragedy - a baby lacking critical brain cells and a medical detective story; Processed food is full of bad stuff, but the real problem is you eat too much of it; 'Siri, does my baby have an ear infection?' An app does medical diagnosis; Moonquakes show the moon is still geologically 'alive; Why do Canada geese honk while migrating?
Download Solving our plastics problem, Mystery of the missing brain cells, overeating processed food, smartphones detect ear infections, moonquakes, and why geese honk while migrating
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Zapping the brain to improve memory, the mission that almost landed on the moon, Does a dull sweet tooth make us fat, whale barnacles, and STEVE's shining secret
Cutting-edge experiments show an electrical zap improves memory in older adults; Countdown to the moon landing: Apollo 10 - the mission that came so close to the moon; It's all about the sugar fix: Eating too much sugar causes fruit flies to eat even more; Barnacles stuck to ancient whales kept an itinerary of whale migration routes; The secret of STEVE's glow - understanding the purple pal of the aurora borealis.
Cutting-edge experiments show an electrical zap improves memory in older adults; Countdown to the moon landing: Apollo 10 - the mission that came so close to the moon; It's all about the sugar fix: Eating too much sugar causes fruit flies to eat even more; Barnacles stuck to ancient whales kept an itinerary of whale migration routes; The secret of STEVE's glow - understanding the purple pal of the aurora borealis.
Download Zapping the brain to improve memory, the mission that almost landed on the moon, Does a dull sweet tooth make us fat, whale barnacles, and STEVE's shining secret
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Brain resuscitation, Hippos supply algae skeletons, slug surgical glue, air conditioner carbon capture, coral reef halos and size and quantum mechanics.
How late is too late to revive a brain? Pig brain study raises questions; Hippo poop provides a key mineral for vital algae's tiny skeletons; Stitching up surgical cuts with slug slime; How air conditioners could keep you cool and capture carbon; Holy coral reefs? They've got a 'halo' that could show if they're healthy; How big is too big for quantum mechanics?
How late is too late to revive a brain? Pig brain study raises questions; Hippo poop provides a key mineral for vital algae's tiny skeletons; Stitching up surgical cuts with slug slime; How air conditioners could keep you cool and capture carbon; Holy coral reefs? They've got a 'halo' that could show if they're healthy; How big is too big for quantum mechanics?
Download Brain resuscitation, Hippos supply algae skeletons, slug surgical glue, air conditioner carbon capture, coral reef halos and size and quantum mechanics.
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Oilsands emissions underestimated, Chernobyl's wildlife, a comet trapped in an asteroid, Mice run laps in zero-g, taking the uncertainty out of quantum, and species invading from Canada.
CO2-sniffing plane finds oilsands emissions higher than industry reported; Cataracts, small brains, and DNA damage - Chernobyl's wildlife 33 years after the meltdown; Mice reinvent the hamster wheel in zero gravity; A comet fragment trapped inside an meteorite captures a time capsule of the early solar system; Transcending the uncertainty of quantum mechanics in 'Einstein's Unfinished Revolution'; Have species from Canada invaded other places?
CO2-sniffing plane finds oilsands emissions higher than industry reported; Cataracts, small brains, and DNA damage - Chernobyl's wildlife 33 years after the meltdown; Mice reinvent the hamster wheel in zero gravity; A comet fragment trapped inside an meteorite captures a time capsule of the early solar system; Transcending the uncertainty of quantum mechanics in 'Einstein's Unfinished Revolution'; Have species from Canada invaded other places?
Download Oilsands emissions underestimated, Chernobyl's wildlife, a comet trapped in an asteroid, Mice run laps in zero-g, taking the uncertainty out of quantum, and species invading from Canada.
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Human brain genes in monkeys, urine archaeology, evolving human faces, Sharks and heavy metals, life on exoplanets and how insects time their mating
Scientists have put a human brain gene into monkeys. Have they crossed the line?; Pee-oneering archeology. A new technique uses urine to study the ancient past; Why the long face? Human faces evolved to reveal emotions and communicate; Sharks cope with levels of heavy metals in their blood that would kill other animals; Is there life 'out there?' How we'll search for traces of life on nearby exoplanets; How do insects like ants time their emergence so precisely?
Scientists have put a human brain gene into monkeys. Have they crossed the line?; Pee-oneering archeology. A new technique uses urine to study the ancient past; Why the long face? Human faces evolved to reveal emotions and communicate; Sharks cope with levels of heavy metals in their blood that would kill other animals; Is there life 'out there?' How we'll search for traces of life on nearby exoplanets; How do insects like ants time their emergence so precisely?
Download Human brain genes in monkeys, urine archaeology, evolving human faces, Sharks and heavy metals, life on exoplanets and how insects time their mating
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Black hole imaged, a new tiny human, rebuilding coral reefs, Treating depression with ketamine, flipper fornicates for fun and why cats purr
Seeing the first black hole - and what we'll see next; A new tiny hominin discovery gives the 'hobbit' a distant cousin; Collapsing coral reefs - can we rebuild them?; Ketamine works its magic on depression by 'stabilizing the brain in a well state'; Female dolphins may know the joy of sex thanks to a human-like clitoris; How and why do cats purr?
Seeing the first black hole - and what we'll see next; A new tiny hominin discovery gives the 'hobbit' a distant cousin; Collapsing coral reefs - can we rebuild them?; Ketamine works its magic on depression by 'stabilizing the brain in a well state'; Female dolphins may know the joy of sex thanks to a human-like clitoris; How and why do cats purr?
Download Black hole imaged, a new tiny human, rebuilding coral reefs, Treating depression with ketamine, flipper fornicates for fun and why cats purr
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The day the dinosaurs died, Soviet's race to the moon, tasmanian devils fight off cancer, Roadside testing for cannabis impairment, and Arctic landslides.
A catastrophe frozen in time - a new fossil site shows how the dinosaurs died; The race to the moon - what the Russians were doing behind the Iron Curtain; Tasmanian Devils are learning to live with the cancer that was pushing them to extinction; Roadside THC tests do not test for impairment. How can science help?; Permafrost landslides are eating great swathes of Arctic landscape.
A catastrophe frozen in time - a new fossil site shows how the dinosaurs died; The race to the moon - what the Russians were doing behind the Iron Curtain; Tasmanian Devils are learning to live with the cancer that was pushing them to extinction; Roadside THC tests do not test for impairment. How can science help?; Permafrost landslides are eating great swathes of Arctic landscape.
Download The day the dinosaurs died, Soviet's race to the moon, tasmanian devils fight off cancer, Roadside testing for cannabis impairment, and Arctic landslides.
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![Quirks and quarks cbc Quirks and quarks cbc](https://static.interestingengineering.com/images/JULY/sizes/Science_podcasts_The_Naked_Scientists_resize_md.jpg)
Erasing memories, biggest T-Rex and the smell of Parkinson's, Saturn's tiny ring moons, Google glass helps autistic kids and a supervolcano eruption
How to remember to forget - the new science of erasing memories; Big, old and banged-up - Canada is home to the world's largest Tyrannosaurus Rex; A woman who can smell Parkinson's disease could hold the key to early diagnosis; Meet the odd little moons that interact with Saturn's spectacular rings; Google glasses could help kids with autism read emotional cues in people's faces; What would happen if the Yellowstone supervolcano exploded?
How to remember to forget - the new science of erasing memories; Big, old and banged-up - Canada is home to the world's largest Tyrannosaurus Rex; A woman who can smell Parkinson's disease could hold the key to early diagnosis; Meet the odd little moons that interact with Saturn's spectacular rings; Google glasses could help kids with autism read emotional cues in people's faces; What would happen if the Yellowstone supervolcano exploded?
Download Erasing memories, biggest T-Rex and the smell of Parkinson's, Saturn's tiny ring moons, Google glass helps autistic kids and a supervolcano eruption
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Shopping for souvenirs on an asteroid, new Cambrian explosion fossils, the gut-brain axis, why we can say 'f' words, green icebergs from Antarctica and the length of a dream
A Japanese spacecraft visits an asteroid - and will bring back a souvenir; 'Weird wonders' in China - new half-billion year-old fossils from the dawn of animal life; Your gut bacteria are actively involved in your emotions, how you think, and even behave; Our farming ancestors are the reason we can say 'f' words today; Mysterious green icebergs from Antarctica might be fertilizing the southern ocean; How long does it take to dream a dream?
A Japanese spacecraft visits an asteroid - and will bring back a souvenir; 'Weird wonders' in China - new half-billion year-old fossils from the dawn of animal life; Your gut bacteria are actively involved in your emotions, how you think, and even behave; Our farming ancestors are the reason we can say 'f' words today; Mysterious green icebergs from Antarctica might be fertilizing the southern ocean; How long does it take to dream a dream?
Download Shopping for souvenirs on an asteroid, new Cambrian explosion fossils, the gut-brain axis, why we can say 'f' words, green icebergs from Antarctica and the length of a dream
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Quirks And Quarks Cbc Radio
Inside actors brains, inactive ingredients aren't, Super solar storms, butterfly's toxic backup, secrets life of bone and wind turbines and climate.
Actors' brains have different activity patterns when they're in character; Inactive ingredients in your meds might not be so inactive after all; Super-powerful solar storms hit Earth in the past - and could recur in the future; When a butterfly's disguise fails, its backup plan is poison; 'Skeleton Keys' - a new book explores the secret life of bones; Do wind turbine farms have an effect on climate?
Actors' brains have different activity patterns when they're in character; Inactive ingredients in your meds might not be so inactive after all; Super-powerful solar storms hit Earth in the past - and could recur in the future; When a butterfly's disguise fails, its backup plan is poison; 'Skeleton Keys' - a new book explores the secret life of bones; Do wind turbine farms have an effect on climate?
Download Inside actors brains, inactive ingredients aren't, Super solar storms, butterfly's toxic backup, secrets life of bone and wind turbines and climate.
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Science of awe, blue whales and sonar, chromosomes and sleep, ancient aquaculture on the west coast and dogs and human sperm quality
Exploring the powerful emotion of awe - how it can be awe-some and aw-ful; Military sonar puts blue whales off their feed; Your brain may need sleep to repair your brain's DNA 'potholes'; Clam gardens have been cultivated by indigenous people for millenia; Man and man's best friend have both been experiencing declines in sperm quality.
Exploring the powerful emotion of awe - how it can be awe-some and aw-ful; Military sonar puts blue whales off their feed; Your brain may need sleep to repair your brain's DNA 'potholes'; Clam gardens have been cultivated by indigenous people for millenia; Man and man's best friend have both been experiencing declines in sperm quality.
Download Science of awe, blue whales and sonar, chromosomes and sleep, ancient aquaculture on the west coast and dogs and human sperm quality
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The Goodness Paradox, secrets in poop, converting carbon to coal, countdown to the moon landing, selecting hygienic bees and a question of cow methane
The Goodness Paradox - Why humans are so good and so bad; Potty talk: the secrets Kim Jong Un could be hiding in his private portable toilet; Creating coal from CO2 - undoing fossil fuel burning to save the climate; Countdown to the Moon landing - How Apollo 9 tested the lunar lander in Earth orbit; How selecting for genes to keep the hive clean could help honeybee survival; Do cows produce more methane than rotting grass?
The Goodness Paradox - Why humans are so good and so bad; Potty talk: the secrets Kim Jong Un could be hiding in his private portable toilet; Creating coal from CO2 - undoing fossil fuel burning to save the climate; Countdown to the Moon landing - How Apollo 9 tested the lunar lander in Earth orbit; How selecting for genes to keep the hive clean could help honeybee survival; Do cows produce more methane than rotting grass?
Download The Goodness Paradox, secrets in poop, converting carbon to coal, countdown to the moon landing, selecting hygienic bees and a question of cow methane
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Tiny tyrannosaur, art acne, what zebra stripes do, ageing your DNA, hacking photosynthesis and sinking in the Sun
Tiny tyrannosaur fossil helps scientists understand how T-rex grew so large; Art gets a bad case of acne and it has conservators concerned; Zebra stripes confuse tiny predators, not the big ones;Scientists can read the 'rust' on a person's DNA to predict when they'll die; Hacking photosynthesis to re-engineer crop plants and feed the world; What would it be like to stand on the surface of the sun?
Tiny tyrannosaur fossil helps scientists understand how T-rex grew so large; Art gets a bad case of acne and it has conservators concerned; Zebra stripes confuse tiny predators, not the big ones;Scientists can read the 'rust' on a person's DNA to predict when they'll die; Hacking photosynthesis to re-engineer crop plants and feed the world; What would it be like to stand on the surface of the sun?
Download Tiny tyrannosaur, art acne, what zebra stripes do, ageing your DNA, hacking photosynthesis and sinking in the Sun
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Vaping safety, breast milk pumping, evolution experiments and field mice, a needle you swallow, cosmic catastrophes and animal dementia
Flavour chemicals in e-cigarettes could damage lung tissue; Canadian researcher proves Darwin right by jailing mice in Nebraska; Breast milk is best, but is there a problem with pumping?; Swallowing needles packed in a turtle shell to treat diabetes; 'Earth Shattering' - all the ways the universe is trying to kill us; Do animals suffer from dementia as we do?
Flavour chemicals in e-cigarettes could damage lung tissue; Canadian researcher proves Darwin right by jailing mice in Nebraska; Breast milk is best, but is there a problem with pumping?; Swallowing needles packed in a turtle shell to treat diabetes; 'Earth Shattering' - all the ways the universe is trying to kill us; Do animals suffer from dementia as we do?
Download Vaping safety, breast milk pumping, evolution experiments and field mice, a needle you swallow, cosmic catastrophes and animal dementia
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Psychology of solitary confinement, mind over genes, genocide and climate change, searching for Shackleton's ship, a waterproof sweat sensor and how birds hunt blind.
Months locked in a tiny box - how solitary confinement can erode mental health; When is your brain stronger than your genes? How the mind can fool the body; 50 million deaths in the New World drove cooling in the the Little Ice Age; Searching for Endurance: Antarctic researchers hunt for the relics of Antarctic adventurers; A stick-on sensor sucks in sweat and can reveal dehydration and more; How do birds find their prey when hunting in muddy water?
Months locked in a tiny box - how solitary confinement can erode mental health; When is your brain stronger than your genes? How the mind can fool the body; 50 million deaths in the New World drove cooling in the the Little Ice Age; Searching for Endurance: Antarctic researchers hunt for the relics of Antarctic adventurers; A stick-on sensor sucks in sweat and can reveal dehydration and more; How do birds find their prey when hunting in muddy water?
Download Psychology of solitary confinement, mind over genes, genocide and climate change, searching for Shackleton's ship, a waterproof sweat sensor and how birds hunt blind.
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Rocking good sleep, music and body language, the first feathers for flight, Where's my death ray? A 300 million year old fossil walks again and sound in cold air.
Rocking yourself to sleep improves sleep quality and memory - even in grownups; Body language could be the secret behind the sweetest music; The first feathers for flight? A 160 million year old dinosaur might have had them; How to build a death ray - a new book looks attempts to make the ultimate weapon; A Robot reconstruction of a 300-million-year-old fossil shows how it walked; Does the speed of sound change with temperature?
Rocking yourself to sleep improves sleep quality and memory - even in grownups; Body language could be the secret behind the sweetest music; The first feathers for flight? A 160 million year old dinosaur might have had them; How to build a death ray - a new book looks attempts to make the ultimate weapon; A Robot reconstruction of a 300-million-year-old fossil shows how it walked; Does the speed of sound change with temperature?
Download Rocking good sleep, music and body language, the first feathers for flight, Where's my death ray? A 300 million year old fossil walks again and sound in cold air.
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The power of super poop, preventing PTSD, counting down to Apollo 11, predators in cold water and termites conserve the rainforest
Not all poop is created equal, and 'super-poopers' could be life savers; Preventing PTSD with a 'video game' that trains soldiers to control their brains; Countdown to the moon landing - re-live the missions that led to 'one small step for man'; Why warm-blooded predators thrive in the coldest places on Earth; Termites may be hell in your house, but they help protect the rainforest from drought.
Not all poop is created equal, and 'super-poopers' could be life savers; Preventing PTSD with a 'video game' that trains soldiers to control their brains; Countdown to the moon landing - re-live the missions that led to 'one small step for man'; Why warm-blooded predators thrive in the coldest places on Earth; Termites may be hell in your house, but they help protect the rainforest from drought.
Download The power of super poop, preventing PTSD, counting down to Apollo 11, predators in cold water and termites conserve the rainforest
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Tuskless elephants, room temperature superconductors, how space changed a man, Men, women and pain, climate change means stronger waves and whither glacial water?
Elephants are evolving to be tuskless after decades of poaching pressure; Discovery of room temperature superconductors could bring floating trains and more; Scott Kelly spent a year in space - and it literally changed him; Repeated pain makes men more sensitive - but not women; Waves are getting stronger and more dangerous thanks to climate change; Will Edmonton run out of water as the Columbia Icefield continues to melt?
Elephants are evolving to be tuskless after decades of poaching pressure; Discovery of room temperature superconductors could bring floating trains and more; Scott Kelly spent a year in space - and it literally changed him; Repeated pain makes men more sensitive - but not women; Waves are getting stronger and more dangerous thanks to climate change; Will Edmonton run out of water as the Columbia Icefield continues to melt?
Download Tuskless elephants, room temperature superconductors, how space changed a man, Men, women and pain, climate change means stronger waves and whither glacial water?
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Medieval woman painters, houseplants eat pollution, viruses that kill superbugs, Antarctica turns researchers into zombies, fresh water is getting saltier and which planets are we missing?
Blue pigment found on a medieval woman's teeth suggests she was a skilled, literate artist; A genetically modified houseplant could suck up dangerous indoor air pollution; Viruses that kill superbugs could save lives when antibiotics don't work; Zombies in Antarctica - Isolated researchers enter 'psychological hibernation'; We're making our fresh water salty by massively changing the landscape; For every exoplanet we see transiting a star, how many go unseen?
Blue pigment found on a medieval woman's teeth suggests she was a skilled, literate artist; A genetically modified houseplant could suck up dangerous indoor air pollution; Viruses that kill superbugs could save lives when antibiotics don't work; Zombies in Antarctica - Isolated researchers enter 'psychological hibernation'; We're making our fresh water salty by massively changing the landscape; For every exoplanet we see transiting a star, how many go unseen?
Download Medieval woman painters, houseplants eat pollution, viruses that kill superbugs, Antarctica turns researchers into zombies, fresh water is getting saltier and which planets are we missing?
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The Quirks & Quarks Question Show
The Q & Q Question Show for 2019 features 10 scientists each answering one listener question.
The Q & Q Question Show for 2019 features 10 scientists each answering one listener question.
Download The Quirks & Quarks Question Show
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Planet hunting telescope, bioengineered lungs, the year in climate science, flying viruses, kids punish freeloaders and a lake of water on Mars
TESS, the planet hunting space telescope, is on track to discover a sky full of exoplanets; Lab grown lungs are transplanted in pigs today, they may help humans tomorrow; The year in Climate Change: Fires and heat-waves show things are heating up; Billions of viruses are raining down on you from the upper atmosphere every day; Even kids as young as four want to punish freeloaders; A lake of water was found on Mars - and may be the first of many.
TESS, the planet hunting space telescope, is on track to discover a sky full of exoplanets; Lab grown lungs are transplanted in pigs today, they may help humans tomorrow; The year in Climate Change: Fires and heat-waves show things are heating up; Billions of viruses are raining down on you from the upper atmosphere every day; Even kids as young as four want to punish freeloaders; A lake of water was found on Mars - and may be the first of many.
Download Planet hunting telescope, bioengineered lungs, the year in climate science, flying viruses, kids punish freeloaders and a lake of water on Mars
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Quirks Holiday Book show - Science of the voice, talking about the weather, epigenetics and a new view of evolution and dust and rain
A writer and sound engineer investigates the science of the human voice; Our atmosphere is a thin veneer on our planet, but this writer says it's where the action is; A revolution in evolution is turning back the clock more than 200 years, says new book; How important is dust to making it rain?
A writer and sound engineer investigates the science of the human voice; Our atmosphere is a thin veneer on our planet, but this writer says it's where the action is; A revolution in evolution is turning back the clock more than 200 years, says new book; How important is dust to making it rain?
Download Quirks Holiday Book show - Science of the voice, talking about the weather, epigenetics and a new view of evolution and dust and rain
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Bob McDonald has been hosting CBC’s Quirks and Quarks for 22 of the program’s 40 years. He says for him the fascination continues as new information is revealed about our world and beyond. Half a million people listen to the radio broadcast each week. And the podcast audience continues to grow. Bob McDonald describes the range of science in Canada, and the struggle in the face of reduced government support. This now extends to a muzzle on some government scientists. And despite the popularity of science and its importance, newspapers in Canada and elsewhere are reporting science less with fewer dedicated reporters. The program’s original host, David Suzuki describes how audiences responded to some touchy subjects in the program’s early days, and the threat today to public broadcasting in Canada.
Transcript
Robyn Williams: And so to another big country, to Canada, where Quirks and Quarks has been broadcasting for nearly 40 years. Here's a sample:
Bob McDonald: Hi, I'm Bob McDonald. This is Quirks and Quarks.
It's hard to imagine the Rocky Mountains in BC or Alberta without glaciers. Whether you've experienced them firsthand or simply through photographs, their aesthetic beauty is hard to ignore. It's a big part of that image of Canada we all love, but their appearance, as majestic as it may be, is the least of what glaciers provide. Their main function is to supply fresh waters for rivers and streams, for hydro, for agriculture and for drinking, which could all be lost over the next 85 years.
A new study by Dr Garry Clarke, Professor Emeritus at the University of British Columbia, has estimated that 70% of glaciers in Western Canada could exist only in photos and memories by the end of this century. Dr Clarke, welcome to Quirks and Quarks.
Garry Clarke: Thank you for having me.
Star Stuff Podcast
Bob McDonald: We've been hearing about glaciers receding for some time now. What was different about your study?
Garry Clarke: Well, several things. We were interested in being rather specific in the glaciers we were looking at rather than try to do the broad-brush picture of 70% for example you mentioned, without actually identifying which members of the population were part of that 70%. So we've got a modelling approach that allows us to make these broad statements about total percentage loss in the Rockies or Coast Mountains, Vancouver Island, and at the same time looking much closer-scale, so we can zoom up and look at individual glaciers and see for example what the Columbia icefields on the Icefields Parkway between Lake Louise and Jasper might look like at 2100.
And we can look at this on a one-year snapshot, we could look more finely than that if we chose to, but the larger picture is that the ones in the Rockies seem to be mostly doomed, and the reason the 70% isn't much worse, like 90% loss, is because we have a holdout population in the north-west part of British Columbia close to the Alaska and Yukon borders. And part of the reason they withstand a bad climate is because the landscape is so high there, there are high mountains in that region, and the glaciers have a place to retreat to. In the more southerly parts of our study area the mountains are lower. So when you apply heat to the glaciers they move up a bit to the mountain peaks, and after that there is no place to go, so they disappear.
Bob McDonald: Well, what's actually happening? What is the mechanism that is causing the glaciers to disappear and retreat?
Garry Clarke: What is happening is that the climate is getting warmer and that makes more summer melting occur, and simultaneously more winter rainfall rather than snowfall. The glaciers don't benefit from rain, they benefit from solid precipitation in the form of snow. So the double whammy here is that the winter supply is being reduced and the summer melting is being increased.
Robyn Williams: Dr Garry Clarke from the University of British Columbia. And now here's Bob himself:
Bob McDonald: My name is Bob McDonald, I'm the host of Quirks and Quarks, your compatriot in Canada, celebrating our 40th year on the air. And unfortunately I've only been doing the program for 22 of those 40 years.
Robyn Williams: 22? I didn't know. Getting tired of it yet?
Bob McDonald: Not at all.
Robyn Williams: Why not?
Bob McDonald: Because it's always different. Every week people come and tell me amazing stories, things that humanity didn't know before. I feel like a surfer riding on the cutting edge of our knowledge as we penetrate ignorance. It's wonderful.
Robyn Williams: And the status of Quirks and Quarks…big ratings? Lots of feedback?
Bob McDonald: The ratings of Quirks and Quarks have not changed in 40 years. We get half a million across Canada every Saturday, which is good for Canada, and podcasts keep going up. I don't know the numbers there, but we were the first program at CBC to do that. And that has been solid. And programs on either side of us in our line-up…we are noon on Saturday, but we've had programs come and go on either side of us and we are still there. So it's amazing that a science program and a very simple science program, we don't do a lot of production, we don't play with music and sound effects as much as other shows do, we don't have time for it, we don't have the resources for it, we just let the science stand on its own and people love it. So I think that says something, that people are interested in the way that science sees the world, and I feel really privileged to be able to do it every week.
Robyn Williams: Isn't it interesting that Radiolab does the opposite of what you just said, lots of production, lots of intercutting, and plenty of listeners in Australia hate that.
Bob McDonald: I mean, I admire their production, I love production myself, and when I first began in the 1970s before Quirks in radio I was doing documentaries for Ideas and we were doing all kinds of really trippy stuff. I took a whole hour to go through the Earth. I've created the Earth, destroyed the Earth, gone future in time, backwards in time, and all kinds of great stuff, and radio is wonderful for that, for creating that sphere of sound. And I don't think it's exploited enough, I wish we could do more of it on Quirks. But you have to find a balance between content and production. So I think we are very heavy on the content side. I'm always badgering my producer to put a little more production into it. But the content is really what matters. If it's a good story, well told, that holds, you don't need a lot of production.
Robyn Williams: Now, you're very keen on space but you handle all subjects equally, do you?
Bob McDonald: Yes, we do. It doesn't matter. What do we have? We bring you the quarks within the atom and the quirks at the edge of the universe and everything in between, it doesn't matter.
Robyn Williams: Do you do medicine as well?
Bob McDonald: Yes. I find medicine the hardest because the names are horrible and hard to pronounce. And in a medical story, we have to do so much to set the scene before you even get to the story because you are talking about some gene producing a protein that's going to interact in some part of a cell, and then you've got to set the scene of what's the disease we are dealing with here before you even get to what the story is. But it's all fascinating.
Robyn Williams: Canadian science is spectacular, and I have found this yet again coming to Vancouver, because UBC where The Science Show started, funnily enough, Science Show number one, which you'll hear in August, but the science in Canada is really extraordinarily vibrant, so you don't run out of material here at all, do you?
Bob McDonald: No, we have a mandate to make sure we have a Canadian on every program and a woman on every program, and it's not hard to do that. And I'm proud of the science that has come out of Canada. We have a great heritage here. In astronomy for a long time, I'm not sure if it's still true, but we were number three in the world in terms of the number of papers that were published and the citations. Number three. And most Canadians don't even know the kind of science that we do in medicine and genetics, nanotechnology, we have centres of excellence all across the country, and it's really quite astounding. I am a little disappointed that our current government is not supporting science as well as it used to, but we do have a good heritage and I think we can continue that.
Robyn Williams: The parallels are quite extraordinary, the same thing could be said about science in Australia, and the cutbacks, and also the cutbacks to CBC and the ABC…the CBC is struggling, isn't it?
Quirks And Quarks Podcast Download Free
Bob McDonald: Well, the trend in Canada right now is for governments to support applied science. So, let's make money at science, let's develop new innovative technology, that's their idea of innovation, and that's okay, we need that, we need the applied science. But if you want to truly advance thought, that comes out of basic science, and it's the basic science that has been cut back, and it's unfortunate, most of it environmental science. In fact our government scientists can't even talk about what they do, especially if we are coming up to an election. I actually had a federal scientist tell me that. But that's to make way for the oil industry to go ahead and do its thing because we are an oil producing country. So I'm kind of saddened by that and I hope that the pendulum will swing, that we will come back to supporting more fundamental science. Again, Canada has a long heritage and work in nuclear physics and astrophysics. And when you look back throughout the history of science, it is from fundamental science and serendipity, asking questions, that has brought about the greatest leaps in thought. And if we are going to come up with new ways to keep ourselves warm, to move from here to there, to turn wheels, it's got to come out of people just asking sky-blue questions. Applied science, all you are doing is improving what you have, you're not inventing something new.
Robyn Williams: Bob, you've just been political. Are you allowed to do that in Quirks and Quarks, does it happen?
Bob McDonald: Occasionally we do a little bit of that. We try to stay with the science because so many other programs on the CBC are political, in fact we have programs that are entirely political. We are the only science show. And there's so much science that we let it stand on its own, and that's all we do. We bring you the latest in scientific research, we talk to the lead authors of that research and we just say 'there it is'. We try not to get political. Every now and then we'll do a documentary and political issues will come up, but that's not our main objective. There isn't enough science programming out there. You and I and a few other programs in the world or maybe a couple of other programs in the world are it on radio. There isn't enough of it. The number of science programs have been cut back, the number of science reporters in newspapers…in fact The Globe and Mail just let go of some of its science reporting. So I'm kind of saddened by that, but hopefully again that trend will change.
Robyn Williams: It's a paradox, isn't it, when the interest in science is burgeoning like crazy right around the world, not least in Canada and Australia. What about the future? We both have one-hour programs, and of course the attention span is supposed to be no longer than seven minutes amongst anyone under 50. Yet the audiences are good. The technology is changing like crazy. How do you see, when I come to see you in five years' time to celebrate our 45th, that the new kind of broadcasting will have taken over, where do you see things going?
Bob McDonald: I would like to see the technology or the use of the technology improve. I still think there will be radio programs because people will be still driving cars, and cars carry radios, and radio is great for driving. But all the new media that's out there now, whether it's podcast or Facebook or whatever, at the moment is doing this short attention span stuff and it's headlines. There is this phrase you've probably heard, 'information rich, knowledge poor'. So the information is out there but I'm finding that a lot of young people don't get the basics, they don't understand fundamentals. They can find things instantly on their device, but if you ask them about it they don't really know unless they are looking at the device. And that bothers me a lot.
So I think there's room in the future to use that technology for well-thought-out good storytelling, where you do take the time to tell a story well. It's already happening in stupidity videos. You look at some of the stupid people doing stupid things. Those videos go on for many minutes without an edit, one person holding a camera watching somebody on a bicycle trying to jump a river and doing a face-plant on the other side. You watch that, but in television they would say, no, you've got to do an edit every five seconds, every three seconds, you've got to do an edit, you can't do it like that. So it's possible to have one story, well told, for a long period of time and really get into it, get into the knowledge, not just the information. So that's my hope for the future, that we will get out of these headlines and get out of opinions. There's a lot of people saying what they think out there, and I frankly don't care what most people think. I want to know what they know. So let's let the knowledge come back into it. So, less information, more knowledge.
Robyn Williams: Thank you Bob.
Bob McDonald: Thank you Robyn, a pleasure talking to you.
Robyn Williams: Bob McDonald, who presents Quirks and Quarks for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. But who was the first presenter, nearly 40 years ago? Well, he was a genetics professor at the University of British Columbia, someone with a Japanese heritage, and strong views on environment and race. Yes, this is David Suzuki. And be warned, he uses a couple of sometimes shocking words, but in the context of making the program. So how did he come to be the host of Quirks and Quarks?
David Suzuki: Well, I was always up for anything that sounded kind of interesting and exciting, and there was a desert in terms of science reporting. And so when Diana Filer approached me and said, 'Would you like to do an hour show?' I thought that sounds interesting. The reality is I love radio, I love radio far better than television. Television had the audience of course, the size audience, but radio is such a warm area, you can just roll tape like…now of course with digital that's not a limitation. When I started doing television it was 16mm film that ran for…one 400-foot roll would run for 10 minutes, and that was a lot of money.
Robyn Williams: Stop, start, stop, start.
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David Suzuki: Yes, all that stuff. So you couldn't afford to just sit around and chitchat and warm up your interviewee and tell jokes and explore all kinds of things. This is a wonderful medium.
Robyn Williams: Let me ask you about what happened with Quirks because, okay, you covered science, but then you began organised campaigns on various things, racism and a few other subjects. I remember you doing a program involving a guy who talked about blacks as having brains of a certain capacity, and even genitals to match.
David Suzuki: Yes, he's dead now, he died a year ago. He was from South Africa originally, a professor with tenure at the University of Western Ontario in London, and he couched everything in this fine scientific language and said, 'Well, you can make a direct line, if you look at penis size, blacks are the biggest and then whites and then Asian.' Well, I kind of resent that! But then when you look at brain size, the blacks had the smallest brain, the whites had the medium and the Asians had the largest. And then you look at what he called litter size, the size of families. So he would get these straight lines going back and forth and then interpreting this as proving that the blacks were the most primitive, the origins, and the least evolved in terms of intelligence.
So I was approached by a group of students who were desperate, from the University of Western Ontario, saying, 'Please take this guy on.' And I'm going, 'Look, it's not even in my area. Please get someone from the university to respond to him.' Well, they couldn't find anyone. Then I gave them a bunch of names of scientists in the States, Stephen Gould and Dick Lewontin, both of whom I knew, and they refused to debate him. And so finally I was called in to debate him.
And what I tried to show as a geneticist is the most eminent human geneticists say that you cannot control for the impact of racism itself until you have a society in which being black or white makes absolutely no difference in how you are treated. You cannot say I can compare intelligence or IQ test results or whatever. But he was a very mischievous guy. I thought maybe he was a deluded scientist who had just got off on this tangent, but then I saw that he was getting funding from a racist organisation in the United States, and then he actually sent me an article, a publication, which was, again, a racist thing that supported his ideas. And at the top of it he said, 'Take that Suzuki.' Then I realised this guy is mischievous.
Robyn Williams: Well, we broadcast that program, and it was quite striking how uncompromising it was. I wonder, going back to the origins of Q and Q, how easy was it to get CBC, good old straightforward Canada Broadcasting, to take on this hairy stuff?
David Suzuki: We did tackle a lot of subjects, like race and IQ, on Quirks and Quarks. We never, ever got flak from the Corporation, they stood behind the series, because it was grounded in science. The one thing that absolutely astounded me was we did a program on profanity and we found the professor in England who was an expert on this, and it was amazing. So in this very high English accent he said, 'Well, you know, in Western societies we say 'fuck' and we say 'cunt' and we say…' and he went through all of the list of things that you would have thought management would go nuts. We didn't get a single call, protest from the public, it ran, because it was science, and it was all gussied up.
Radiolab
The only thing I think we get…I don't know how it is now, remember I only did it for five years, but it has been running for as long as your show, so I don't know what has happened since, but the only shows that we got any negative response on were when we covered evolution, and that of course is absolutely predictable. A tiny response.
In the United States when I've sold some of our programs from The Nature of Things to public broadcasting, all hell breaks loose if you even mention the word 'evolution'. And that's a coordinated thing. These are the creationist groups that are very highly organised and, bam, they go after the very mention of evolution.
Robyn Williams: Talking about The Nature of Things, which is a one-hour program on television that you've been fronting for some time, what's its future?
David Suzuki: Well, I think the future of public broadcasting in Canada is in very dire straits now. We have a president of the organisation who seems to think that his job is to accept the cuts that are coming in, and administer them. And there is no one standing up and defending public broadcasting as something which is absolutely critical for Canadians to see themselves and confront the kinds of issues that are important. I think we've seen cutback after cutback. I know an Australian you've had cutbacks in the past, but they are nothing like the kind of surgery that we've had. In the beginning it was all 'this is to cut away the fat, to cut away the fat, get rid of duplication and inefficiencies'. It's not about cutting fat now, these are amputations. The cuts have been so drastic.
Basically for The Nature of Things unit, for example, we used to do our own programming, we used to shoot because we had CBC staff, film, cameramen and soundmen and so on, we don't have any of that anymore. We've been cut back, cut back, cut back, and basically now we are buying our programs from freelance independent producers. What we've tried to do is maintain the basic philosophy of The Nature of Things, which is to take what we call a biocentric point of view, that is humans are part of a much bigger system, we are one component of the biosphere. Most programming is anthropocentric. Humans are the greatest thing since sliced bread, we are at the centre everything. And so we are called biased all the time, and we try to make sure that whatever the films are that come in, we understand that this is within a biocentric sphere.
Robyn Williams: David Suzuki, the first host of Quirks and Quarks. And he did it, as you heard, for five years. And such shows have high audience figures but vanishing resources. I wonder why.
Guests
- Bob McDonald
- Presenter
Quirks and Quarks
CBC Radio
- David Suzuki
Credits
- Presenter
- Robyn Williams
- Producer
- David Fisher