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Quirks and Quarks (Science-Technology)

  • Next available on CBC Radio One Vancouver 690
  • in 2 days 19 hours 28 minutes
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  • Host: Bob McDonald
  • 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.
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qq-2009-12-05_04-Science Fact or Fiction

Sat, Dec 5 Listen
Dr. Stephanie Baxter, from the Department of Ophthalmology at Queen's University in Kingston says it's science fact that squinting can improve your eyesight..

qq-2009-12-05_03-Birdfeeder Speciation

Sat, Dec 5 Listen
Two groups of blackcap birds have become genetically different as a result of migrating to either Britain or Spain since the 1960's.

qq-2009-12-05_02-Hammerhead Sight

Sat, Dec 5 Listen
Some hammerheads have remarkable binocular vision; their widely-spaced eyes give them excellent depth perception and they also have an extremely wide field of view - up to 360 degrees.

qq-2009-12-05_01-The Rising Seas

Sat, Dec 5 Listen
Quirks looks at one of the most visible impacts of climate change: rising sea levels.

qq-2009-11-28_04-Taking Leave of the MAPLE Reactors

Sat, Nov 28 Listen
MAPLE 1 and MAPLE 2 are two completely new reactors and can supply all the isotopes the world currently needs. But the MAPLEs have never been given the official go-ahead. And chances are, they never will.

qq-2009-11-28_03-Pipefish Dads

Sat, Nov 28 Listen
In the broad-nosed pipefish world, the male appears to be the perfect dad - until he cannibalizes some of his own embryos to give himself a boost of nutrition.

qq-2009-11-28_02-The Poop on Mammoths

Sat, Nov 28 Listen
Spores left over from the fungi that grow in mammoth and mastodon dung, suggest that some of the events previously thought to have caused the megafauna to disappear, such as changes to the environment, were actually the result of the extinction.

qq-2009-11-28_01-Arctic Slush

Sat, Nov 28 Listen
Broken, slushy, decayed Arctic ice suggests that the permanent ice cover is in even more trouble than had been previously thought.

qq-2009-11-21_05-Name Your Poison

Sat, Nov 21 Listen
Dr. Hopi Hoekstra, a professor in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard has discoverd that the Northern Short-tailed shrew, a mammal, and the Mexican Beaded Lizard, a reptile - have essentially evolved the same poison.

qq-2009-11-21_04-Vampire Spiders

Sat, Nov 21 Listen
Dr. Simon Pollard, at the University of Canterbury Museum in Christchurch, New Zealand, has found a spider in East Africa that lusts after a particular smell - blood!

qq-2009-11-21_03-Accent on Crying

Sat, Nov 21 Listen
The cry patterns of 30 French new born babies were compared to those of 30 German babies. The cries indicate country of origin.

qq-2009-11-21_02-A Crocodile World

Sat, Nov 21 Listen
Dr. Hans Larsson, a paleontologist at McGill University, has just identified five species of crocodilians that lived about 100 million years ago.

qq-2009-11-21_01-Countdown to Copenhagen

Sat, Nov 21 Listen
In just 2 weeks time, representatives from 193 countries will gather in Copenhagen, Denmark, for the UN Conference on Climate Change.

qq-2009-11-14_06-Fact or Fiction

Sat, Nov 14 Listen
"A person can pay off a sleep debt by sleeping in late on weekends." Dr. John Kimoff, Director of the Sleep Lab at the McGill University Health Centre in Montreal says it is mostly science fiction.

qq-2009-11-14_05-Natural Nukes

Sat, Nov 14 Listen
The first bloom of photosynthetic life, more than 2 billion years ago, would have created a chemical environment that would have led to the concentration of uranium and the formation of many thousands of natural nuclear reactors that would have lasted hundreds of thousands of years.

qq-2009-11-14_04-Singing Wings

Sat, Nov 14 Listen
The unique song of the Club-winged Manakin, a small South American bird is made by the remarkably fast flapping of wings.

qq-2009-11-14_03-Nazca Demise

Sat, Nov 14 Listen
Evidence shows that the Nazca people of Peru may have sown the seeds of their own destruction

qq-2009-11-14_02-Dinos Run Hot Not Cold

Sat, Nov 14 Listen
The question of whether dinosaurs were warm blooded (like birds and mammals) or cold blooded (like modern reptiles) has been hotly debated in the paleontology community.

qq-2009-11-14_01-CSI: Mesopotamia

Sat, Nov 14 Listen
Forensic techniques applied to two skulls from tombs in Mesopotamia, suggests death from blunt-forve trauma, not willing human sacrifice as previously thought.

qq-2009-11-07_06-Fact or Fiction

Sat, Nov 7 Listen
Does cracking your knuckles cause arthritis? Dr. Kam Shojania says it's science fiction.

qq-2009-11-07_05-A Gift From Space

Sat, Nov 7 Listen
Julie Payette spent more than 2 weeks on board the Space Shuttle Endeavour, and the International Space Station. She brought us back a special present: a Quirks & Quarks postcard, featuring Bob McDonald, that she signed in space.

qq-2009-11-07_04-New-tron Star

Sat, Nov 7 Listen
A supernova remnant called Cassiopeia A has been hiding a mystery - just what was left after the star went boom.

qq-2009-11-07_03-Redback Spiders - Cheatin' and Eatin'

Sat, Nov 7 Listen
Jeff Stoltz, a Ph.D candidate in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Toronto, has been studying redback spider mating rituals.

qq-2009-11-07_02-Albatross with a Plastic Wafer

Sat, Nov 7 Listen
Dr. Lindsay Young, a Canadian wildlife biologist, has been studying just how much plastic albatrosses end up ingesting on their oceanic foraging journeys.

qq-2009-11-07_01-Kilimanjaro

Sat, Nov 7 Listen
According to research done by Dr. Lonnie Thompson at the Ohio State University, the famous ice peaks of Mount Kilimanjaro will disappear completely in the next two decades.

qq-2009-10-31_04-Blast From The Past

Sat, Oct 31 Listen
On April 23rd of this year, NASA's Swift Satellite telescope identified the oldest known gamma ray burst in the universe.

qq-2009-10-31_03-Two-alarm Squirrels

Sat, Oct 31 Listen
But Dr. Shannon Digweed, from Grant MacEwan University in Edmonton, believes that red squirrels use the same two sounds to let all intruders know that their presence has been detected.

qq-2009-10-31_02-Unicorn Fly

Sat, Oct 31 Listen
Dr. George Poinar, at Oregon State University, has found a tiny unicorn-like fly, perfectly preserved in a piece of prehistoric Burmese amber.

qq-2009-10-31_01-Cancer As a Chronic Disease

Sat, Oct 31 Listen
Researchers have made remarkable progress in allowing people to live with cancer for longer.

qq-2009-10-24_06-Science Fact or Fiction

Sat, Oct 24 Listen
"You Will Ruin Your Eyesight if You Read in The Dark". Dr. Alan Cruess, Professor and Head of The Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at Dalhousie University in Halifax says -science fiction.

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