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Quirks and Quarks (Science-Technology)

  • Next available on CBC Radio One Sydney 1140
  • in 9 hours 26 minutes
  • Find another station or time for this show on one of 1068 other stations & times
  • 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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Last updated 281 days ago Update show info

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.

qq-2009-10-24_05-Ribbon 'Round the Solar System

Sat, Oct 24 Listen
NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) spacecraft set out to map the region between the edge of the solar system and the heliosphere, the bubble-like structure that protects us from cosmic rays. But according to Dr. David McComas, the IBEX Principal Investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, the spacecraft found something completely unexpected - a mysterious bright ribbon of particles.

qq-2009-10-24_04-Macaque Moms Go Goo-Goo

Sat, Oct 24 Listen
Dr. Annika Paukner at the National Institutes of Health Animal Center in Maryland has also observed the baby macaque mimicking the mother's various gestures of affection; interaction thought to be unique to humans.

qq-2009-10-24_03-Human Footprints in the Mud

Sat, Oct 24 Listen
Dr. John Smol, a professor of biology and Canada Research Chair in Environmental Change at Queen's University in Kingston, has analyzed a sedimentary record reaching back much farther than any found before.

qq-2009-10-24_02-Babies & Talk

Sat, Oct 24 Listen
Canadian researcher Dr. Athena Vouloumanos, a professor of Psychology at New York University, was interested in testing the idea that infants have a built-in affinity for human speech.

qq-2009-10-24_01-Laptop of the Greeks

Sat, Oct 24 Listen
The Antikythera Mechanism was discovered a hundred years ago in the wreckage of a 2000-year-old ship. For much of the last century, researchers like Dr. Daryn Lehoux in the Classics Department at Queen's University in Kingston at have been trying to figure out what this complex mechanical device can do.

qq-2009-10-17_05-Science Fact or Fiction

Sat, Oct 17 Listen
Do your hair and fingernails continue to grow after you die?

qq-2009-10-17_04-Connected

Sat, Oct 17 Listen
The ties that bind us to our friends and our communities, affect our health, our wealth and our welfare.

qq-2009-10-17_03-Vegetarian Spider

Sat, Oct 17 Listen
Dr. Robert Curry, and his team of have found what they believe is the first primarily vegetarian spider.

qq-2009-10-17_02-Toads Dress for Mating Success

Sat, Oct 17 Listen
A toad changes colour for the purpose of mating.

qq-2009-10-17_01-Holey Jawbone

Sat, Oct 17 Listen
A parasite may have found a creature that could have made T.Rex miserable.

qq-2009-10-10_05-Between XX and XY

Sat, Oct 10 Listen
Dr. Gererald Callahan from Colorado State University has written a book about the myth of having just two sexes called Between XX and XY.

qq-2009-10-10_04-Sheep - Shy and Showy

Sat, Oct 10 Listen
Dr. David Coltman, a biologist at the University of Alberta, studied variations in sheep personalities, and thinks it might help with conservation.

qq-2009-10-10_03-Termite Termination

Sat, Oct 10 Listen
When Dr. Barbara Thorne, a professor of Entomology in the College of Chemical and Life Sciences at the University of Maryland, pit two colonies of the termites she was studying against each other, she thought she might see a war. Instead, she saw the kings and queens of the rival colonies attack each other.

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