Quirks and Quarks

A CBC Radio One Special:

We are in a new space race and this one looks a lot different than the Apollo missions. More women are donning space suits, and more nations are aiming for the stars. What was it like for the women who broke the mold, and what challenges persist? Co-hosts Nicole Mortillaro and Jaela Bernstien get real with four trailblazing women: three astronauts who shattered the glass ceiling, and a space historian. We talk about sexism, awkward moments, hard-won achievements and what’s in store for Space Race 2.0.

original air date: Monday, October 14, 2024

A Nobel prize for understanding how genes are turned on and off

The early-morning call from Sweden came on Monday to American molecular biologist Gary Ruvkun for his work in discovering microRNAs, which are essential for regulating genetic activity in plants and animals. Ruvkun says that research based on this work helps us understand basic biology, but has also provided significant insight into disease and might even help us understand whether there is life on other planets. 

Biologists discover a new microbial world in your bathroom

Researchers have found a new biodiversity hotspot. Environmental microbiologist Erica Hartmann and her team sampled showerheads and toothbrushes in ordinary bathrooms, and found a host of bacteria and hundreds of previously unknown viruses. But don’t panic: much of this new life are bacteriophages — viruses that infect bacteria — which are harmless to humans and could be potential weapons against the bacteria that can cause human disease. The study was published in the journal Frontiers in Microbiomes.

How we might zap an asteroid on a collision course with Earth

A new experiment using the world’s most powerful radiation source has shown the way to deflecting asteroids with X-rays. The X-rays were used to vaporize some of the surface of a model asteroid, creating a rocket-like effect. Dr Nathan Moore, a physicist at the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, says it's a proof of principle for the concept of deflecting a real asteroid using X-rays generated by a powerful nuclear explosion. The study was published in the journal Nature Physics. 

Exploring the origins of Australia's iconic, if controversial, wild dog

The Australian Dingo has a fierce reputation as a predator, leading to European settlers attempting to exterminate it in the 19th century. But the dingo’s origin story has not been well understood. For years, it was assumed the dingo originated from India, given its similarities to the Indian pariah dog, or from New Guinea. Dr. Loukas Koungolos, a research associate at the University of Sydney, led the study looking at dingo fossils and found out where it likely came from, and how the domestic dogs of ancient people became a wild predator down under. The study was published in the journal Scientific Reports. 

Can we treat autoimmune disease by manipulating the immune system? 

Autoimmune diseases like Lupus can be a result of critical immune cells attacking our own bodies. New advances are pointing to ways we might be able to reverse this. 

Researchers have repurposed a relatively new cancer treatment, called CAR-T therapy that can reprogram immune cells to attack cancer cells, to reset the immune system in patients with lupus to neutralize its autoimmune attack. Dr. Georg Schett and his colleagues, from the Friedrich Alexander University of Erlangen in Germany, were the first to use this immunotherapy to successfully treat lupus patients. That research appeared in the journal Nature Medicine with a follow-up in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Other researchers are focussing on understanding — and possibly reversing — what triggers the immune cells to go awry in the first place. Dr. Jaehyuk Choi, from Northwestern University, said they found a molecule that lupus patients are deficient in. In cell culture they demonstrated that correcting this deficiency can reprogram certain immune T-cells to stop directing the attack on the body which they hope could potentially reverse the effects of lupus. His research was published in Nature.

Hurricane Helene’s killed hundreds, but the true death toll could end up in the thousands

Hurricanes and tropical storms in the US kill about 24 people directly, but a new study looking at “excess deaths” suggests that in the affected areas the mortality rate is elevated for about 15 years. Rachel Young, a postdoctoral researcher from UC Berkeley, analyzed the long tail of these storms from 1930-2015. She found the true death toll ranges from 7,000 to 11,000 per storm. Her team suspects many factors feed into the excess deaths, including how rebuilding costs could impact funds for future medical care, damage to local health systems and exposure to pollution during the storm. Their study is in the journal Nature. 

A new NASA mission will search for signs of life on a Jovian ice moon

Next week NASA hopes to launch a major mission to one of Jupiter’s most fascinating moons. The Europa Clipper will visit the ice moon Europa, whose icy shell is thought to cover an ocean that could contain twice the water that's in all of Earth’s oceans. The fascination with Europa is based on the idea that water is an essential ingredient for life. As a result, Europa could be one of the most promising places in our solar system for life to exist. We talk about the upcoming mission with Cynthia Phillips, the Project Staff Scientist and Planetary Geologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Tarantulas’ creepy hair is likely a defence against predatory army ants

You would think that a venomous spider the size of your fist wouldn’t have too many natural enemies. But Dr. Alireza Zamani from the University of Turku, Finland says it's the arachnid's fuzz, rather than its bite, which discourages predatory army ants. A new study in the Journal of Natural History suggests the tarantula’s barbed hairs keep the ants from being able to attack the spiders, and also protects their eggs, which the arachnids coat in a generous helping of hair.

Whales use underwater bubble blowing in sophisticated ways to trap prey

Scientists have long known that humpback whales use bubbles to corral and concentrate krill and small fish to feed on. But new underwater cameras and airborne drones have provided an unprecedented view of how this is done, revealing how the whales use complex patterns of bubbles in different ways depending on the prey. Andy Szabo, a Canadian whale biologist and executive director of the Alaska Whale Foundation, said the humpbacks’ bubble-nets result in a sevenfold increase in the amount of krill they gulp up per lunge. The study was published in Royal Society Open Science. 

The Bomb Doctor: after the explosion this investigator seeks out evidence in the rubble

Explosive attacks often leave behind tragedy, carnage and chaos. But in the rubble is evidence that could provide vital clues for bomb forensic investigators. Kirk Yeager, the FBI’s chief explosives scientist, describes his work at crime scenes as “walking into hell blindfolded.” In his new book, called The Bomb Doctor: A Scientist's Story of Bombers, Beakers, and Bloodhounds, he explains how he and his colleagues tease out evidence from the scorched and smouldering aftermath of an attack.

A Central American lizard creates a bubble of air underwater to breathe

Semi-aquatic lizards in the western rainforests of Central America have the ability to hide from predators underwater by breathing from a bubble of air they form over their heads. In a new study in the journal Biology Letters, ecologist Lindsey Swierk from New York State University at Binghamton, found that the lizards with this bubble-breathing trick could stay underwater for 30 per cent longer than the lizards without a bubble. 

A really weird fish walks on its fingers and tastes with them too

The sea robin is a strange fish with wing-like fins and finger-like bony structures that it uses to prop itself up as it roams the ocean floor. New research from a team of scientists from Harvard and Stanford Universities, including Nick Bellono, looked at how these bizarre creatures use their legs to hone in on their prey. It turns out these funny finny fingers can also taste food in the sediment of the sea bottom. The research was published in the journal Current Biology.

We can make our food production systems more stable by reintroducing nature

A new study by a team of researchers at the University of Guelph suggests that removing large animals and destroying natural habitat is making our agricultural systems and fisheries more unstable and vulnerable to boom and bust cycles. But the study, published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, also suggests that restoring nature can help stabilize our food production to better feed the world’s billions. 

Giant clams live off sunlight and could inspire solar power systems 

Working in the protected reefs of Palau, Dr. Alison Sweeney, associate professor of physics and of ecology and evolutionary biology at Yale University, was intrigued by the iridescence of the giant clams. Her team discovered that the giant clams tissues are optimized to channel sunlight to photosynthetic algae that live inside them. They work like solar panels, but far more efficiently than manufactured versions, providing inspiration for bio-inspired energy technology. The study was published in the journal PRX Energy.

Plastic: Understanding the problem, and the struggle for a solution

Plastic is a miracle material, and one of the most useful innovations of the modern age. But its ubiquity and the durability that makes it so useful mean it’s also becoming one of our biggest waste problems. Twenty years after he discovered microplastics on beaches around the UK, marine biologist Richard Thompson has just released a new study looking at what we’ve learned about these pervasive plastics, and urges scientists to turn their research focus towards solving the problem. We also speak with RJ Conk from the University of Berkeley about his work on vaporizing plastics down to their chemical building blocks, which could finally make real recycling a reality.

Earthquakes create a spark in quartz that can form massive gold nuggets

Scientists have figured out why up to 75 per cent of all the gold ever mined forms inside quartz in areas with a long history of earthquakes. Chris Voisey, a Canadian geologist at Monash University in Australia, said he was trying to solve how gold arose inside quartz. In his study in the journal Nature Geoscience, he found that earthquake stress on quartz crystals generates an electrical voltage that causes dissolved gold to precipitate into a solid that can grow into the largest nuggets ever found.

Ice Age Teens went through puberty just like today’s kids

A new analysis of the bones of teenagers from 25,000 years ago shows they experienced puberty in much the same way as teens today. An international team of researchers including Paleolithic archaeologist April Nowell analyzed the bones of 13 teens found across Europe, and by looking at particular markers in the bones, they were able to see which stage of puberty the teens were in when they died. The researchers could not only infer things like whether their voices were breaking, but by doing muscle analysis, they found that the teens were healthy and active, and likely involved in hunting and fishing. The research was published in the Journal of Human Evolution.

Grey sharks are abandoning warming coral reefs in the Indian Ocean

The grey shark in the Indian Ocean uses beautiful coral reefs as a home base, returning each day after a night of fishing. But lately the sharks have been staying away for longer periods of time, up to 16 months. Dr. Michael Willamson, a research scientist at the Zoological Society of London, found that climate change is stressing the reefs. The sharks seek out cooler but potentially more dangerous waters. Venturing away from the protected reef area leaves them more vulnerable to illegal shark fishing. The paper was published in the journal Communications Biology

A cosmic collision 9 billion years ago could be the origin of he supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy 

Using data from The Event Horizon Telescope, Dr. Yihan Wang worked with Dr. Bing Zhang at the Nevada Institute of Astrophysics to study the origins of the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy. From the EHT image of the Sagittarius A* Dr. Wang and his team made an accretion model and saw that it spins very fast and that the spinning is misaligned. They believe it may have been made by merging with another supermassive black hole. about 9 billion years ago. Their paper was published in Nature Astronomy.

Astronaut Roberta Bondar gives a bird’s eye view of migration 

32 years after she flew on the space shuttle, Roberta Bondar is still showing us what the Earth looks like from space — and from closer to the ground. Dr. Bondar trained as a wildlife photographer after her astronaut career. For a new project collected photos from space, from airplanes and helicopters, and from the ground, to bring a new perspective on the migration of two important bird species, the threatened lesser Flamingo and the endangered Whooping Crane. The book is called Space for Birds: Patterns and Parallels of Beauty and Flight.

Wrestling 14-foot 'dinosaurs' to figure out why they're dying

Dr. Madison Earhart, a postdoctoral fellow from the University of British Columbia, spent her summer fishing for enormous white sturgeon in the Fraser and Nechako Rivers in British Columbia. Since 2022, there have been a large number of deaths of this fish along the west coast of North America and it’s concerning when a species that’s been around for hundreds of million years suddenly starts dying off. She and her colleagues are trying to figure out what’s happening and how to conserve this important and spectacular fish.

Installing Dark Matter detectors two kilometeres underground

Dr. Madeleine Zurowski of the University of Toronto has been underground most of this past summer at SNOLAB, located in Sudbury, Ontario. She’s been helping install specially designed dark matter detectors in a project called SuperCDMS, as part of an international collaboration that is researching the nature of dark matter. 

Managing Canada’s worst invasive plant with moths

As Director of the Waterloo Wetland Laboratory, Dr. Rebecca Rooney has been investigating how to stop the spread of a plant called invasive Phragmites, which chokes wetlands, ditches and many other environments. Her group has introduced European moths which eat the plant. This summer PhD student Claire Schon and lab technician Ryan Graham went into the field to collect some more data on their project.

Helicoptering in 35 tonnes of material in an attempt to restore a Sudbury peatland 

Scientists are working to restore a degraded peatland damaged by contamination from mining activity in Sudbury. Colin McCarter, the project lead from Nipissing University, described how they’re trying to figure out how to best restore these toxic metal-contaminated landscapes to restore their natural capacity as wildfire-buffering, carbon-storing powerhoues.  

Transatlantic balloon flight from Sweden to Nunavut

Dr Kaley Walker is an atmospheric physicist from the University of Toronto. Working with the Canadian Space Agency, this summer she was in Sweden to send a massive balloon — 30 stories tall and 800,000 cubic meters in volume — on a high-altitude transatlantic flight to Nunavut, to measure stratospheric gases.

The accidental discovery of an ancient Roman monument’s missing limb

Dr. Sarah Murray is the co-director of an archeological project on the history of Porto Rafti, Greece. While surveying for Bronze Age relics, her team discovered an enormous missing limb from a famous Roman marble statue in the area, a monument popular with tourists for centuries. This summer, they returned with drones to make 3D models of the statue, to understand how the arm was attached to the statue’s now limbless torso.

Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen gets lunar geology training in Iceland

Astronauts assigned to NASA’s Artemis II mission, who’ll be heading to the moon as early as September 2025, embarked on their own field research this summer in Iceland to train as lunar geologists. CSA astronaut Jeremy Hansen documented his adventure and filled us in on why this training is crucial for their upcoming mission.

Building wildfire resistant housing

After wildfires devastated Lytton, BC in 2021, the government announced that they were going to support homeowners to rebuild homes that would be resistant to wildfire. Senior Engineer Lucas Coletta of Natural Resources Canada, was part of the team that tested various fire resilient materials and construction methods this past spring and summer.

 A behind-the-scenes chat about the making of the CBC Radio collaboration called "Overheated." White Coat, Black Art, What on Earth, and Quirks and Quarks are exploring how heat is affecting our health, our communities and our ecosystems. This originally broadcast on The Current.

Quirks & Quarks launches our new season with a special on urban heat. It's part of a collaboration with White Coat, Black Art and What on Earth called "Overheated."

Host Bob McDonald and Producer Amanda Buckiewicz tell the story of how a city’s design can influence the way we experience and cope with heat. Bob will cycle through the streets of Montreal with a Concordia researcher on specially-equipped bikes - these are equipped with sensors that measure how temperatures change across neighbourhoods based on their density - the amount of infrastructure coupled with mitigating cooling effects like tree cover.

He’ll also spend time with a McGill epidemiologist who will deploy hundreds of sensors that measure air temperature every 30 minutes over a month. That data will be used to determine how changing temperatures impact physical and mental health. It's vital information as heat is thought to be the most lethal kind of extreme weather.

And we'll explore some of the solutions to urban heat: How we can design buildings and urban landscapes - with a little help from nature - can make our cities cooler and more comfortable as the temperature rises.

Check out our podcast feed for shows you might have missed, or visit us online at cbc.ca/quirks to see our on-demand audio archive.

Christ Kennedyfrom Moncton, New Brunswick asks: If someone had the means to, how close could we bring the Moon to the Earth while still keeping it in orbit around us? And fast would a month fly by?

Answer from Brett Gladman, a professor of astronomy at the University of British Columbia,

Matoli Degroot from Manitoba asks: Do animal species in the wild get bigger over time, since the bigger males would end up mating more than the smaller ones?

Answer from Danielle Fraser, head of paleobiology at the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa.

Bill Sullivan from Hamilton, Ontario asks: Why does the hair on my head turn grey while hair on the rest of my body does not change colour?

Answer from Frida Lona-Durazo, a postdoctoral fellow in computational genetics at the University of Montreal, who’s studied the genetics of hair colour.

Dan from Quebec City asks: We know that the Earth’s crust is built of plates that float on the molten centre of the Earth. What is the force that moves those plates?

Answer from Alexander Peace, an assistant professor in the School of Earth, Environment and Society at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont.

Frances Mawson from Heckmans Island in Nova Scotia asks: Prey animals like deer are intermittently forced to flee from various predators. When danger has passed, they pause for a moment and then resume browsing. How can they recover so quickly? 

Answer from wildlife ecologist and Western University professor Liana Zanette.

Richard Lukes from Winnipeg asks: As a hydro generating station generates energy, what is the effect on the downstream water? Has the temperature of the water been lowered? If so, then could hydropower help to cool the oceans and combat global warming?

Answer from Jaime Wong, an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Alberta.

Luc in Edmonton asks: With more people planting native grasses and plants around their houses and businesses in cities, will the bird population in these cities change or increase?

Answer from Sheila Colla, an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Environmental & Urban Change at York University and York Research Chair in Interdisciplinary Conservation Science.

John Ugyan from Kelowna, British Columbia asks: If atoms are 99.99% empty, why do our eyes see matter as if it was 100% solid? 

Answer from condensed matter physicist, Cissy Suen.who’s a joint PhD student from UBC’s Quantum Matter Institute and the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Germany

Debbie Turner in Fenelon Falls, Ont. asks: How does climate change affect animals that hibernate?

Answer from Jeffrey Lane, an associate professor in the department of biology at the University of Saskatchewan.

Greg Hollinger from Owen Sound, Ontario asks: Since the planets orbit the sun in a plane, does their combined gravity pull on and distort the shape of the sun?

Answer from Roan Haggar, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Waterloo’s Centre for Astrophysics.

What would you do with a third thumb? Research suggests our brain can quickly adapt  

Birds can dream - and even have nightmares - and now scientists are tuning in

A comprehensive new collection of medical information shows the health risks of space travel

A study in mice sheds new light on how exercise can reverse aging in the brain

Rare fossils from the ‘age of monotremes’ found in Australia 

How the brain can instantly tell the difference between speech and music

PODCAST EXTRAS

Organic farms next to conventionally farmed fields leads to increased pesticide use

Orca whales hunt, play and dive – one breath at a time

The secret of the beaver’s orange teeth can help us make our teeth strong

The sun’s ramping up its activity and now we have a better idea of what’s driving it

This spring we’ve seen some spectacular displays of northern lights and we’re expecting to see  more as we approach the peak of the sun’s natural cycle, the solar maximum. Every 11 years the sun cycles from having few sunspots on its surface to having many. Now according to a new study in the journal Nature, scientists have figured out what may be driving this process. Geoff Vasil, an associate professor of computational and applied mathematics at the University of Edinburgh, said instabilities in swirling magnetic systems near the sun’s surface gives rise to sunspots on its surface that can erupt and send solar storms our way.

Female otters use tools more than males – to crack open tasty treats and save their teeth

Otters are cute and clever – clever enough to be one of the few animals who use tools such as rocks, glass bottles, or even boat hulls to smash shells and access the tasty flesh inside. But researchers studying otters off the coast of California found that certain otters were using these tools more than others, and wanted to understand why. In a new study, published in the journal Science, research biologist Chris Law found that it was females that were using the tools more than the males, in order to access hard-shelled meals like clams and mussels without damaging their teeth.

The longest lasting human species (not us) were expert elephant hunters

Our cousins, Homo Erectus, inhabited Earth for nearly two million years, and they were capable hunters. An analysis of stone tool manufacturing sites, published in the journal Archaeologies, gives new insight into the high levels of organization and planning by these early humans. Tel Aviv University archeologist Meir Finkel studied the ancient stone quarries in the Hula Valley, and discovered that they were often located on elephant migration routes near water sources – so the humans didn’t have far to go to get weapons for slaying and butchering their meals. This triad of elephants, water and stone quarries is present across many Old Stone Age sites where the early humans lived, including South America, Africa and Europe. 

A plastic that carries the seeds of its own destruction

Researchers have been able to integrate spores of a plastic-eating bacteria into plastic to create a material that, over time, eats itself. In a controlled study, scientists found that the bacteria can break down 90 per cent of the soft plastic in the material in about 90 days. Mohammed Arif Rahman, a senior polymer scientist and R&D director of BASF, said they’re still working on it with hopes that the bacteria embedded within it will be able to keep on consuming the remaining plastic so as not to generate any microplastics. The proof of concept study was published in the journal Nature Communications. 

A new book about gravity celebrates failing and falling

When theoretical physicist Claudia de Rham didn’t quite make the cut as an astronaut candidate, she doubled down on her fascination with the phenomenon of gravity. This puts her on the path of great thinkers like Newton and Einstein who helped us to start to understand what holds the universe together. In a new book, The Beauty of Falling: A life in pursuit of gravity, she ties her personal adventures with her theoretical explorations of gravitational rainbows and the origins of dark matter, and details all the mysteries that still remain about this fundamental feature of reality.

Killer whales are likely ramming boats because they’re bored and having fun

Several years ago a small population of killer whales living off the coast of Spain began attacking boats, particularly sailboats, damaging some severely and even sinking a handful. While social media speculation has suggested whale rage as a cause, an international team of killer whale experts recently published a report suggesting the behaviour is not aggression, but is instead an example of these giant social creatures just playing and having fun with a toy. We speak with two contributors to the report: John Ford, research scientist emeritus at the Pacific Biological Station with Fisheries & Oceans Canada, and Renaud de Stephanis, the president of Spanish conservation group CIRCE.

4,000-year-old Egyptian skull shows signs of possible surgery for brain cancer

Researchers studying the history of cancer in human history recently hit the jackpot. In a collection of human remains at the University of Cambridge they found two skulls from Egypt, both thousands of years old, that show signs of advanced cancer. One of those skulls bore cut marks around the lesions. Lead study author and University of Santiago de Compostela professor Edgard Camarós said that regardless of whether these cuts were made as attempts at treatment or a post-mortem investigation, they show off the sophisticated medical knowledge of ancient Egyptians — and can also help better understand the evolution of cancer.This study was published in Frontiers in Medicine.

Gorillas’ tiny penises and low sperm count can help us understand infertility in humans

Gorillas are the biggest of the great apes, but their reproductive anatomy is diminutive. The males have small penises and testes, and low sperm quality. A new genetic analysis, published in the scientific journal eLife, identified the mutations that are responsible for male gorillas’ peculiar fertility. Vincent Lynch, an associate professor of biological sciences at the State University of New York at Buffalo, said these findings can help us better understand the genes responsible for lower sperm quality in humans.

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Illuminating plumes of hot magma in the Earth’s mantle with earthquake seismic data

To understand the source of the magma fueling volcanic eruptions, scientists are using another significant geological event: earthquakes. The seismic waves that earthquakes send through our planet can shine a light on the chimneys of magma that connect the core of the Earth through the mantle to the surface. Karin Sigloch, a professor of geophysics at CNRS — France’s National Centre for Scientific Research, is part of an international effort to deploy seismic sensors throughout the oceans to illuminate the mantle plumes. Their research from recent observations in the Indian Ocean around Réunion Island was in Nature Geoscience. 

It’s intelligence all the way down: How cells, tissues and organs have their own smarts

We tend to think of collective intelligence as something we see among animals that work cooperatively to solve problems, like in an ant colony, a school of fish or flock of birds. But biologist Michael Levin, from Harvard and Tufts’ universities, thinks collective intelligence also extends to functions within the cell, all the way up to networks of cells, tissues and even organs. He suggests evolution has granted simpler biological layers in living systems the ability to flexibly solve problems. In a recent paper in Communications Biology, he argues we can harness these lower level problem-solving capabilities to make significant advances in regenerative medicine, and treating aging and disease.  

This little piggy escaped and wreaked havoc on crops and the environment

Wild pigs that have escaped or been released from farms have established self-sustaining populations in the prairies and central Canada and are wreaking havoc on farms and wilderness landscapes alike. A new study, led by Ryan Brook at the University of Saskatchewan, has tracked pigs to try to understand where, and how far, this porcine invasion can go. The research was published in the journal Biological Invasions.

Satellites and space junk burning up in the atmosphere is a new kind of pollution

Scientists doing high-altitude sampling of material deposited when meteorites burn up in the atmosphere are seeing a shift in the material they’ve been collecting. In a recent study in the journal PNAS, scientists found that increasingly the particles contain material that could have only come from vaporized space junk, such as the upper stages of rocket boosters and re-entering satellites themselves. Daniel Cziczo, an atmospheric scientist at Purdue University, said they’re now trying to find out what kind of impact this in material in the stratosphere may have on things like the ozone layer and global warming.

A 200 million year old marine reptile the size of a blue whale

Hundreds of millions of years ago, long before dinosaurs roamed the surface of our planet, ichthyosaurs ruled the Earth’s oceans. Analysis of bones found in a river basin in the UK suggests a new species might have been one the biggest marine animals that ever lived. Paleontologist Jimmy Waldron was part of the team, who published their research in the journal PLOS One. 

Fox skulls are optimized for diving into snow

Foxes hunt in winter by listening for rodents under deep snow and then leaping and diving into the snow, plunging down to snatch their prey. A team including Sunghwan Jung, a professor of Biological and Environmental Engineering at Cornell University, did a unique experiment to confirm that the pointed shape of the fox skull is better than any other shape they tested at penetrating deep into snow. The research was published in the journal PNAS.

Scientists propose a plan to study self-spreading vaccines

Researchers concerned with emerging diseases like H5N1 bird flu, which has devastated wild bird populations, are proposing a controversial way to stop the disease. Megan Griffiths, a postdoctoral researcher in viral ecology at the University of Glasgow, says transmissible vaccines would use harmless viruses to carry vaccines against pathogenic viruses. She’s the co-author of a recent study in the journal Science that presents a framework for how they could safely develop self-spreading vaccines.

The logic behind creating more dangerous viruses to understand them better

Anticipating how dangerous viruses — like avian influenza or coronaviruses — could transform from more innocuous forms into much more dangerous ones could help us prepare for future pandemics. Ron Fouchier, a molecular virologist at the Erasmus Medical Centre in Holland, says without doing “gain of function” research, like the kind he published in the journal Science in 2012, we never would have known which changes to lookout for with the current global H5N1 outbreak. Gain of function research, which involves experimenting with viruses to make them more dangerous, has become increasingly controversial, but Fouchier says with Europe’s strict regulations to ensure safety, the risk is worth the reward. 

The recent solar storm scrambled undersea sensors

The solar storm that lit up the evening sky with aurora recently was also detected by Canada’s Ocean Network system of undersea oceanographic observatories off both coasts of the country and up in the Arctic. The compass instruments that normally provide the direction of ocean currents fluctuated by as much as 30 degrees at the height of the solar storm and were picked up as deep as 2.7 kilometers. Kate Moran, the CEO and President of Ocean Networks Canada, said these measurements could prove to be useful for solar scientists to understand the depth of the impact geomagnetic storms can have on our electromagnetic field. 

Robots are stronger, and faster, and better – but still lose to animals

Despite being built to run, robots still can’t beat real animals in a race, says a new study published in Science Robotics. Researchers compared the physical abilities of animals to the latest generation of agile autonomous robots and showed that while they can exceed biology in strength and speed, robots still can’t match the performance of animals. Simon Fraser University professor Max Donelan explained that biology has better integrated systems, which makes animals able to respond faster to the situation at hand. 

How European brown rats took over North America

The brown rat is the clear undisputed winner of the rat race, having established ecological dominance in most cities across the continent. A new study led by Eric Guiry from Trent University involved analyzing piles of rat bones from dig sites and centuries-old shipwrecks to put together a timeline of when and how brown rats took over North America. He found that brown rats came across the pond much earlier than expected, and surprisingly dominated over black rats very quickly, even though the two animals weren’t actually in competition for the same food. The research was published in the journal Science Advances.

Decoding whale talk and primate calls 

Scientists are turning to technology to help decode animal communication. In the Caribbean researchers sorted rhythmic sperm whale clicks into an entire alphabet, while on land, machine learning algorithms revealed a new level of complexity in the calls of orangutans in Borneo.

Eavesdropping on nature sounds to save ecosystems in US National parks

In a basement at Penn State University, researchers with the Protected Areas Research Collaborative (PARC) Lab are listening to thousands of hours of recordings from the US National Park service in order to track every single noise - whether it be natural or human-made. This data is being used to understand how to preserve natural sounds in the parks, which have been shown to be beneficial to both humans, and wildlife. Now, the team is adopting machine learning and artificial intelligence to listen to more data than ever before. We spoke with co-principal investigator Peter Newman, and co-lab manager Morgan Crump. 

In a separate paper, recently published in Science Advances, researchers are calling attention to nature’s smellscapes—the various chemicals put out by trees and animals—and how they can affect humans. The multidisciplinary, international team, led by Gregory Bratman from the University of Washington, provides a conceptual framework for investigating nature’s smells, to fill in the gaps about what those scents are doing to humans, but also, to know what we’re doing to those scents.

Sabre tooth cats had baby-tooth backup

The fearsome canines of saber-toothed cats were terrific weapons for stabbing unfortunate prey, but their impressive length also made them vulnerable to breakage. A new study by University of California, Berkeley associate professor Jack Tseng suggests adolescent California saber-toothed cat kept their baby teeth to buttress the adult sabers, and reinforce them while cats learned to hunt. This research was published in The Anatomical Record.

Global warming could swallow Antarctic meteorites

Over 60 per cent of all meteorites found on Earth are discovered in Antarctica, embedded in the ice. But a new study published in Nature Climate Change cautions that the warming temperatures are causing the dark space rocks to sink below the surface before researchers can get to them. Glaciologist Veronica Tollenaar, who is the lead author of this study, says it’s important to collect as many of these meteorites as possible to avoid losing the insights they provide about the space around us. 

This worm’s eyes are bigger than its — everything

A pair of high-functioning eyes is perhaps not something you would associate with the various worm species on our planet. But down in the depths of the Mediterranean sea lives a small, translucent worm with alien-looking eyes that weigh more than twenty times as much as the rest of its head. Now, a group of vision researchers have found that their size is not just for show. Their vision works about as well as that of some mammals. Michael Bok, a researcher in the Lund Vision Group at Lund University in Sweden, said they may be using it to detect prey at night. They report their findings in the journal Current Biology.  

We’re breathing out an environment in which respiratory viruses may thrive

One of the questions that’s been raised by the COVID-19 pandemic is just what conditions allow viruses carried in aerosol droplets to survive and spread. A new study in the Journal of The Royal Society Interface found that a CO2 rich environment — like a crowded room with poor ventilation — makes the aerosol particles more acidic, which allows the virus to remain stable and survive longer. Allen Haddrell, a Canadian aerovirologist at the University of Bristol, said this means that CO2 levels don’t just tell you how well ventilated a room is, but it also tell how healthy the virus is in that air. 

Why an essential subatomic particle plays the field

The detection of the Higgs boson particle by the Large Hadron Collider in 2012 was one of the great moments for modern physics. But while many celebrated the discovery of the “God Particle,” physicist Matt Strassler was a bit frustrated by the way the particle discovery overshadowed what he said was truly important for our understanding of the universe: not the Higgs particle, but the Higgs field. In his new book called, Waves in an Impossible Sea: How Everyday Life Emerges from the Cosmic Ocean, he explains how the Higgs field literally makes the universe — and our place in it — what it is today. 

Listener Question — Do mated animals reject others crashing their relationships?

We hear the answer from Sarah Jamieson, a behavioural ecologist and assistant professor at Trent University.

We baby talk with both dogs and kids, but our faces say something different

Dogs can use their powerful noses to sniff out PTSD

A quarter of all Labradors are hard-wired to be hungrier and burn less energy

Your pet dog may know more words than you give them credit for

Size, face shape and other factors matter when it comes to a dog’s lifespan, study shows

It’s possible – and worthwhile – to teach an old dog new tricks

What a genome reveals about an extinct species of dogs - and the Indigenous people who cared for them

Chimpanzees are being forced to eat bat feces, and the viruses in it

Researchers in Uganda have noticed a new behaviour in the wild chimps they study. The apes are browsing on bat guano, apparently to access the nutrients it contains, as their normal source for these nutrients has been destroyed by humans. Since bats are carriers of a range of diseases, from ebola to coronaviruses, this may be a new way these diseases could spread. The study was published in Communications Biology. Dr Tony Goldberg, a professor of epidemiology at the school of veterinary medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was part of the team.

Controversial methods are working to buy Canada’s caribou some time

Woodland caribou have been in steady decline for decades, as logging, oil and gas exploration and other disturbances compromise their western mountain habitat. Steady progress has been made to restore habitat in order to save these caribou, but since these forests will take half a century to regrow, conservationists are trying a variety of interim actions to buy the caribou some time. A new study led by Clayton Lamb from the University of British Columbia Okanagan found that these methods, including direct feeding, maternal penning, and, controversially, culling predatory wolves, have helped caribou recover to some extent, but restoration of their habitat will be necessary for full recovery. The research was published in the journal Ecological Applications.

Giant ancient Pacific salmon had tusks sticking out of its face

Millions of years ago, enormous three metre-long salmon inhabited the seas of the Pacific coast. Named Oncorhynchus rastrosus, this ancient giant was first described in the 1970s as having long front fangs, which led to it being known colloquially as a “saber-toothed salmon.” But a new study published in PLOS ONE sets the record straight: the teeth actually protruded out to the sides from the fish’s upper jaw, as tusks do. Lead study author and Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine professor Kerin Claeson says despite their menacing look, the salmon did not hunt with these tusks, since these strange fish were filter feeders.

The Gulf oil spill may have had ecological impacts we haven’t seen yet

Fourteen years ago an explosion destroyed the Deepwater Horizon oil rig and kicked off the largest oil spill in history. While commercial fisheries have largely recovered from the disaster, there are signs that rarer and more vulnerable species might have been devastated. Prosanta Chakrabarty from Louisiana State University surveyed deep sea fish catalogued in museum collections around the world and found that out of 78 endemic species found only in the Gulf, 29 of them haven’t been spotted in the years since the spill. The research was published in the Biodiversity Data Journal.

Primordial black holes may be the solution the problem of missing dark matter

The hunt for exotic black holes that Stephen Hawking first predicted back in the 1970s is now well underway. Primordial black holes behave just like any other black hole, but they would have  formed in the early universe and could  be any size. Many scientists are particularly interested in the primordial black holes that are the size of an atom and have the mass of an asteroid because they suspect they could be the answer for the missing dark matter in our universe.