Quirks and Quarks

From camping out on 'bird poop island,' chasing down wild dogs in Madagascar, or even looking for bombs in a bog in Ottawa –– no one quite does summer like scientists. This week, we revisit some of the hijinks that Canadian researchers got up to last year as they left their labs to get their hands dirty in the field.

FEATURING:

Camping out on a remote island with thousands of screaming, pooping, barfing birds
Dodging lions and mongooses to monitor what wild dogs are eating in Mozambique
Saving ancient silk road graffiti from dam-inundation
Prospecting for Second World War bombs in an Ottawa bog
Technology allows examination of Inca mummies without disturbing them
Eavesdropping on chatty snapping turtles in Algonquin Park

Quirks & Quarks has been taking your burning science questions for half a century. And while we thought we might have answered every question there is to answer over the years, our listeners proved there are always more fascinating head-scratchers for us to tackle.

Like:

Are comets eternal?
In a sauna, what am I sweating out?
Did dinosaurs produce milk?
If heat rises, why is there snow on the top of mountains?
What does a black hole orbit?
What if we had no moon?
Why are cat and dog tongues so different?
Why are robin eggs so blue?
Why do some animals become mega sized?
How do animals deal with strong bright UV light?

Some of the oceans biggest, most powerful predators, like certain sharks and tuna, are “mesothermic” or warm-bodied. Running hot allows them to rapidly convert their food to energy and heat, helping them swim faster and hunt in cold waters. But that advantage may become a disadvantage in a warming climate, meaning these fish need to find new ways of cooling off, or face a new threat to their survival.

PLUS:
Ancient Peruvians traded parrots across deserts and mountains
From the archive: David, Jay and Bob, and Quirks & Quarks' origin story
Sea cucumber 'zombie tissue' straddles the line between life and death
Dream engineering may help you solve problems in your sleep

Gold miners working in the Yukon regularly find ancient ground squirrel burrows throughout the permafrost, many containing fossilized feces. Researchers analyzing these well-preserved poop piles found they contain some of the oldest DNA ever recovered, dating from 30,000 to 700,000 years ago. Tucked inside were traces of a wide range of ancient animals, including woolly mammoths, grasshoppers, steppe bison, ancient horses, American cheetahs, as well as hundreds of plant species.

PLUS:
‘Super-good, ice-making microbes’ may trigger snow and rain, or help freeze food
We’re a hotbed of mutations, and scientists are leveraging that for our health
Going out on a limb. Animals regrow body parts, maybe we can too
From the archives: Isaac Asimov on human creativity and robots

150 years ago, Charles Darwin noticed that birds and humans were both drawn to bright plumage and elaborate display. He called this interspecies esthetic appreciation a “shared taste for the beautiful.” Now, in a recent study, an interdisciplinary team of scientists built an online game exploring the mating calls of 16 different species and discovered, to their surprise, that humans and animals agree on which sounds are more attractive.

PLUS:

How the brain can learn to truly multitask
From the archives: The Russian space mirror that flashed across Canadian skies
The Matrix is real: birds, dragonflies and dogs see the world in slow motion
Could the next giant particle collider unlock the mysteries of the universe?