Quirks and Quarks

The El Niño underway in the Pacific Ocean is a natural climate phenomenon but its warming effects are being boosted by climate change. Researchers recently used corals growing around the Galapagos Islands to create a local temperature record of the ocean going back 1,000 years.
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The El Niño underway in the Pacific Ocean has been called extraordinary, supersized and likely record-breaking. And while El Niño is a natural climate phenomenon, its warming effects are being boosted by climate change. Julia Cole, a paleoclimatologist at the University of Michigan, recently used corals growing around the Galapagos Islands to create a local temperature record of the ocean going back 1,000 years to add to what they've learned from similar studies elsewhere in the Pacific. She said the temperature record in this area of the East Pacific indicates that the El Niños from the last 40 to 50 years are unlike anything the area experienced in the last millennium. Her study was published in the journal Science.

It’s long been a mystery why one particular avian dinosaur was the only kind to survive mass extinction, but the recent discovery of a perfectly preserved fossilized feather, found in a cherry-sized piece of dinosaur poop, offers new clues.

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Why citizen scientists buried thousands of undies
How climate change tipped the scales on a catastrophic Himalayan avalanche
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Summer is fieldwork time for many scientists. We talk to researchers who have been busy hiking on fresh lava, capturing thousands of ticks, shooing away moose from their study sites, and even spelunking for Neanderthals — all in the ever-important quest for data.

Quirks & Quarks has been taking your burning questions for 50 years. And while we thought we might have answered every question there is, our listeners proved there are always more science questions for us to tackle. Including:
What does the black hole orbit?
What do you sweat out in a sauna?
Why are robins' eggs blue?
What if we no longer had a moon?
Did dinosaurs produce milk?
Were there ever giant humans?