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Quirks & Quarks September 21, 2002
Audio Files:
Real Audio Files: Listen in real time or download it here.
[Available Saturday 2 hours after broadcast].
Travels In The Genetically Modified Zone
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Travels In the Genetically Modified Zone. |
The debate over genetically modified foods and crops is perhaps the most contentious and most polarised issue in science today.
Opponents see the issue in terms of greedy multi-nationals trying to force a dangerous and untested technology down our throats. Supporters see a group of unreasonable and emotional environmentalists using bad science and exaggerated risks to scare the public. See how do we find a middle ground?
Dr. Mark Winston, a professor of biological sciences at Simon Fraser University, has tried to define that middle ground in his new book, Travels in the Genetically Modified Zone, published by Harvard University Press.
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Choosy Chirpers
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A Common Song Sparrow |
If you're a male song sparrow then it pays to learn your tunes. You see, female song sparrows are a picky bunch.
One of the tools they use to pick their mates is how well they sing. Males who stick to the tried and true traditional tunes are more likely to get chosen than those who don't know all the notes. Susan Peters, a research associate at Duke University, discovered this critical approach to mating.
She thinks the females are using singing ability to judge how healthy and fit the males actually are.
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Quick Quirks - Antimatter and the Big Crunch.
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Producer Jim Lebans discusses some of the science news of the week. Researchers at CERN in Switzerland made anti-hydrogen from anti-protons and anti-electrons, and they hope it will all be pro-physics.
And one of the leading minds in cosmology, Dr. Andrei Linde now thinks that the universe will collapse into a big crunch in 10 billion years instead of expanding forever.
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Habitat Corridors
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Satellite Shot of a wildlife corridor. |
Human development is more and more leaving only small fragments of natural habitat. Some ecologists have suggested that joining these fragments with corridors - essentially natural highways - might mean that the small fragments could act like a single, larger reserve, preserving biodiversity and preventing local extinctions.
The idea has been difficult to prove, until this week when a team of American researchers announced the results of a large scale experiment they did on habitat corridors. They've shown that these corridors do seem to work, at least in the area they studied. Dr Josh Tewksbury of the department of Zoology at the University of Florida was part of the research team.
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What's with the Hammer's Head?
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Hammerhead Shark. Courtesy of: Stephen Kajiura |
Hammerhead sharks are, well let's be honest, a little peculiar looking. Dr Stephen Kajiura, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California at Irvine, has been investigating what adaptive advantage their head gives them.
He's found that these sharks have an advantage by having widely distributed electro-sensory pores on their heads, and they use their wing-shaped profile to enhance their maneuverability in the water.
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Question of The Week - Planet Rotation
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Jim Ryan asks, "What causes planets and stars to rotate?" For the answer, we go to Dr. Paul Delaney, professor of physics & astronomy at York University in Toronto.
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