Quirks & Quarks 2009-11-14

CSI: Mesopotamia, Dinos Run Hot not Cold, Nazca Demise, Singing Wings, Natural Nukes, Fact or Fiction.

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[mp3 file: runs 52:24]

Quirks & Quarks 2009-11-07

Killimanjaro, Albatross with a Plastic Wafer, Redback Spiders - Cheatin' and Eatin', New-tron Star, A Gift from Space, Fact or Fiction.

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[mp3 file: runs 52:49]

Quirks & Quarks 2009-10-31

Cancer as a Chronic Disease,Unicorn Fly, Two-alarm Squirrels, Blast from the Past.

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[mp3 file: runs 52:56]

Quirks & Quarks 2009-10-24

Laptop of the Greeks, Babies & Talk, Human Footprints in the Mud, Macaque Moms Go Goo-Goo, Ribbon 'Round the Solar System, Science Fact or Fiction.

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[mp3 file: runs 52:41]

qq-2009-11-14_01-CSI: Mesopotamia

Forensic techniques applied to two skulls from tombs in Mesopotamia, suggests death from blunt-forve trauma, not willing human sacrifice as previously thought.

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[mp3 file: runs 10:19]

qq-2009-11-14_02-Dinos Run Hot Not Cold

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.

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[mp3 file: runs 7:54]

qq-2009-11-14_03-Nazca Demise

Evidence shows that the Nazca people of Peru may have sown the seeds of their own destruction

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[mp3 file: runs 9:46]

qq-2009-11-14_04-Singing Wings

The unique song of the Club-winged Manakin, a small South American bird is made by the remarkably fast flapping of wings.

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[mp3 file: runs 9:57]

qq-2009-11-14_05-Natural Nukes

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.

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[mp3 file: runs 8:42]

qq-2009-11-14_06-Fact or Fiction

"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.

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[mp3 file: runs 5:19]

qq-2009-11-07_01-Kilimanjaro

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.

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[mp3 file: runs 10:53]

qq-2009-11-07_02-Albatross with a Plastic Wafer

Dr. Lindsay Young, a Canadian wildlife biologist, has been studying just how much plastic albatrosses end up ingesting on their oceanic foraging journeys.

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[mp3 file: runs 8:26]

qq-2009-11-07_03-Redback Spiders - Cheatin' and Eatin'

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.

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[mp3 file: runs 9:34]

qq-2009-11-07_04-New-tron Star

A supernova remnant called Cassiopeia A has been hiding a mystery - just what was left after the star went boom.

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[mp3 file: runs 8:21]

qq-2009-11-07_05-A Gift From Space

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.

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[mp3 file: runs 10:53]

qq-2009-11-07_06-Fact or Fiction

Does cracking your knuckles cause arthritis? Dr. Kam Shojania says it's science fiction.

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[mp3 file: runs 4:10]

qq-2009-10-31_01-Cancer As a Chronic Disease

Researchers have made remarkable progress in allowing people to live with cancer for longer.

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[mp3 file: runs 23:48]

qq-2009-10-31_02-Unicorn Fly

Dr. George Poinar, at Oregon State University, has found a tiny unicorn-like fly, perfectly preserved in a piece of prehistoric Burmese amber.

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[mp3 file: runs 9:04]

qq-2009-10-31_03-Two-alarm Squirrels

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.

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[mp3 file: runs 7:26]

qq-2009-10-31_04-Blast From The Past

On April 23rd of this year, NASA's Swift Satellite telescope identified the oldest known gamma ray burst in the universe.

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[mp3 file: runs 12:18]

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

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.

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[mp3 file: runs 14:29]

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

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.

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[mp3 file: runs 8:43]

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

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.

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[mp3 file: runs 9:20]

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

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.

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[mp3 file: runs 8:08]

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

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.

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[mp3 file: runs 7:39]

qq-2009-10-24_06-Science Fact or Fiction

"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.

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[mp3 file: runs 4:01]

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