Home | Quirks & Quarks with Bob McDonald | CBC Radio
Latest
Mar 18: Earliest horsepeople, whales use 'vocal fry', plankton might migrate poleward and more...
Mapping a fruit fly brain and understanding the cuddly, cute and really strange koala
New book explores the unique biology and uncertain fate of Australia's iconic koala
Author and biologist Danielle Clode talks about her new book, Koala: A Natural History and an Uncertain Future.
Markings on the leg and butt bones of early riders indicate people started riding horses 5,000 years ago
This is the first time scientists used human skeletons to provide insight about the origins of horse riding. Horseback riding allowed people to carry more and travel farther than ever before.
March 11: Encore of Quirks & Quarks' 2005 special celebrating Albert Einstein's impact on science
"The Einstein Show" marked 100 years since his publication of four papers that changed the laws of physics
March 4: Owls' hunt under snow, elephant gardeners, bats' sensory moustaches, cockatoos use tools and more...
Songbirds swarm their predators and seals appreciate a good rhythm
Feb 25: Giraffe romance, CO2 record interruption, Stone Age farmer violence and more…
Recycled water purity and fears of a fungal future.
Fungi may not zombify you, but they can be deadly pathogens
Scientists say we are not nearly as prepared for the increasing threat of a potential fungal pandemic as we were for COVID-19
Analysis
Self-salting roads might one day make winter driving safer
Bob McDonald's blog: Researchers in China have developed a technology for an asphalt additive that can slowly release salt on-demand over the life of the road.
Feb 18: Super-size penguins, planning a mission to Uranus, an Egyptian embalming workshop and more…
A sandwich inspired water filter and 19 ways of looking at consciousness.
Analysis
What it's like to shake hands with a 2 million-year-old ancestor
Bob McDonald's blog: News of the discovery of 2.9 million year old tools evoked a powerful memory from a trip to a significant site for human evolution
Fossils paint the picture of gorilla-sized penguins that once roamed New Zealand
Paleontologists have identified 50 million-year-old fossil bones found on a New Zealand beach as the remains of a super-sized early penguin species. These waddling water birds would have likely been about a metre and a half tall and weighed in at 150 kilograms.
Q&A
Exploring the problem of consciousness from 19 different perspectives
A story of a girl with epilepsy whose doctor stimulated her brain via implanted electrodes which triggered her to laugh, feel joy and make up answers for why she laughed is the inspiration behind Patrick House's most recent book about the mysteries of consciousness.
Feb 11: Trouble for the 'love hormone,' shading Earth with moon dust, making memories with an app and more…
Orca sons inhibit mom’s future offspring and more detail on how the first people got to the Americas
Analysis
Using AI to find exoplanets and intelligent civilizations
Bob McDonald's blog: Astronomers are turning to artificial intelligence and machine learning to help find new planets forming around other stars and possible signals from intelligent civilizations elsewhere in the galaxy.
New research challenges the role of 'love hormone' in relationships
For decades, scientists have investigated oxytocin’s effects on creating bonds between mates and with their offspring by studying monogamous prairie voles. But a new study suggests that genetically "shutting the door" to oxytocin in the rodents has little effect on their bonding or parenting behaviour.
Feb 4: Dolphins and fishers work together, Arctic foxes' epic treks and more...
Plus: Neanderthal hunt giant elephants; rubble pile asteroid threat and how particle physics helped us understand what was the matter.
Analysis
With Terence Dickinson's death, we've lost one of Canada's most illustrious sets of eyes on the skies
Dickinson was a prominent popularizer of astronomy, author, magazine editor, and regular contributor to Quirks & Quarks for fifteen years.
Asteroid sample shows just what we might need to deflect a surprise killer impactor
Rubble pile asteroids are extremely shock resistant which may explain how they've stayed together for almost as long as the solar system is old. It also has important implications for how we might deal with one that's heading towards the Earth.
Q&A
A physicist looks at the experiments that gave us the modern picture of matter
In her new book, The Matter of Everything, particle physicist Suzie Sheehy looks at 12 experiments over the last 120 years that allowed us to understand the nature of matter and the subatomic world.
Jan 28: Humans understand ape gestures, wolves eat sea otters, 'Golden Boy' mummy and more…
Polar pre-primate, Black in science update and domestication and taming.
Analysis
Nuclear powered rockets could take us to Mars, but will the public accept them?
Bob McDonald's blog: NASA and DARPA are beginning development of a new fission rocket which will have to get over a high bar of safety. And it won't be our first experience with nuclear power in space.
52 million years ago Canada's Arctic was home to pre-primates, paleontologists say
Primitive primates living on Ellesmere Island didn't have to deal with extreme cold, but would have had to adapt to the 6 months of darkness that falls the Arctic every winter
Black in Science: Have recent years of activism made a difference?
For Black people in science, 2020 was a transformative year. In the context of the Black Lives Matter protests, the year brought a lot of attention to the way systemic racism in science created obstacles for talented researchers. We get an update on what’s different a couple of years later from evolutionary ecologist Dr. Maydianne Andrade.
Jan 21: Fork-headed trilobite, echidnas blow snot bubbles, Perseverance delivery drop-off and more…
Farming fish lose their fertilizer and inoculation against misinformation.
Analysis
Dirty old mines could be a source of clean new energy
Bob McDonald's blog: The town of Springhill, N.S. is a pioneer in tapping into geothermal energy from water heated in underground mines
