Quirks & Quarkswith Bob McDonald
Latest
Sep 21, 2019: Women in science special — How science has done women wrong
Why women still aren't equally represented in science, both as researchers, and in science done about women
Youth '92 all over again at the 2019 Youth Climate Summit
27 years ago, young people got together to advocate for climate action. Will they be more successful today?
Glass obstacle course: Why so few women hold top STEM spots
Female scientists are forced to navigate informal and formal barriers - sometimes called the 'glass obstacle course' - to progress in STEM disciplines at every level.
Women's brains ARE built for science. Modern neuroscience explodes an old myth
Persistent arguments that women lack particular abilities valuable for science are based on bad evidence
Women and science suffer when medical research doesn't study females
Medical science has a deadly historical bias problem: until very recently, most studies only included males
Sep. 14, 2019 — Ground zero for dinosaur extinction, space archeology, toes on the brain and more…
Finding a lost jet engine on Greenland, mystery of the wandering whales and barren tablelands
Bob McDonald's blog
Generating light from darkness
New device generates electricity from the cold night sky
Rocks recovered from ground zero reveal how the dinosaurs died
Researchers have drilled deep into the crater in the Gulf of Mexico where the killer asteroid hit
Archeology from space — discovering history from a few hundred kilometres up
Researchers used to getting their hands dirty digging in the dirt, are finding ancient sites using satellite technology
The toes of foot painters are mapped in the brain as if they were fingers
Brain scans reveal that these artists have large amounts of neural tissue devoted to their toes
A jumbo jet lost an engine over Greenland — these researchers found it
Ice scientists used radar and an improvised metal detector to find components of the jet engine that self-destructed in flight in 2017
Why are right whales roaming into danger off the East coast?
A summer on the water is helping researchers start to understand the recent wanderings of endangered North Atlantic right whales
Why are the Tablelands of Gros Morne National Park barren?
The rocks at the site are rich in toxic metals that plants can't tolerate
Sep 7, 2019 — Quirks & Quarks 'science in the field' special
Venomous snakes, gigantic grizzly bears, rare plant poachers and vomiting birds are among the challenges faced by scientists doing field work this summer
Bob McDonald's blog
Chasing Richard Branson and Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo
Quirks & Quarks host Bob McDonald travelled thousands of kilometres in an attempt to witness Virgin Galactic's first commercial space flight
Dodging venomous vipers and plant poachers to study how climate change impacts insects
Working in remote wilderness areas brings a range of risks, but enormous scientific rewards
Searching for dinosaurs in BC's rockies — and finding grizzly bears instead
Lisa Buckley was used to finding traces of big carnivores, but these were millions of years too fresh
When the desert doesn't bloom, fake flowers are a scientist's solution
Studying the interaction between pollinating birds and cacti results in a crafty scientist turning to fake flowers to get results when the real ones refuse to bloom
A moment of distraction leads to near disaster while studying insects in a tropical paradise
Alex Smith studies insects and climate change in Costa Rica and generally tries to avoid venomous snakes
Projectile vomiting birds are among the challenges in studying arctic lakes
A scientist was surprised by the results of lake sediment core samples from Cornwallis Island in the high Arctic, but not as surprised as he was to get covered in bird vomit
Aug. 24, 2019 — Our plastics problem, mystery of the missing brain cells, overeating processed food and more
Smartphones detect ear infections, moonquakes, and why geese honk while migrating
Learning from tragedy — a baby lacking critical brain cells and a medical detective story
'I don't think we should forget how much can be learned just from a single patient with a rare disease'
We need plastics — how do we avoid choking the planet with them?
Technologies for biodegradable and more easily recyclable plastics could help solve our plastic problem
Moonquakes show the moon is still geologically 'alive'
The moon might still be shrinking and so its skin is wrinkling
'Siri, does my baby have an ear infection?' An app does medical diagnosis
A new smartphone app can detect the presence of fluid in the middle ear, a sign of infection
