Can You Catch OCD From Strep? * Orangutans Announce their Travel Plans * Solar - Smaller and Greener * Female Bug Masquerades as Male to Avoid Unwanted Sex * Quirks Question Period: What if the asteroid never hit?
Is it possible to catch Obsessive Compulsive Disorder? In this episode, we look at the controversial idea that a simple strep throat infection could result in a mental disorder. We'll also look at how orangutans announce their travel plans; we'll meet a Canadian scientist working on cheaper, greener solar cells; we'll hear about a female insect that masquerades as a male to...
Is it possible to catch Obsessive Compulsive Disorder? In this episode, we look at the controversial idea that a simple strep throat infection could result in a mental disorder. We'll also look at how orangutans announce their travel plans; we'll meet a Canadian scientist working on cheaper, greener solar cells; we'll hear about a female insect that masquerades as a male to avoid unpleasant sex; and we'll find out what might have happened if an asteroid hadn't wiped out the dinosaurs.
Listen to the whole show (pop up player) or 
use this link to download an mp3.
Can You Catch OCD From Strep?
Is it possible to catch a mental illness? Could Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and childhood tics really be the result of untreated strep throat? That's the suggestion made by researchers at the National Institute of Mental Health in the US, who argue that at least some cases of OCD and tics could be triggered by the common childhood infection. It's a condition known as PANDAS: Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorder Associated with Streptococcus. And Toronto science journalist, Alison Motluk, explored the controversy for us. Among the people she spoke to were:
Kelly O'Donnell, from Ottawa, whose 7-year-old daughter suddenly developed symptoms of OCD virtually overnight in 2012. Although her daughter did not have obvious strep throat symptoms, a throat swab revealed that she was infected. The doctor suspected it was a case of PANDAS, and after a course of antibiotics, the symptoms disappeared immediately.
Dr. Susan Swedo a pediatrician with The National Institute of Mental Health, just outside of Washington DC., who was the first to suggest that PANDAS might be a disease in its own right. She believes PANDAS is a variant of Sydenham's chorea, a type of rheumatic fever, where your immune system's antibodies mistake a person's own cells -- in joints or heart or brain -- for strep, and attack them.
Dr. Tamara Pringsheim, a neurologist at the University of Calgary, who specializes in movement disorders, like tics. She is not convinced by the PANDAS hypothesis, and points to several studies that were inconclusive in proving the connection between strep and OCD. Nonetheless, she thinks it's reasonable to do a throat swab and a blood test to check for strep, when a child presents with sudden onset of OCD and tics.
(This work was supported by a CIHR journalism grant.)
Related Links
Listen to this item (pop up player) or use this link to download an mp3.
Orangutans Announce their Travel Plans
It has been observed in the past that great apes, in a captive setting, can plan for the future, such as gathering materials they'll need later. But in the dense, tropical forests of Sumatra, a new study has found that not only do wild male orangutans plan their travel the night before they set out, but they also announce their intentions. Dr. Carel van Schaik, a biological anthropologist at the University of Zurich in Switzerland, studied the loud, booming vocalizations of 15 adult males. The male emits the call while facing the intended direction of travel, usually the night before he begins moving through the forest. The purpose of the call, which can be heard up to one kilometre away, is to let the females know he is coming to find them, and to also make rival males aware of his presence. It is believed that such planning abilities may extend to other great-apes.
Listen to this item (pop up player) or use this link to download an mp3.
Solar - Smaller and Greener
Listen to this item (pop up player) or use this link to download an mp3.
Female Bug Masquerades as Male to Avoid Unwanted Sex
Two species of similar plant bugs, living side-by-side in Tahiti, both practice traumatic insemination - the male injects sperm into the female by stabbing her in the abdomen with his needle-like genitalia. The practice is very costly to the female, and can result in infection or death. But a new study by Dr. Nik Tatarnic, a Canadian biologist and Curator of Insects at the Western Australian Museum in Welshpool, has found that drastic measures have evolved in order to help avoid traumatic insemination. The male and female of the smaller of the two species mimic some physical traits of the larger male. This reduces interspecies mating attempts for the small female, and mistaken identify for the small male. Also, the small female has evolved genitalia on the opposite side of her abdomen from her larger counterpart.
Related Links
Listen to this item (pop up player) or use this link to download an mp3.
Quirks Question Period: What if the asteroid never hit?
This is another episode of the Quirks & Quarks Question Period. You think of a question, and we'll ask a Canadian scientist to give us the answer. And today's question comes to us from two different listeners; both Peter Jones from Toronto, and Mervin Fiebelkorn in Leduc, Alberta, asked the following: "What do you think the world would be like, if the giant asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs had missed the earth?"
To help us tackle this question, we contacted Dr. David Evans, Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.
Listen to this item (pop up player) or use this link to download an mp3.
Theme music bed copyright Raphaël Gluckstein, Creative Commons License by-nc-nd-2.0
Listen to the whole show (pop up player) or Can You Catch OCD From Strep?
Kelly O'Donnell, from Ottawa, whose 7-year-old daughter suddenly developed symptoms of OCD virtually overnight in 2012. Although her daughter did not have obvious strep throat symptoms, a throat swab revealed that she was infected. The doctor suspected it was a case of PANDAS, and after a course of antibiotics, the symptoms disappeared immediately.
Dr. Susan Swedo a pediatrician with The National Institute of Mental Health, just outside of Washington DC., who was the first to suggest that PANDAS might be a disease in its own right. She believes PANDAS is a variant of Sydenham's chorea, a type of rheumatic fever, where your immune system's antibodies mistake a person's own cells -- in joints or heart or brain -- for strep, and attack them.
Dr. Tamara Pringsheim, a neurologist at the University of Calgary, who specializes in movement disorders, like tics. She is not convinced by the PANDAS hypothesis, and points to several studies that were inconclusive in proving the connection between strep and OCD. Nonetheless, she thinks it's reasonable to do a throat swab and a blood test to check for strep, when a child presents with sudden onset of OCD and tics.
(This work was supported by a CIHR journalism grant.)
Related Links
- Alison's feature on PANDAS for The Walrus magazine
- PANDAS Canada
- PANDAS Network
Listen to this item (pop up player) or Orangutans Announce their Travel Plans
It has been observed in the past that great apes, in a captive setting, can plan for the future, such as gathering materials they'll need later. But in the dense, tropical forests of Sumatra, a new study has found that not only do wild male orangutans plan their travel the night before they set out, but they also announce their intentions. Dr. Carel van Schaik, a biological anthropologist at the University of Zurich in Switzerland, studied the loud, booming vocalizations of 15 adult males. The male emits the call while facing the intended direction of travel, usually the night before he begins moving through the forest. The purpose of the call, which can be heard up to one kilometre away, is to let the females know he is coming to find them, and to also make rival males aware of his presence. It is believed that such planning abilities may extend to other great-apes.
Related Links
Listen to this item (pop up player) or Solar - Smaller and Greener
Solar power is a renewable success story, but there's still room for improvement. Dr. Jillian Buriak, Canada Research Chair in Nanomaterials and Senior Research Officer at the National Institute for Nanotechnology at the University of Alberta, and her colleagues, have been exploring a new material for solar power. They've produced tiny nanoscale zinc-phosphide particles that seem to have good solar absorbing properties, but are potentially much cheaper and more energy efficient to make than traditional silicon solar cells. The particles can be formed into a kind of ink and deposited in thin layers, potentially allowing for lightweight, flexible solar devices.
Related Links
Listen to this item
(pop up player) or Female Bug Masquerades as Male to Avoid Unwanted Sex
Related Links
- Paper in The American Naturalist
- Nature News story
- University of New South Wales release
- Macquarie University release
Listen to this item
(pop up player) or Quirks Question Period: What if the asteroid never hit?
This is another episode of the Quirks & Quarks Question Period. You think of a question, and we'll ask a Canadian scientist to give us the answer. And today's question comes to us from two different listeners; both Peter Jones from Toronto, and Mervin Fiebelkorn in Leduc, Alberta, asked the following: "What do you think the world would be like, if the giant asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs had missed the earth?"
To help us tackle this question, we contacted Dr. David Evans, Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.
Listen to this item
(pop up player) or Theme music bed copyright Raphaël Gluckstein, Creative Commons License by-nc-nd-2.0