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Quirks and Quarks

CBC

CBC Radio's Quirks and Quarks covers the quirks of the expanding universe to the quarks within a single atom... and everything in between.

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27 episodes
weekly
Avg 54 min
English

Episodes 27

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Friday · 54 min
A feather found in dino poop and more...
It’s long been a mystery why one particular avian dinosaur was the only kind to survive mass extinction, but the recent discovery of a perfectly preserved fossilized feather, found in a cherry-sized piece of dinosaur poop, offers new clues. Also today: <ul><li>Why citizen scientists buried thousands of undies</li><li>How climate change tipped the scales on a catastrophic Himalayan avalanche</li><li>Why an AI leap has left mathematicians feeling uneasy</li><li>Why sci
September 11 · 54 min
Summertime and the science isn’t always easy
Summer is fieldwork time for many scientists. We talk to researchers who have been busy hiking on fresh lava, capturing thousands of ticks, shooing away moose from their study sites, and even spelunking for Neanderthals — all in the ever-important quest for data.
September 4 · 54 min
Sweat, comets and dino milk. It’s our summer question show!
Quirks & Quarks has been taking your burning questions for 50 years. And while we thought we might have answered every question there is, our listeners proved there are always more science questions for us to tackle. Including:<ul><li>What does the black hole orbit?</li><li>What do you sweat out in a sauna?</li><li>Why are robins' eggs blue?</li><li>What if we no longer had a moon?</li><li>Did dinosaurs produce milk?</li><li>Were there ever giant humans?</li></ul>
August 28 · 54 min
How to battle climate apathy, and more stories about humans
From doubting our doubts to sleuthing out scientific fraud, this week we revisit some of our favourite stories about humans.
August 21 · 54 min
Celebrating 50 years of Quirks & Quarks!
For our 50th anniversary celebration last October, we spoke with some of Canada's top scientists about their predictions for the future. We revisit our conversations with:<ul><li>Evan Fraser, director of Arrell Food Institute and professor of geography at the University of Guelph</li><li>Katie Mack, Hawking Chair in Cosmology and Science Communication at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics</li><li>Luke Stark, assistant professor in the faculty of information and media studies
August 14 · 54 min
Sensing space junk, and other stellar stories
From filming a black hole to flaming hot water ice on Neptune, we revisit some of our favourite space-related stories from the past season.
August 7 · 54 min
Dust? Tongues? Uranus? It’s our Holiday Question Show!
On this week’s best of Quirks & Quarks, we revisit our annual holiday listener question show, with fascinating queries like:<ul><li>Why did a Canadian astronaut's eyesight change when she went to space? </li><li>How is the dust inside our homes changing? </li><li>Why do some professional athletes stick out their tongues when they play?</li><li>Why are most fruits round, but bananas and pineapple are not? </li><li>What would have happened if the dino-killing ast
July 31 · 54 min
Monkeys swallow soil to eat more junk food, and other summery science
From the science of how we sweat to solving golf's greatest mystery, we revisit some of our favourite summery segments from the past season.
July 24 · 54 min
Using ants to make yogurt, and other producer picks
From elephant whiskers to Arctic rhinos and even science programming in prisons, we revisit some of our producers’ favourite stories from this season. Including:<ul><li>One of the world's earliest plant-eaters discovered in Nova Scotia</li><li>Elephant trunk whiskers increase their sensitivity to better 'feel' their surroundings</li><li>Yogurt with a creepy-crawly secret ingredient</li><li>Rhinos roamed Arctic Canada 23 million years ago</li><li>Bringing science education to the incarcera
July 17 · 54 min
Whales, sex and rocks — it's our book show!
We revisit our conversations with authors of some of the year’s most fascinating science books in our annual holiday book show. Featuring:<ul><li>Questioning the purpose of whale song — for love or echolocation?</li><li>Journeying through deep geological time to better tackle problems of the future</li><li>Biological sex is complicated, but that's what helps animals like humans thrive</li></ul>Plus, science journalist and BookLab podcast co-host Dan Falk reviews The Martia
July 10 · 54 min
Pumas vs. penguins, and other clever carnivores
From tiny T. rexes to a car-sized sea monster, we revisit some of our favourite stories about predators in their prime, like: <ul><li>Smaller tyrannosaur solves decades-long debate about the T. rex</li><li>Among Yellowstone’s top predators, wolves beat out cougars as the top dog</li><li>Bears with us. Tracking grizzlies in B.C.</li><li>Cleveland’s ancient car-sized sea monster had bony fangs made out of its skull</li><li>Wild wolves run for their lives when they hear Big Bad Hum
July 3 · 54 min
Summer Science Spectacular
From camping out on 'bird poop island,' chasing down wild dogs in Madagascar, or even looking for bombs in a bog in Ottawa –– no one quite does summer like scientists. This week, we revisit some of the hijinks that Canadian researchers got up to last year as they left their labs to get their hands dirty in the field. FEATURING: <ul><li>Camping out on a remote island with thousands of screaming, pooping, barfing birds</li><li>Dodging lions and mongooses to monito
June 26 · 54 min
Sweat, comets and dino milk. It’s our summer question show!
Quirks & Quarks has been taking your burning science questions for half a century. And while we thought we might have answered every question there is to answer over the years, our listeners proved there are always more fascinating head-scratchers for us to tackle. Like: <ul><li>Are comets eternal?</li><li>In a sauna, what am I sweating out?</li><li>Did dinosaurs produce milk?</li><li>If heat rises, why is there snow on the top of mountains?</li><li>What doe
June 19 · 54 min
Great white sharks in hot water, and more…
Some of the oceans biggest, most powerful predators, like certain sharks and tuna, are “mesothermic” or warm-bodied. Running hot allows them to rapidly convert their food to energy and heat, helping them swim faster and hunt in cold waters. But that advantage may become a disadvantage in a warming climate, meaning these fish need to find new ways of cooling off, or face a new threat to their survival. PLUS:<ul><li>Ancient Peruvians traded parrots across deserts and mounta
June 12 · 54 min
Fossilized squirrel poop full of ancient animals, and more…
Gold miners working in the Yukon regularly find ancient ground squirrel burrows throughout the permafrost, many containing fossilized feces. Researchers analyzing these well-preserved poop piles found they contain some of the oldest DNA ever recovered, dating from 30,000 to 700,000 years ago. Tucked inside were traces of a wide range of ancient animals, including woolly mammoths, grasshoppers, steppe bison, ancient horses, American cheetahs, as well as hundreds of plant species. </p
June 5 · 54 min
Humans and animals love the same sounds, and more...
150 years ago, Charles Darwin noticed that birds and humans were both drawn to bright plumage and elaborate display. He called this interspecies esthetic appreciation a “shared taste for the beautiful.” Now, in a recent study, an interdisciplinary team of scientists built an online game exploring the mating calls of 16 different species and discovered, to their surprise, that humans and animals agree on which sounds are more attractive. PLUS: <ul><li>How the bra
May 29 · 54 min
A terrifying T. rex of the sea, and more…
The newly described Tylosaurus rex was a violent bus-sized Komodo dragon-like creature with serrated teeth. Dubbed the ‘T. rex of the sea,’ it would have occupied the top of the food chain in the marine ecosystem over 80 million years ago. PLUS: <ul><li>Pigeons use their livers to find their way home</li><li>From the archives: How Jocelyn Bell Burnell discovered pulsars </li><li>Scientists discover an underground network of lakes hidden under Arctic ice&nbs
May 22 · 54 min
Listening in on fish grunts, and more…
Scientists recorded audio and video of 8 different kinds of rockfish living in the wild near British Columbia, and were surprised they could tell the species apart through their various grunts, pops and knocks, even though the fish are closely related. PLUS: <ul><li>DNA identifies four Franklin Expedition sailors — and solves a 160-year-old mystery</li><li>Immune cells that fight infection get a boost from food </li><li>Radio waves let us see the unseeable:
May 15 · 54 min
How dandelion seeds take flight, and more…
In a study inspired by a field of dandelions, researchers wanted to know why, when you blow on a dandelion seed head, only the seeds closest to you take flight. They found that a dimple in the seed heads where the seed attaches is larger on one side than the other, and that the seeds consistently broke off from the smaller side of that dimple. Once they take flight, each dandelion seed uses its unique shape to catch a ride on the wind. PLUS:  <ul><li>Infras
May 8 · 54 min
A CN Tower-sized mega tsunami, and more…
On the morning of August 10, 2025, a landslide in a fjord along the southern Alaskan coast triggered a mega tsunami. It generated the second highest wave ever recorded that reached up to 481 metres above sea level. A new study suggests that catastrophic events like this are more likely to occur as our climate warms and glaciers melt. PLUS: <ul><li>The hantavirus at the centre of the outbreak struck Argentina in 2018. What did we learn?</li><li>Raccoons enjoy sol

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