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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20 episodes
Updated Friday

Episodes20

Newest first

Friday · 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
May 1 · 54 min
Cocaine in waterways makes salmon roam further, and more…
Cocaine and many other chemicals and drugs are found in many waterways, but especially around wastewater treatment plants. Scientists exposed wild juvenile Atlantic salmon to cocaine and its byproduct to see how it impacted their behaviour in the wild. As a result, the fish swam twice as far, which could put them in more danger.
April 28 · 55 min
Introducing IDEAS | How a historian found the lost women of science
IDEAS, hosted by Nahlah Ayed is a weekday podcast that explores how ideas shape our world. “One of your tribe is enough.” That’s what Margaret Rossiter was told when she said she wanted to study female scientists in the ‘70s. Nevertheless, Rossiter persisted. She found and documented hundreds of women whose contributions to science had been overlooked, under-credited and misappropriated. Then she made history herself by coining the term “The Matilda Effect” to describe why th
April 24 · 54 min
Seabird poop does whaaat? And more…
Seabird poop plays a surprising role in bringing life to barren islands, spreading nutrients throughout the ocean, and even creating wealth for an ancient human empire. PLUS: <ul><li>The precursors of written language go back a lot earlier than we thought</li><li>Dolphins exposed to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill also more likely to be hit by boats</li><li>From the archives: Canadian astronomer spots a supernova visible to the naked eye</li><li>Quirks Question:
April 17 · 54 min
Why this biologist loves unpopular animals, and more…
We tend to think of animals like snakes, rats and even cockroaches as pests, but in her new book, biologist Marlene Zuk says there's a lot we can learn from these less than desirable creatures, if we just give them a chance. PLUS:<ul><li>A case of mistaken identity: The truth about the world's 'oldest' octopus fossil</li><li>From the archives: Carl Sagan on the worlds beyond our solar system</li><li>The evolutionary cost of our relationship with fire</li><li>We're not spe
April 10 · 54 min
Moving beyond animal testing, and more…
There's been a growing movement to develop new technologies to replace at least some of the animals used in scientific research. Researchers across Canada are working to create these tools, to usher in a new animal-free era for medical science. PLUS:<ul><li>Harbor seals can 'talk' thanks to their parrot-like brains</li><li>'Flaming hot' water ice may explain Neptune and Uranus' strange magnetism</li><li>A thigh bone that could represent the oldest evidence of our human li
April 3 · 54 min
What we hope to see on the far side of the moon, and more…
On their mission around the moon, Jeremy Hansen and his crewmates will become the only four people on Earth to ever lay eyes on the entire far side of the moon. Since joining the space program, the Artemis astronauts have been undergoing intensive geological training to help train their eyes to look for lunar features that satellites can't pick up.  PLUS: <ul><li>How Neanderthals skillfully hunted and butchered a giant elephant</li><li>Filming fish over the
March 27 · 54 min
Dogs have been by our side for 16,000 years, and more...
New research confirms that dogs were the first animal to form a domestic relationship with humans, dating back to the end of the last Ice Age almost 16,000 years ago. PLUS: <ul><li>Constructing shelters out of Martian soil may be possible with bacterial help</li><li>Male-on-male cricket 'twerking' and 'booty bumping' is not a case of mistaken identity</li><li>Narrowing down potential alien signals from 12 billion to 100, thanks to SETI </li><li>Researchers

Quirks and Quarks

Monkeys swallow soil to eat more junk food, and other summery science

Using ants to make yogurt, and other producer picks

Whales, sex and rocks — it's our book show!

Pumas vs. penguins, and other clever carnivores

Summer Science Spectacular

Sweat, comets and dino milk. It’s our summer question show!

Great white sharks in hot water, and more…

Fossilized squirrel poop full of ancient animals, and more…

Humans and animals love the same sounds, and more...

A terrifying T. rex of the sea, and more…

Listening in on fish grunts, and more…

How dandelion seeds take flight, and more…

A CN Tower-sized mega tsunami, and more…

Cocaine in waterways makes salmon roam further, and more…

Introducing IDEAS | How a historian found the lost women of science

Seabird poop does whaaat? And more…

Why this biologist loves unpopular animals, and more…

Moving beyond animal testing, and more…

What we hope to see on the far side of the moon, and more…

Dogs have been by our side for 16,000 years, and more...