Quirks & Quarks goes to the dogs -- a dog science special

Killer whales are likely ramming boats because they’re bored and having funSeveral years ago a small population of killer whales living off the coast of Spain began attacking boats, particularly sailboats, damaging some severely and even sinking a handful. While social media speculation has suggested whale rage as a cause, an international team of killer whale experts recently published a report suggesting the behaviour is not aggression, but is instead an example of these giant social creatures just playing and having fun with a toy. We speak with two contributors to the report: John Ford, research scientist emeritus at the Pacific Biological Station with Fisheries & Oceans Canada, and Renaud de Stephanis, the president of Spanish conservation group CIRCE.4,000-year-old Egyptian skull shows signs of possible surgery for brain cancerResearchers studying the history of cancer in human history recently hit the jackpot. In a collection of human remains at the University of Cambridge they found two skulls from Egypt, both thousands of years old, that show signs of advanced cancer. One of those skulls bore cut marks around the lesions. Lead study author and University of Santiago de Compostela professor Edgard Camarós said that regardless of whether these cuts were made as attempts at treatment or a post-mortem investigation, they show off the sophisticated medical knowledge of ancient Egyptians — and can also help better understand the evolution of cancer.This study was published in Frontiers in Medicine.Gorillas’ tiny penises and low sperm count can help us understand infertility in humansGorillas are the biggest of the great apes, but their reproductive anatomy is diminutive. The males have small penises and testes, and low sperm quality. A new genetic analysis, published in the scientific journal eLife, identified the mutations that are responsible for male gorillas’ peculiar fertility. Vincent Lynch, an associate professor of biological sciences at the State University of New York at Buffalo, said these findings can help us better understand the genes responsible for lower sperm quality in humans.1Illuminating plumes of hot magma in the Earth’s mantle with earthquake seismic dataTo understand the source of the magma fueling volcanic eruptions, scientists are using another significant geological event: earthquakes. The seismic waves that earthquakes send through our planet can shine a light on the chimneys of magma that connect the core of the Earth through the mantle to the surface. Karin Sigloch, a professor of geophysics at CNRS — France’s National Centre for Scientific Research, is part of an international effort to deploy seismic sensors throughout the oceans to illuminate the mantle plumes. Their research from recent observations in the Indian Ocean around Réunion Island was in Nature Geoscience. It’s intelligence all the way down: How cells, tissues and organs have their own smartsWe tend to think of collective intelligence as something we see among animals that work cooperatively to solve problems, like in an ant colony, a school of fish or flock of birds. But biologist Michael Levin, from Harvard and Tufts’ universities, thinks collective intelligence also extends to functions within the cell, all the way up to networks of cells, tissues and even organs. He suggests evolution has granted simpler biological layers in living systems the ability to flexibly solve problems. In a recent paper in Communications Biology, he argues we can harness these lower level problem-solving capabilities to make significant advances in regenerative medicine, and treating aging and disease.  

This little piggy escaped and wreaked havoc on crops and the environmentWild pigs that have escaped or been released from farms have established self-sustaining populations in the prairies and central Canada and are wreaking havoc on farms and wilderness landscapes alike. A new study, led by Ryan Brook at the University of Saskatchewan, has tracked pigs to try to understand where, and how far, this porcine invasion can go. The research was published in the journal Biological Invasions.Satellites and space junk burning up in the atmosphere is a new kind of pollutionScientists doing high-altitude sampling of material deposited when meteorites burn up in the atmosphere are seeing a shift in the material they’ve been collecting. In a recent study in the journal PNAS, scientists found that increasingly the particles contain material that could have only come from vaporized space junk, such as the upper stages of rocket boosters and re-entering satellites themselves. Daniel Cziczo, an atmospheric scientist at Purdue University, said they’re now trying to find out what kind of impact this in material in the stratosphere may have on things like the ozone layer and global warming.A 200 million year old marine reptile the size of a blue whaleHundreds of millions of years ago, long before dinosaurs roamed the surface of our planet, ichthyosaurs ruled the Earth’s oceans. Analysis of bones found in a river basin in the UK suggests a new species might have been one the biggest marine animals that ever lived. Paleontologist Jimmy Waldron was part of the team, who published their research in the journal PLOS One. Fox skulls are optimized for diving into snowFoxes hunt in winter by listening for rodents under deep snow and then leaping and diving into the snow, plunging down to snatch their prey. A team including Sunghwan Jung, a professor of Biological and Environmental Engineering at Cornell University, did a unique experiment to confirm that the pointed shape of the fox skull is better than any other shape they tested at penetrating deep into snow. The research was published in the journal PNAS.Scientists propose a plan to study self-spreading vaccinesResearchers concerned with emerging diseases like H5N1 bird flu, which has devastated wild bird populations, are proposing a controversial way to stop the disease. Megan Griffiths, a postdoctoral researcher in viral ecology at the University of Glasgow, says transmissible vaccines would use harmless viruses to carry vaccines against pathogenic viruses. She’s the co-author of a recent study in the journal Science that presents a framework for how they could safely develop self-spreading vaccines.The logic behind creating more dangerous viruses to understand them betterAnticipating how dangerous viruses — like avian influenza or coronaviruses — could transform from more innocuous forms into much more dangerous ones could help us prepare for future pandemics. Ron Fouchier, a molecular virologist at the Erasmus Medical Centre in Holland, says without doing “gain of function” research, like the kind he published in the journal Science in 2012, we never would have known which changes to lookout for with the current global H5N1 outbreak. Gain of function research, which involves experimenting with viruses to make them more dangerous, has become increasingly controversial, but Fouchier says with Europe’s strict regulations to ensure safety, the risk is worth the reward. 

The recent solar storm scrambled undersea sensorsThe solar storm that lit up the evening sky with aurora recently was also detected by Canada’s Ocean Network system of undersea oceanographic observatories off both coasts of the country and up in the Arctic. The compass instruments that normally provide the direction of ocean currents fluctuated by as much as 30 degrees at the height of the solar storm and were picked up as deep as 2.7 kilometers. Kate Moran, the CEO and President of Ocean Networks Canada, said these measurements could prove to be useful for solar scientists to understand the depth of the impact geomagnetic storms can have on our electromagnetic field. Robots are stronger, and faster, and better – but still lose to animalsDespite being built to run, robots still can’t beat real animals in a race, says a new study published in Science Robotics. Researchers compared the physical abilities of animals to the latest generation of agile autonomous robots and showed that while they can exceed biology in strength and speed, robots still can’t match the performance of animals. Simon Fraser University professor Max Donelan explained that biology has better integrated systems, which makes animals able to respond faster to the situation at hand. How European brown rats took over North AmericaThe brown rat is the clear undisputed winner of the rat race, having established ecological dominance in most cities across the continent. A new study led by Eric Guiry from Trent University involved analyzing piles of rat bones from dig sites and centuries-old shipwrecks to put together a timeline of when and how brown rats took over North America. He found that brown rats came across the pond much earlier than expected, and surprisingly dominated over black rats very quickly, even though the two animals weren’t actually in competition for the same food. The research was published in the journal Science Advances.Decoding whale talk and primate calls Scientists are turning to technology to help decode animal communication. In the Caribbean researchers sorted rhythmic sperm whale clicks into an entire alphabet, while on land, machine learning algorithms revealed a new level of complexity in the calls of orangutans in Borneo.Eavesdropping on nature sounds to save ecosystems in US National parksIn a basement at Penn State University, researchers with the Protected Areas Research Collaborative (PARC) Lab are listening to thousands of hours of recordings from the US National Park service in order to track every single noise - whether it be natural or human-made. This data is being used to understand how to preserve natural sounds in the parks, which have been shown to be beneficial to both humans, and wildlife. Now, the team is adopting machine learning and artificial intelligence to listen to more data than ever before. We spoke with co-principal investigator Peter Newman, and co-lab manager Morgan Crump. In a separate paper, recently published in Science Advances, researchers are calling attention to nature’s smellscapes—the various chemicals put out by trees and animals—and how they can affect humans. The multidisciplinary, international team, led by Gregory Bratman from the University of Washington, provides a conceptual framework for investigating nature’s smells, to fill in the gaps about what those scents are doing to humans, but also, to know what we’re doing to those scents.

Sabre tooth cats had baby-tooth backupThe fearsome canines of saber-toothed cats were terrific weapons for stabbing unfortunate prey, but their impressive length also made them vulnerable to breakage. A new study by University of California, Berkeley associate professor Jack Tseng suggests adolescent California saber-toothed cat kept their baby teeth to buttress the adult sabers, and reinforce them while cats learned to hunt. This research was published in The Anatomical Record.Global warming could swallow Antarctic meteoritesOver 60 per cent of all meteorites found on Earth are discovered in Antarctica, embedded in the ice. But a new study published in Nature Climate Change cautions that the warming temperatures are causing the dark space rocks to sink below the surface before researchers can get to them. Glaciologist Veronica Tollenaar, who is the lead author of this study, says it’s important to collect as many of these meteorites as possible to avoid losing the insights they provide about the space around us. This worm’s eyes are bigger than its — everythingA pair of high-functioning eyes is perhaps not something you would associate with the various worm species on our planet. But down in the depths of the Mediterranean sea lives a small, translucent worm with alien-looking eyes that weigh more than twenty times as much as the rest of its head. Now, a group of vision researchers have found that their size is not just for show. Their vision works about as well as that of some mammals. Michael Bok, a researcher in the Lund Vision Group at Lund University in Sweden, said they may be using it to detect prey at night. They report their findings in the journal Current Biology.  We’re breathing out an environment in which respiratory viruses may thriveOne of the questions that’s been raised by the COVID-19 pandemic is just what conditions allow viruses carried in aerosol droplets to survive and spread. A new study in the Journal of The Royal Society Interface found that a CO2 rich environment — like a crowded room with poor ventilation — makes the aerosol particles more acidic, which allows the virus to remain stable and survive longer. Allen Haddrell, a Canadian aerovirologist at the University of Bristol, said this means that CO2 levels don’t just tell you how well ventilated a room is, but it also tell how healthy the virus is in that air. Why an essential subatomic particle plays the fieldThe detection of the Higgs boson particle by the Large Hadron Collider in 2012 was one of the great moments for modern physics. But while many celebrated the discovery of the “God Particle,” physicist Matt Strassler was a bit frustrated by the way the particle discovery overshadowed what he said was truly important for our understanding of the universe: not the Higgs particle, but the Higgs field. In his new book called, Waves in an Impossible Sea: How Everyday Life Emerges from the Cosmic Ocean, he explains how the Higgs field literally makes the universe — and our place in it — what it is today. Listener Question — Do mated animals reject others crashing their relationships?We hear the answer from Sarah Jamieson, a behavioural ecologist and assistant professor at Trent University.

We baby talk with both dogs and kids, but our faces say something differentDogs can use their powerful noses to sniff out PTSDA quarter of all Labradors are hard-wired to be hungrier and burn less energyYour pet dog may know more words than you give them credit forSize, face shape and other factors matter when it comes to a dog’s lifespan, study showsIt’s possible – and worthwhile – to teach an old dog new tricksWhat a genome reveals about an extinct species of dogs - and the Indigenous people who cared for them

Chimpanzees are being forced to eat bat feces, and the viruses in itResearchers in Uganda have noticed a new behaviour in the wild chimps they study. The apes are browsing on bat guano, apparently to access the nutrients it contains, as their normal source for these nutrients has been destroyed by humans. Since bats are carriers of a range of diseases, from ebola to coronaviruses, this may be a new way these diseases could spread. The study was published in Communications Biology. Dr Tony Goldberg, a professor of epidemiology at the school of veterinary medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was part of the team.Controversial methods are working to buy Canada’s caribou some timeWoodland caribou have been in steady decline for decades, as logging, oil and gas exploration and other disturbances compromise their western mountain habitat. Steady progress has been made to restore habitat in order to save these caribou, but since these forests will take half a century to regrow, conservationists are trying a variety of interim actions to buy the caribou some time. A new study led by Clayton Lamb from the University of British Columbia Okanagan found that these methods, including direct feeding, maternal penning, and, controversially, culling predatory wolves, have helped caribou recover to some extent, but restoration of their habitat will be necessary for full recovery. The research was published in the journal Ecological Applications.Giant ancient Pacific salmon had tusks sticking out of its faceMillions of years ago, enormous three metre-long salmon inhabited the seas of the Pacific coast. Named Oncorhynchus rastrosus, this ancient giant was first described in the 1970s as having long front fangs, which led to it being known colloquially as a “saber-toothed salmon.” But a new study published in PLOS ONE sets the record straight: the teeth actually protruded out to the sides from the fish’s upper jaw, as tusks do. Lead study author and Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine professor Kerin Claeson says despite their menacing look, the salmon did not hunt with these tusks, since these strange fish were filter feeders.The Gulf oil spill may have had ecological impacts we haven’t seen yetFourteen years ago an explosion destroyed the Deepwater Horizon oil rig and kicked off the largest oil spill in history. While commercial fisheries have largely recovered from the disaster, there are signs that rarer and more vulnerable species might have been devastated. Prosanta Chakrabarty from Louisiana State University surveyed deep sea fish catalogued in museum collections around the world and found that out of 78 endemic species found only in the Gulf, 29 of them haven’t been spotted in the years since the spill. The research was published in the Biodiversity Data Journal.Primordial black holes may be the solution the problem of missing dark matterThe hunt for exotic black holes that Stephen Hawking first predicted back in the 1970s is now well underway. Primordial black holes behave just like any other black hole, but they would have  formed in the early universe and could  be any size. Many scientists are particularly interested in the primordial black holes that are the size of an atom and have the mass of an asteroid because they suspect they could be the answer for the missing dark matter in our universe. 

The climate is changing. So are we. On What On Earth, you’ll explore a world of solutions with host Laura Lynch and our team of journalists. In 1970, 20 million people showed up to fight for the environment on the first Earth Day. More than five decades later, is it time for this much tamer global event to return to its radical roots? OG organizer Denis Hayes recounts how – amidst other counterculture movements at the time – his team persuaded roughly one in ten Americans to take to the streets. As he approaches 80, Denis offers his singular piece of advice to the next generation of climate leaders. Then, environmental warriors Maria Blancas and Axcelle Campana share ideas on what a reinspired Earth Day could look like – including making it a public holiday.More episodes of What On Earth are available at: https://link.chtbl.com/5zF03qcmWe love to hear from our listeners and regularly feature them on the show. Have a question or idea? Email [email protected]

This researcher wants a new particle accelerator to use before she’s deadPhysicists exploring the nature of reality need ever more capable particle colliders, so they’re exploring a successor to the Large Hadron Collider in Europe. But that new machine is at least decades away. Tova Holmes, an assistant professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, is one of the physicists calling for a different kind of collider that can come online before the end of her career – or her life. This device would use a particle not typically used in particle accelerators: the muon.Is venting the best way to deal with anger? The scientist says chill out.It turns out that acting out your anger might not be the best way to get rid of it. Sophie Kjaervik, a researcher at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Va., analyzed 154 studies of the different ways to deal with anger. Her results, published in the journal Clinical Psychology Review, suggest that techniques that reduce your heart rate and calm your mind are more effective than blowing off steam.High intensity wildfires may release toxic forms of metalsWildfire smoke might be more dangerous than you think. A recent study in the journal Nature Communications found that when wildfires pass over soils or rocks rich in a normally harmless metal called chromium, it is transformed into a toxic form. The hotter and more intense the wildfire is, the more of this metal becomes toxic. Scott Fendorf, an Earth system science professor at Stanford University, said this study shows we should factor in the type of geology wildfires pass over to provide more targeted air quality warnings about smoke risks. AI might help solve the problem of runaway conspiracy theoriesConspiracy theories seem to have multiplied in the internet era and so far, we haven’t had much luck in debunking these beliefs. The preliminary findings of a new study on PsyArXiv, a site for psychology studies that have yet to be peer-reviewed, suggests that artificial intelligence may have more success. Thomas Costello, a postdoctoral psychology researcher at MIT was the lead author on this study, and said their findings can provide a window into how to better debunk conspiracy beliefs. An Indigenous ecologist on why we need to stop and listen to save the planetEarth day is April 22. And Earth is not in great shape to celebrate the day. Overheated, overpopulated, overexploited – we’re not being particularly careful with our planet. We talk to Indigenous ecologist Jennifer Grenz, of the University of British Columbia, about her new book, which is part memoir, part prescription for the medicine our planet needs – a compound of science and traditional wisdom. Her book is Medicine Wheel for the Planet: A journey toward personal and ecological healing.

Old canned salmon provides a record of parasite infectionTo study marine ecosystems from the past, scientists picked through canned salmon dating back more than four decades to measure levels of parasites in the fish. Natalie Mastick, a postdoctoral researcher in marine ecology at Yale University, said she found the parasite load in two species of salmon increased in their samples between 1979 - 2021. She says this suggests their ecosystems provided more of the hosts the parasites needed, including marine mammals, which could reflect an increasingly healthy ecosystem. Their study is in the journal Ecology and Evolution. Mars has more influence on Earth than non-astrologers might have thoughtMars is, on average, about 225 million km from Earth, which would suggest that it has little impact on our planet. Which is true, but as they say a little goes a long way. In a recent study in Nature Communications, researchers studying the history of deep ocean currents found a surprising 2.4-million-year cycle where giant whirlpools form on the ocean floor, linked to cycles in the interactions of Mars and Earth orbiting the Sun. The team, including geophysicist Dietmar Müller from the University of Sydney, say this may act as a backup system to mix the oceans as the Earth warms.Medieval English silver pennies travelled a long wayStarting in the middle of the 7th century, economic development in medieval England was spurred by the increasing use of handy silver coins that greased the wheels of trade. To date, 7000 of these silver coins have been found that date to the period between the years 660 and 750 AD, but the source of the silver has been mysterious. Using modern technology, researchers from the University of Cambridge, including historian Rory Naismith,  have traced the silver right across the continent to its Byzantine source. In their study in the journal Antiquity, the researchers suggest the silver was brought to Europe a hundred years earlier in the form of silver objects, which were melted down and struck as coins in order to put more money into circulation.Bonobos are not as nice as their reputation suggestsBonobos are the lesser-known cousin of chimpanzees, and have a reputation for being the more peaceful ape. But a new study published in Current Biology reveals a dark side of bonobos. Anthropologist Maud Mouginot observed the behaviour of bonobos and chimpanzees in their dense tropical forest habitats in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Tanzania. She was shocked to find out that male bonobos were twice as likely to be aggressive toward other males than chimpanzees. She said this suggests that we need to have a more nuanced view of aggression within and across primate species, including humans. COVID infections are causing brain inflammation, drops in IQ, and years of brain agingFor many people COVID was more than a respiratory disease. We’re learning now just what kind of impact an infection can have on the brain. It can affect cognition – leading to the famous brain fog – and even shrink and prematurely age the brain. One of the researchers studying these effects is Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, he has found COVID patients suffering from brain fog, confusion, tingling, mini strokes, and even seizure disorders.Listener Question – The eclipse and the moon’s temperature.A listener posting as Jeff on X writes: “How hot did the side of the moon that faced the sun get during the eclipse?”  We get the answer from Nikhil Arora, an astrophysicist from Queen’s University in Kingston.

Seeing a black hole’s magnetic personalityScientists using the Event Horizon Telescope have produced a new image of the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy. And this image is a little different: it captures the powerful magnetic fields that are acting as the cosmic cutlery feeding mass into the singularity. Avery Broderick is part of the Event Horizon Telescope team, he’s also a professor at the University of Waterloo’s Department of Physics and Astronomy, and associate faculty at the Perimeter Institute for theoretical physics.Decoding how chickadees maintain a mental map of their food cachesChickadees have an uncanny ability to recall thousands of secret stashes of food with a centimetre-scale precision. Salmaan Chettih, a postdoctoral researcher in neuroscience at Columbia University, investigated how chickadees encode their internal treasure maps. In his study in the journal Cell, he found the chickadee brains produce a unique pattern of activity — akin to a neural “barcode” — that marks the X on its mental treasure map. Italians don’t just speak more with their hands, they speak differentlyResearchers comparing Swedish speakers with Italian speakers have found that the gestures they commonly use to accompany spoken language are quite different in kind. Lund University scientists Maria Graziano and Marianne Gullberg recorded the hand gestures study participants used when describing a children’s cartoon to their friends. According to the results published in a Frontiers in Communication journal, Swedish speakers used gestures that concretely represented the subjects of their speech, while Italian speakers used abstract gestures more related to emphasis. What came first, the drumstick or the omelette?New archaeological work along the famous Silk Road trade route between Asia and Europe has added to the picture of how the chicken was brought from its southeast Asian homeland to the rest of Eurasia. An international team of researchers, including archaeobotanist Robert Spengler, analyzed tiny eggshell fragments from the soil of multiple sites in Central Asia. Their findings, published in Nature Communications, suggest that the motivation for domesticating the fowl was not the chicken, but their eggs. LED lighting is bright, efficient, and perhaps a problemThe global transition to LED lighting seems to be having some concerning impacts on the natural world and human health. These energy efficient artificial lights produce different spectra than older incandescent technology, or the natural light of the Sun that life on Earth evolved with over billions of years. LED lighting is brighter, bluer, and more widely used than incandescent lighting. Glen Jeffery, a professor of neuroscience from University College London, said that as a result, we may be paying the price with our health due to being oversaturated with blue light and starved of red and infrared light. In a new study in the Journal of Biophotonics, he found that exposing people to red and infrared light lowered their blood glucose levels by “charging up” our cells’ energy production.Artificial light at night is also having “a profound impact” on our environment in how it affects plants and wildlife and the ecosystems they’re in, according to Kevin Gaston, a professor of biodiversity and conservation at the University of Exeter. He said for nocturnal animals, the challenge they face from light pollution is the equivalent to humans losing daylight during the daytime. His review was published in the Annual Review of Environment and Resources.