Quirks and Quarks

Reintroducing a rare butterfly to a restored ecosystem; Studying Vancouver’s bats in front of a curious audience; Investigating whether Arctic methane seeps could tell us about life on Mars; Revealing the hidden worlds in Pacific ocean depths; Plan a, forget it. Plan b, oh well. Plan c study Saskatchewan ticks; Dodging wild boars while doing archeology in southern Italy; Sidewalk gardens keep harmful chemicals out of streams.

Quirks & Quarks is on Summer Hiatus. Please check back in September for new podcasts or visit our archives at cbc.ca/quirks.

We close out our season with another edition of our always enlightening, always intriguing listener question show. We have answers to questions like: What would happen if a comet side-swiped our atmosphere? What determines a bird's speed of flight? Can you store light in a battery? How did large dinosaurs support their incredible bulk? All these and much more this week on the Quirks & Quarks Question Show.

Dragging STEM forward - LGBTQ scientists perform their work for inclusion; Lucy was swole! Scientists reconstruct a 3.2 million-year-old hominid’s muscles; Canada Jay siblings fight to see who lives at home, and who moves out; Baby skateboard gives a boost to preemie development; Cockroach baits don’t just kill, they’re driving evolution of the pest’s love life.

A gene therapy for cat contraception; Octopuses edit their genetic code on the fly to adapt to changing temperatures; Termites could inspire energy efficient air conditioning; Corals may bleach because rising temperatures drive viral infections; A new book looks at the fragility and malleability of the mind.

Digital bridge for spinal cord allows paralyzed man to walk again; Warming in the arctic is disrupting the ground-squirrel’s love life; Scientists completely map the activity of serotonin in the brain of a roundworm; Medium sized black hole in our galactic neighborhood could solve an astronomical puzzle; Plastic pollution and disease — ‘Plasticosis’ is a new plague for wildlife.

Focussed ultrasound could have potential for inducing hibernation; Scientists explore what makes you attractive — to mosquitoes; Coyotes and bobcats are more vulnerable to humans when wolves and cougars are around; A Ugandan vet’s amazing story of her work to save mountain gorillas.

Giant dinosaurs found in Australia migrated through Antarctica; A map of arctic industrial pollution shows where risks might arise as permafrost melts; A new technology is showing where baby sharks are born; Polynesian tool finds support the oral histories behind Moana; Incorporating diversity of human genomes in new Pangenome; Comparing 240 mammalian genomes helps illuminate what makes us human.

Why does this shark hold its breath?; A condor nest in the Andes preserves a 2000 year record of the rare birds; Scientists figure out why deer don’t get Lyme disease from their ticks; The famous motor homunculus picture is wrong; The next pandemic will see new vaccines delivered in new ways.

20,000 deer-tooth pendant carries the DNA of the person who wore it; New AI mind-reading system could restore the voice of the voiceless; An amphibious fish can give us clues into the origins of blinking; Canada’s Eastern wolves are genetically distinct, not just wolf/coyote mutts; New satellite will be ‘an eye in the sky’ monitoring North America’s air pollution; Air pollution causes lung cancer, but not the way you might think; Question - where does moon dust come from?