Quirks and Quarks

Home | Quirks & Quarks with Bob McDonald | CBC Radio on saturday afternoon. Downloadable from here.This week on Quirks & Quarks:Stardust Memories.How hard is it to catch a comet by the tail? Well, the people responsible for NASA's Stardust probe have managed to do it, and now they know what the comet's tail is actually made of. This week, scientists announced the first results from Stardust - the mission that rocketed out to a comet, sampled its tail, and brought the samples back to earth. And what they found might rewrite the textbooks about how the solar system formed.Plus - the speedy snail that crossed the continents.All this and more on Quirks & Quarks, Saturday right after the noon news on Radio One.Bob McDonald
Host

downloadable on Sat from Home | Quirks & Quarks with Bob McDonald | CBC RadioHello,This Week on Quirks & Quarks we feature:"The Coming Climate Catastrophe."If you're still confused by the science of climate change and what we should do about it, you're probably not alone. But Dr. Tim Flannery is hoping to help. The Australian scientist has written a new book, called The Weather Makers: How we are changing the climate and what it means for life on Earth. And already the book is shaking up the world-wide debate over climate change. Everyone from Tony Blair to the prime minister of Australia has commented on the book, and now you'll get a chance to hear from Dr. Flannery himself, in his first Canadian interview.Plus - how bats get out of the belfry.All this and more on Quirks & Quarks, Saturday right after the noon news on Radio One.Bob McDonald

Downloadable on Saturday from Home | Quirks & Quarks with Bob McDonald | CBC RadioThis Week on Quirks & Quarks:"I Feel Your Pain: The Science of Mirror Neurons."Fifteen years ago, scientists in Italy made a startling discovery, while monitoring the brains of monkeys in a lab. When the monkeys picked up a peanut, a specific group of neurons in their brain lit up. But when the monkeys watched someone else picking up a peanut, the exact same neurons were fired. They named these brain cells "mirror neurons", and their discovery has opened up whole new areas of brain research.
Scientists now believe that mirror neurons might help explain everything from autism to the acquisition of language and culture.Plus - bugs raise a stink when they're hungry ....All this and more on Quirks & Quarks, Saturday right after the noon news on Radio One.

see Home | Quirks & Quarks with Bob McDonald | CBC RadioThis Week on Quirks & Quarks we feature:"Waiting for the Macaws."The start of the twenty-first century also marked the start of what some are calling the Earth's sixth great extinction. Species are disappearing at an alarming rate, largely because of human activity. But humans have been interacting with the environment for thousands of years, not always with disastrous consequences. In his new book, "Waiting for the Macaws", Canadian conservationist Terry Glavin explores this interaction, and offers some hope for how we can slow down, and maybe reverse the rapid disappearance of the planet's inhabitants.Plus - the improbable flight of the bumblebee.

Download or stream from Home | Quirks & Quarks with Bob McDonald | CBC Radio on SaturdayThis Week on Quirks & Quarks we feature:"Black Holes and Black Robes."Is it true that science and religion don't mix?
Brother Guy Consolmagno couldn't disagree more. He's a Jesuit, and also an accomplished astronomer - in fact, he works for the Vatican Observatory. And for Brother Guy, science and religion aren't in conflict in the least. He sees them as two compatible and complementary ways to seek the truth about the universe. This Easter weekend, Brother Guy tells us how he views the cosmos - both literally and spiritually.Plus - gluing elephants to the ceiling with bacteria ....All this and more on Quirks & Quarks, Saturday right after the noon news on Radio One.

stream and download from Home | Quirks & Quarks with Bob McDonald | CBC Radio by 2 pm EST(the following typo is theirs in the email )
Hell,This Week on Quirks & Quarks we try:"Hacking into the Universe."Ever feel that your computer was lacking the power you'd like? It's just not fast enough, or capable of running your favorite game as smoothly as it could. Well, maybe you should look to Dr. Seth Lloyd for advice. He's a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who's working on harnessing the most powerful computer in the universe.
In fact, the computer is the universe itself. In his new book, "Programming the Universe," Dr. Lloyd explains why he thinks nature operates as a giant quantum computer, and what we can learn about ourselves, and the fundamental operation of the universe, if we can hack our way in.Plus - extending the life of the sun ...All this and more on Quirks & Quarks, Saturday right after the noon news on Radio One.

see Home | Quirks & Quarks with Bob McDonald | CBC Radio on saturday to stream or downloadFighting in the Family.This Sunday - Mother's Day - young children will be getting up early, making breakfast, and bringing it into their mother's bedroom, perhaps with a flower, and a crayon-scrawled home-made card. Lessons from nature suggest that this is all, of course, in the hope that their mother won't abandon them, eat them, or allow their older, stronger
siblings to slowly starve them by stealing all their food. Maternity
in the animal kingdom is much less pleasant, gentle and self-sacrificing than we like to think. And a Canadian biologist thinks that we can learn a little about how human families work, and don't work, from these natural examples.Plus - deciphering dolphin dialects.All this and more on Quirks & Quarks, Saturday right after the noon news on Radio One, or anytime on cbc.ca/quirks.Bob McDonald
Host

see Home | Quirks & Quarks with Bob McDonald | CBC Radio to download or stream on SaturdayThis Week on Quirks & Quarks we smile all the way through:"The Scientific Secrets of Happiness".We all know that money can't buy you happiness. But new research into the science of happiness has revealed some more surprising results. For instance, did you know that we're programmed to seek happiness, but not to find it? Did you know just how tightly linked your health and your
happiness really are? Did you know some people are born to happiness,
but with the right kind of training, maybe we all can attain it? And did you know the worst threat to your future happiness might be a traffic jam?Plus - why did the blind chicken cross the road?All this and more on Quirks & Quarks, Saturday right after the noon news on Radio One.Bob McDonald
Host

go to Home | Quirks & Quarks with Bob McDonald | CBC Radio for downloading or streaming on SaturdayThis Week on Quirks & Quarks we have a special edition:"The Quirks Question Roadshow" - from Edmonton.Ever wonder why we don't see dead birds all over the place? After all, there are billions of them in Canada, and they don't live a long time.
So where do they go to die? Why aren't our lawns and gardens littered with bird corpses? Well, that's just one of the many bizarre, offbeat, and everyday questions that you can hear answered this week on the annual Quirks & Quarks Question Roadshow. Find out why we blush, and why our noses run when we go out in the cold; and learn how jackrabbits know when to change colour, and what causes the heat in the core of our planet.All this and more on Quirks & Quarks, Saturday right after the noon news on Radio One - or anytime on our web page: cbc.ca/quirks.

This week on Quirks and Quarks:Left. Right?This week we search for the scientific truth about those sinister, gauche people who use their "wrong" hand to write and eat and throw a ball. Are Southpaws in their "right mind", and more creative, or just plan weird? We'll expose the myths and uncover the scientific theories about what causes handedness -- genetics, environmental factors or perhaps trauma at birth -- and examine what being left-handed means for the approximately one-in-ten people who count themselves as lefties, including the host of this show.Plus - big insights into diminutive dinos.All this and more on Quirks & Quarks, Saturday right after the noon news on Radio One, or anytime on our web page: cbc.ca/quirks.

This Week on Quirks & Quarks:Welcome to the Quantum Zoo.Here's something you might not have considered for your summer cottage
and patio reading. Toss out the spy thrillers, mysteries and romances,
and pick up a book on Relativity and Quantum Theory! It's not as crazy
an idea as you might think. British science writer Marcus Chown has
written a primer on some of science's most intimidating subjects that
actually tries to make quantum physics and relativity not only painless,
but fun. It's called the Quantum Zoo: A Tourist's Guide to the
Neverending Universe, and you'll get a little sample of it this week.Plus - a fossil most fowl.All this and more on Quirks & Quarks, Saturday right after the noon
news on Radio One.

This Week on Quirks & Quarks we begin our new season with:The AIDS Special.The biggest science event of the summer in Canada was the sixteenth International AIDS Conference, held in Toronto in August. And Quirks was there to get the scoop on the latest medical research and to look at some of the global issues arising from the disease. One of the areas we examine is HIV/AIDS prevention, moving beyond the ABC's of Abstinence, Being faithful and Condom use, to the full alphabet of scientific interventions. We'll also hear about problems facing the fastest growing group of people with HIV/AIDS - women in the developing world.All this and more, as we kick off the 32nd season of Quirks & Quarks, Saturday right after the noon news on Radio One, or anytime on our web
page: cbc.ca/quirks.

see Home | Quirks & Quarks with Bob McDonald | CBC Radio starting after 1 or so EDT for a download and noon local time to play it live.This Week on Quirks & Quarks we take a look at:"Growing Green Energy".We all know coal, oil and gas are just old plants, buried for millennia by nature. Now an increasing number of people are wondering, why not skip nature as a middleman, and grab the energy from the plants without waiting millions of years? This week, we look at the new technologies for extracting green energy from plants and trees, known as biofuels, and just how much this could help solve our energy and greenhouse gas problems.Plus - Trap Jaw Ants: the fastest jaw in the south.

Home | Quirks & Quarks with Bob McDonald | CBC Radio
"The Trouble with Physics"Einstein may have been the greatest physicist of the twentieth century, but he also caused physics its greatest problems. The two ideas he’s responsible for generating, relativity theory and the groundwork for quantum theory, are incompatible with one another. This has meant lots of work for theoretical physicists over the last one hundred years, as they try to reconcile these two very different concepts. The great hope of the last quarter century has been something called string theory. But, with its extra dimensions and new particles, string theory is almost incomprehensible to most of us and, it turns out, might all be wrong. In fact, according to a new book, "The Trouble with Physics", it’s leading to a crisis in science. We’ll talk to the author on this week’s show.Plus - how blister beetles become the bee's knees - and everything else.All this and more on Quirks & Quarks, Saturday right after the noon news on Radio One, or anytime on our web page at cbc.ca/quirks.

see Home | Quirks & Quarks with Bob McDonald | CBC Radio to downloadThis Week on Quirks & Quarks we probe:"Inside the Mind of a Psychopath."Alfred Hitchcock made movies about them; Truman Capote was obsessed by them; and newspapers just can’t get enough of them. Why are we so obsessed with psychopaths? And why do they do the terrible things they do? Well, scientists have been asking the same questions. And the answers may surprise you.
Researchers have been trying to get inside the head of a psychopath - literally - to find out if their brains are different from yours and mine. We'll find out what they've discovered.Plus - exclusive recordings of the elusive ivory-billed woodpecker.All this and more on Quirks & Quarks, Saturday right after the noon news on Radio One, or anytime on our web page at cbc.ca/quirks.