Check out our podcast feed for shows you might have missed, or visit us online at cbc.ca/quirks to see our on-demand audio archive ..read more

Christ Kennedy from Moncton, New Brunswick asks: If someone had the means to, how close could we bring the Moon to the Earth while still keeping it in orbit around us? And fast would a month fly by? Answer from Brett Gladman, a professor of astronomy at the University of British Columbia, Matoli Degroot from Manitoba asks: Do animal species in the wild get bigger over time, since the bigger males would end up mating more than the smaller ones? Answer from Danielle Fraser, head of paleobiology at the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa. Bill Sullivan from Hamilton, Ontario asks: Why does the ..read more

What would you do with a third thumb? Research suggests our brain can quickly adapt   Birds can dream - and even have nightmares - and now scientists are tuning in A comprehensive new collection of medical information shows the health risks of space travel A study in mice sheds new light on how exercise can reverse aging in the brain Rare fossils from the ‘age of monotremes’ found in Australia  How the brain can instantly tell the difference between speech and music PODCAST EXTRAS Organic farms next to conventionally farmed fields leads to increased pesticide use Orca whales h ..read more

The sun’s ramping up its activity and now we have a better idea of what’s driving it This spring we’ve seen some spectacular displays of northern lights and we’re expecting to see  more as we approach the peak of the sun’s natural cycle, the solar maximum. Every 11 years the sun cycles from having few sunspots on its surface to having many. Now according to a new study in the journal Nature, scientists have figured out what may be driving this process. Geoff Vasil, an associate professor of computational and applied mathematics at the University of Edinburgh, said instabilities in swirlin ..read more

Killer whales are likely ramming boats because they’re bored and having fun Several 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, r ..read more

This little piggy escaped and wreaked havoc on crops and the environment Wild 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 pollution Scientists doing high-alt ..read more

The recent solar storm scrambled undersea sensors The 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 ..read more

Sabre tooth cats had baby-tooth backup The 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 meteorites Over 60 per cent of all meteorites found on Earth are discovered ..read more

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

Chimpanzees are being forced to eat bat feces, and the viruses in it Researchers 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 Wisc ..read more