CBC - The Quirks & Quarks Question Book: 101 Answers to Listeners Questions

C ONTENTS

1. Rivers, Rocks, and Raptors:
Geography, Geology, and Archaeology

2. Brains, Bones, and Behaviour:
Physiology and the Human Body

3. Fur and Fangs:
Biology and the Animal Kingdom

4. Creepers and Crawlers:
The Insect World

5. Solids and Surfaces:
Materials Science

6. Puzzles and Problems:
The World of Physics

7. Sizzling Suns and Magnificent Moons:
Space Science and Astronomy

8. Hail and Hurricanes:
Environmental Science and Weather

I NTRODUCTION BY B OB M C D ONALD

Imagine a world without good questions. It would be a very small and boring place indeed, without curiosity, devoid of interest, and, worst of all, a world without the Quirks & Quarks Question Show. The hundred and one brain-bafflers and puzzlers in this book are just a sample of the countless queries that have arrived in our office over the last decade. Rooting through what used to be the mailbag, now increasingly the inbox on our e-mail system, we look for the quirkiest questions. You know, the kind that puts a smile on your face, or a wrinkle on your brow, even the kind a child might ask: Mom, why doesnt Dad wake himself up with his own snoring? You dont find the answer to a question like that in a book (except this one, of course). You need to find an expert, and thats where the fun begins for us. We comb the universities and scientific institutions of this country, looking for the right person, a search that often involves dozens of phone calls, in a version of telephone tag. Faced by what on the surface appears to be a simple question, its quite common for a scientist to say, Gee, I hadnt thought of that. I have no idea what the answer is, but I know someone who might. And on the quest goes, often skipping from coast to coast until the mystery is finally solved. Then we put it on the program, either as part of our award-winning Question Show specials, or on the regular Question of the Week segment.

Good science is asking good questions. Astronomers point telescopes at the sky to answer How high is up? Biologists peer down microscopes, asking, How do single cells become complete human beings? Physicists smash subatomic particles together in huge accelerators, seeking the answer to How small can anything actually get? We have questioned the nature of our world and discovered that it is definitely not what it seems.

Without scientific inquiry, or, for that matter, just basic human curiosity, we would perceive nature only through our five senses, where we can see no farther than the horizon, no higher than the clouds, no smaller than a grain of sand. From that narrow perspective, the world appears mostly flat and unmoving, with a giant dome, half blue, half black, continuously rolling above us. Plants simply appear out of the ground, and babies, well, they just happen. For millions of years, our ancestors lived in this small bubble of perception. Descartes, the seventeenth-century philosopher, advised us to question everything and believe only what can be proven systematically, setting the foundation for modern scientific thought. Now, thanks to centuries of asking good questions, we have expanded our bubble of perception to include an extremely large universe, and it is still expanding! We have looked into the leaf of a plant and seen cells dividing, over and over again, the very process of life. We have looked into the cell of a human, and discovered the DNA sequences that regulate the Book of Life. When we looked for the smallest particle inside an atom, we found that everything is made of quarks. All these discoveries were the result of asking fundamental questions about the nature of life and the universe.

Of course, that doesnt mean its all over. We may be pretty smart, but ignorance still abounds. Remember, 90 per cent of the mass in the universe is still missing! But thats good. It keeps scientists busy.

For more than twenty-five years, Quirks & Quarks has been following scientists efforts to answer questions. It has been an amazing experience, riding along the cutting edge of scientific knowledge, sharing the excitement of new discoveries, learning more about how things actually work. During my ten years as host of the program, an amazing list of new discoveries in every area of science has unfolded: Dolly, the cloned sheep, was born; the entire human genome was mapped; new fossils illuminated our past; new journeys to space illuminated, perhaps, our future. We learned that the universe is not only expanding, its speeding up and probably wont stop; planets have been found orbiting other stars; a small space vehicle landed on Mars; the Mir space station crashed to Earth. Here in Canada, a neutrino observatory opened underground in Sudbury; an ancient iceman was found frozen in the Rockies; four Canadians have flown in space and a new Canadarm was added to the International Space Station.

Throughout this Odyssey, we have asked the Canadian scientific community to do a little extra work, by applying their problem-solving skills to answering questions sent in by Quirks & Quarks listeners. Every Saturday, on CBC Radio One, half-a-million Canadians from coast to coast to coast (and thousands more listening around the world on short-wave and on the Internet) tune in to hear about the latest scientific discoveries. Many of those listeners wait eagerly for the last segment in the show, when we feature the Question of the Week. All of the questions in this book have appeared on the program during the past ten seasons, and the scientists and researchers who answer them represent every province and every scientific discipline. We even went back to each expert for updates, in case the answers needed new details.

So, if you have ever wondered how sperm knows which way to go, where we actually live in our galaxy, or whether insects ever sleep, youll find all that and more here in the Question Book. If you have a question that isnt answered in this book, send it in: it may appear on a future show or even in the next book. There are never enough good questions, and the best ones have come from you.

Thanks, and enjoy!

S ANTA C LOCK AT THE N ORTH P OLE

What time is it at the North Pole?

Dr. Rob Douglas, Physicist with the Time and Frequency Standards Group at the National Research Council in Ottawa:

The answer depends on which way you are facing. And the time on your watch will depend on which route you took to get there. If you came north from Edmonton, youd likely be on Mountain Time; but if you came from Russia, then thats the time youd use. The twenty-four time zones, including the one thats split into two dates by the International Date Line, all, in principle, meet at the North Pole. As you turn around, your time will change; but that would keep you very busy with your watch.