Energy with a grain of salt

Researchers have developed a new sodium metal powered fuel cell with up to triple the output for its weight of a lithium-ion battery. The team from MIT, including Yet-Ming Chiang, think these fuel cells could have enormous potential for electric vehicles — including flight. They say sodium can be electrically produced from salt on a large scale to facilitate this technology. The research was published in the journal Joule.

Plants hear their pollinators, and produce sweet nectar in response

A new study has found that plants can respond to the distinctive vibrations of pollinating insects by activating sugar-producing genes to produce rich nectar. In contrast they respond to the sound of nectar-stealing non-pollinators by cutting back on sugar. Francesca Barbero, from the University of Turin in Italy, presented this work at a recent joint meeting of the Acoustical Society of America and 25th International Congress on Acoustics.

Penguin poop helps create the cooling clouds over Antarctica

Penguin guano is rich in ammonia, and when it accumulates in penguin rookeries in Antarctica, that ammonia is released into the atmosphere, encouraging cloud production. Those clouds reflect sunlight into space, but can also trap sunlight reflected from the ice, so have complex climate interactions. This connection was discovered by University of Helsinki researcher Matthew Boyer, and was published in the journal Nature.

Giant sloth family tree suggests trees are just a recent part of it

Sloths used to be giants the size of bears and even elephants before disappearing around 12,000 years ago. An international group of paleontologists including University of Toronto’s Gerry De Iuliis have assembled a comprehensive family tree of the sloth to understand how a group that used to dominate the landscape was winnowed away to only a handful of relatively small, tree dwelling species. The research was published in the journal Science.

Eradicating diseases — Can we wipe out ancient and modern plagues forever?

In 1980 the World Health Organization declared Smallpox officially eradicated, meaning that for the first time, a plague that killed hundreds of millions of people had been eliminated by human ingenuity. It opened the question of whether we could do this for other lethal threats? We look at efforts to eradicate Polio, an ancient plague, and HIV, a more modern epidemic, to understand how researchers are trying to eradicate these diseases , how close they’ve come, and what’s preventing their final victory.

Quirks spoke to Stan Houston, an infectious disease specialist and professor of medicine and public health at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. He’s worked on treating HIV and tuberculosis in places such as Zimbabwe, South Sudan, Ecuador and Alberta.

Catherine Hankins was the chief scientific adviser for the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS in Geneva, Switzerland. And in 2013, she was named to the Order of Canada and in 2023 was inducted in the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame. She is currently an adjunct professor at the School of Population and Global Health at McGill University and a senior fellow at the Amsterdam Institute for Global Health and Development.

Mutant super-powers give Korean sea women diving abilities

The Haenyeo, or sea women, of the Korean island of Jeju have been celebrated historically for their remarkable diving abilities. For hour after hour they dive in frigid waters harvesting sea-life, through pregnancy and into old age. A new study has shown they are able to do this because of specific genetic adaptations that appeared in their ancestors more than a thousand years ago. These genes make them more tolerant to the cold, and decrease diastolic blood pressure. The women also spend a lifetime training, beginning to dive at age 15 and continuing on until their 80s or even 90s. Melissa Ilardo of Utah University and her team published their findings in the journal Cell Reports.

This dessert is automatic and autonomous

Care for a slice of robo-cake? Scientists in Europe have baked up a cake with pneumatically powered animated gummy bears, and candles lit by chocolate batteries. They think their edible robotics could develop in the future to food that could bring itself to the hungry and medicine could deliver itself to the sick. Mario Caironi of the Italian Institute of Technology and his colleagues presented their creation at Expo 2025 Osaka.

Shrinking Nemo — heat is causing clownfish to downsize

Scientists have found that clownfish, made famous by the Disney movie Finding Nemo, have an ability never seen before in fish in the coral reefs. When the water they live in gets warmer, they are able to shrink their bodies — becoming a few per cent of their body length shorter — to cope with the stress of the heat. Melissa Versteeg of Newcastle University says the size of the clown anemonefish is important for their survival and their ranking within their hierarchical society. The research was published in the journal Science Advances.

When the music moves you — the brain science of groove

You know that groove feeling you get when you listen to certain music that compels you to shake your bootie? Scientists in France investigated how our brains experience groovy music to better understand how we anticipate rhythms in time. They discovered that we perceive time in the motor region that controls movement. Benjamin Morillion from Aix Marseille Université said they also found a specific rhythm in the brain that helps us process information in time, that could predict if a person thought the music was groovy. The study was published in the journal Science Advances.

Scientists hope a new storm lab will help us understand destructive weather

Extreme weather is far less predictable than it used to be, and now a new research centre at Western University wants to transform our understanding of Canada’s unique weather systems. The Canadian Severe Storms Laboratory will collect nation-wide data on extreme weather, including hailstorms, tornadoes, and flash flooding, and look for patterns to help predict where they’ll be hitting and how to prevent the most damage.

Producer Amanda Buckiewicz spoke with:

Greg Kopp, ImpactWX Chair in Severe Storms Engineering and CSSL founding director at Western University

Harold Brooks, senior research scientist at NOAA’s National Severe Storms Laboratory

John Allen, associate professor of meteorology at Central Michigan University

Paul Kovacs, executive director of the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction at Western University.

Tanya Brown-Giammanco, director of Disaster and Failure Studies at NIST

Chimpanzees lay down mad beats to communicate

Apart from their rich vocal palette, chimpanzees drum on trees to communicate over long distances. A new interdisciplinary study, led in part by PhD student Vesta Eleuteri and primatologist Cat Hobaiter from the University of St. Andrews, has explored the details of the rhythms they used, and found that different populations drum with rhythms which are similar to the beats in human music. The research was published in the journal Current Biology.

An exciting new fossil of an early ancestor of modern birds gives insight into evolution

Archaeopteryx, a 150 million year-old bird-like dinosaur, is known from about a dozen fossils found in Germany. A new one that has been studied at Chicago’s Field Museum may be the best preserved yet, and is giving researchers like paleontologist Jingmai O’Connor new insights into how the ancient animal moved around the Jurassic landscape. The research was published in the journal Nature.

A house with good bones — in more ways than one

Inspired by the structure of bone, researchers have created limestone-like biomineralized construction materials using a fungal-scaffold that they seeded with bacteria. Montana State University’s Chelsea Heveran said they demonstrated they could mold it into specific shapes that had internal properties similar to bone, and that it remained alive for a month. It’s early days yet, but she envisions a day when they can grow living structural material on site that may even be able heal themselves. The study is in the journal Cell Reports Physical Science.

A different kind of emotional band-aid

Scientists have created a clever combination of physical sensors and computer technology to produce a flexible band-aid like device that can accurately read emotions when it is stuck to the face. It’s not quite mind reading, but could give physicians better insight into the emotional state of their patients. Huanyu Cheng of Penn State led the work, which was published in the journal Nano Letters.

A scientist explores what it takes to live a longer, better life

Do you want to live forever? As he noticed himself showing signs of age, immunologist John Tregoning decided to find out what he could do to make that possible. So he explored the investigations that scientists are doing into why we age and die — and tried a few experiments on himself. Bob speaks with him about his new book Live Forever? A Curious Scientists’ Guide to Wellness, Ageing and Death.

Tregoning dutifully documents everything he discovers as he undergoes testing for his heart, gets his genes sequenced, has a bronchoscopy, and follows an extreme diet, among other experiments. But he comes to the conclusion that “when it comes to improving life outcomes, exercise considerably trumps nearly everything I am planning to do whilst writing this book.”