April 27: Tiny black holes that could smash through our planet, and more… - CBC.ca

Quirks and Quarks54:00Tiny black holes that could smash through our planet, and more…

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On this week's episode of Quirks & Quarks with Bob McDonald:

Chimpanzees are being forced to eat bat feces, and the viruses in it

Quirks and Quarks7:29Chimpanzees 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. Tony Goldberg, a professor of epidemiology at the school of veterinary medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was part of the team.

Controversial methods are working to buy Canada's caribou some time

Quirks and Quarks8:34Controversial methods are working to buy Canada’s caribou some time

Woodland caribou have been in steady decline for decades, as logging, oil and gas exploration and other disturbances compromise their western mountain habitat. Steady progress has been made to restore habitat in order to save these caribou, but since these forests will take half a century to regrow, conservationists are trying a variety of interim actions to buy the caribou some time. A new study led by Clayton Lamb from the University of British Columbia Okanagan found that these methods, including direct feeding, maternal penning, and, controversially, culling predatory wolves, have helped caribou recover to some extent, but restoration of their habitat will be necessary for full recovery. The research was published in the journal Ecological Applications.

In a new study, researchers found that there are about 1,500 more caribou today than there would’ve been without actions such as wolf culling and maternal penning. (Cory DeStein)

Giant ancient Pacific salmon had tusks sticking out of its face

Quirks and Quarks8:41Giant ancient Pacific salmon had tusks sticking out of its face

Millions of years ago, enormous three metre-long salmon inhabited the seas of the Pacific coast. Named Oncorhynchus rastrosus, this ancient giant was first described in the 1970s as having long front fangs, which led to it being known colloquially as a "saber-toothed salmon." But a new study published in PLOS ONE sets the record straight: the teeth actually protruded out to the sides from the fish's upper jaw, as tusks do. Lead study author and Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine professor Kerin Claeson says despite their menacing look, the salmon did not hunt with these tusks, since these strange fish were filter feeders.

New analysis of five million-year-old salmon fossil, left, revealed that Oncorhynchus rastrosus had tusk-like teeth sticking out the sides of its upper jaw - and not fangs, as previously thought. (Claeson et al./PLOS ONE)

The Gulf oil spill may have had ecological impacts we haven't seen yet

Quirks and Quarks9:00The Gulf oil spill may have had ecological impacts we haven’t seen yet

Fourteen years ago, an explosion destroyed the Deepwater Horizon oil rig and kicked off the largest oil spill in history. While commercial fisheries have largely recovered from the disaster, there are signs that rarer and more vulnerable species might have been devastated. Prosanta Chakrabarty from Louisiana State University surveyed deep sea fish catalogued in museum collections around the world, and found that out of 78 endemic species found only in the Gulf, 29 of them haven't been spotted in the years since the spill. The research was published in the Biodiversity Data Journal.

In a new paper, Prosanta Chakrabarty looked for fish species endemic to the Gulf of Mexico in museum collections, and found that out of 78 endemic species found only in the Gulf, 29 of them haven’t been documented in the years since the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. (Eddy Perez, LSU)

Primordial black holes may be the solution the problem of missing dark matter

Quirks and Quarks17:46Primordial black holes may be the solution the problem of missing dark matter

The hunt for exotic black holes that Stephen Hawking first predicted back in the 1970s is now well underway. Primordial black holes behave just like any other black hole, but they would have formed in the early universe and could be any size. Many scientists are particularly interested in the primordial black holes that are the size of an atom and have the mass of an asteroid, because researchers suspect these tiny black holes could be the answer for the missing dark matter in our universe. 

If these tiny primordial black holes exist, Matt Caplan — a physicist from Illinois State University — said there could be one passing through our solar system right now. He predicted in a paper published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society that if these tiny black holes exist, we might be able to see if one has ever smashed through the Moon by studying its impact craters. That's something he hopes to do when we have the technical means to obtain higher-resolution images of the Moon's surface than what's currently available. 

In a new study in that same journal, some physicists from Belgium think that if these tiny primordial black holes exist, they might be able to find them in ultra-faint dwarf galaxies. Nicolas Esser, a PhD candidate at the French Free University of Brussels, says he hopes to find signs of them in these galaxies by looking for a lack of large stars that these black holes would have eaten from the inside out.

The violent merger between two black holes that led to the first detection of gravitational waves on Earth opened the door to the existence of primordial black holes. The black holes were of a size not readily explained outside of creation at the time of the big bang. (Simulating eXtreme Spacetimes (SXS) project)

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2024-04-26 22:10:41Z
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