Anti-aging secrets from a 194-year-old tortoise, and more…

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

What fossilized vomit reveals about ancient sea monsters

The plesiosaur, a prehistoric marine predator, was a real-life sea monster. As big as a subway car, these long-necked creatures snapped at the fish in their way and scooped up shellfish from the sea floor. But the shells they swallowed didn’t sit well with them, and they would swim to shore to throw up. A recent analysis of 150 million-year-old vomit found in sediments in the North Sea reveals new information about the behaviour and diet of these Jurassic predators. Dirk Knaust, a geologist with the Norwegian energy company Equinor, published his findings in Geological Magazine.

An illustration of Jurassic-aged plesiosaurs eating on the sea floor. (Lente Artemieff)

Meet the Nobel-winning physicist who hunts for ghost particles at the South Pole

In 1988, Francis Halzen proposed embedding a particle detector into a cubic kilometre of ice in the South Pole. It was an ambitious, almost outlandish idea, but the right people got on board and made it happen. In 2011, after years of testing and construction, researchers switched on the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, allowing them to detect, for the first time, high-energy neutrinos originating from outside of our solar system. Since then, discoveries using IceCube have transformed what we know about cosmic rays, supermassive black holes and even our own Milky Way. And now, Francis Halzen has won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work. We interviewed Halzen, a physicist with the University of Madison-Wisconsin, shortly after his win.

Last week we spoke with the 2026 Nobel Laureates in Medicine or Physiology, Dr. Karl Deisseroth and Peter Hegemann. You can catch up on those interviews here.

Particle physicist Francis Halzen poses at the Rectorate of the University of Turin. He was awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. (Marco Bertorello/AFP/Getty Images)

What Jonathan, the 194-year-old tortoise, can teach us about defying death

An Aldabra giant tortoise named Jonathan holds a Guinness World Record as the oldest-known land animal. He’s believed to be at least 194 years old, which is about 100 years older than most giant tortoises. In a new study, a group of longevity researchers peered into Jonathan’s genome to look for clues as to how he has been able to live so long. The research was led by Dr. Stephen Clark, a neuro-oncologist and chief scientist at the longevity nonprofit Kallel. He and his team found that parts of Jonathan’s genome responsible for switching genes on and off were on par with those of five-year-old tortoises. The results were published in the journal Science Advances.

Jonathan lives on the grounds of the residence of the governor of St. Helena. (Joe Holland)

Nuclear clocks begin ticking — and could become the world’s most precise timekeepers

Time has officially entered the nuclear age. Two independent teams of scientists recently reported they had each successfully created the world’s first nuclear clocks, which could be far more precise than atomic clocks. Unlike atomic clocks, which measure time by tracking the transitions of electrons moving between two energy states, nuclear clocks excite a neutron in the atom’s nucleus to a higher energy state. The advance could widen the scope of potential applications — from GPS satellites to the hunt for dark matter, according to Thorsten Schumm, from the Vienna University of Technology, who published his research in Nature.

The Vienna University of Technology houses one of the world’s first prototype of a nuclear clock. Staff member Juliette Schlachet-Lépinay adjusts a laser. (Thorsten Schumm/TU Wien)

Extreme wildfires are here to stay. This researcher wants to use nature to stop them

The increasing severity of wildfires is proving to be costly. A recent study out of Simon Fraser University, published in the journal Environmental Science, suggests that the cost of climate change-driven wildfires in Canada could exceed $2 trillion by the end of the century.

Pyrogeographer Crystal Kolden says the most urgent issue we face with wildfires is their increasing encroachment on communities, which is why she is working to understand how nature-based solutions can keep fires at bay. Kolden, who once fought wildland fires on the ground before moving to academia, recently joined the University of British Columbia-Okanagan as an Eddie Goldenberg Research Chair of Canada in Wildfire Resilience.

A wildfire ravages the hills of West Kelowna, B.C., and threatens nearby residents, on Aug. 17, 2023. (Darren Hull/AFP/Getty Images)