How to nuke an asteroid, and more…

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

The Earth is moving in strange new ways in the North — and climate change is to blame

Frozen ground in Canada’s Northwest Territories has started failing in a way that scientists have never seen before, in a new type of landslide that’s being called permafrost detachment slides. Permafrost, which is frozen soil or rock that covers about 50 per cent of Canada’s total land area, is thawing as the Arctic warms. This is resulting in huge chunks of frozen material, sometimes the size of houses, coming loose and sliding down slopes. Duane Froese, a geoscientist with the University of Alberta, warns this is only going to happen more often as time goes on. The research was published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

WATCH | New research reveals permafrost landslides in the N.W.T. :

New research reveals permafrost landslides in the N.W.T.

Sperm whales blow bubbles in their sleep. Now we know why

Sperm whales are known for their strange habit of sleeping vertically in the water. Their massive, oil-filled heads act like a cork, pulling their heads towards the surface of the ocean whenever they stop moving. Earlier research had found they would often release bubbles as they slept, which biologist Noémie Freymond decided to investigate for her masters degree at the University of St. Andrews. She found that the whales blew bubbles as they snoozed so they could stay suspended well below the surface of the water. Her research was published in the Journal of Experimental Biology.

Sperm whales sleep in a vertical position. New research suggests they blow bubbles as they rest in order to prevent them from floating to the surface as they snooze. (Stéphane Granzotto)

Slowing down wind turbine blades could help recover lost power in shifting winds

Shifting winds can cost wind farm operators money in lost revenue. To figure out if gains could be made, John Kurelek, a mechanical engineer from Queen’s University, and his colleagues studied a miniature wind turbine in a pressurized wind tunnel to better simulate how much power is lost when the wind direction changes. In their study, published in PNAS Nexus, they found they could improve energy output by slowing down blade rotation.

Wind turbines near Pincher Creek, Alberta. (Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press)

What a fresh lunar crater reveals about incoming asteroids — and how we can nuke them

In the spring of 2024, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) captured a before and after picture of a fresh, large asteroid impact on the moon. When UCLA planetary scientist David Paige took a closer look, he discovered a seven kilometre wide ring of kicked up regolith around the 222-metre impact crater. He says his findings, published in Science Advances, will help researchers better understand the violent history of asteroid impacts in our area of the solar system. 

In addition to monitoring asteroids, scientists are finding ways to defend against potentially hazardous asteroids. Isaiah Santistevan, a physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, simulated the effect a nuclear blast might have on an asteroid large enough to take out a city. In the vacuum of space, a nuclear blast 10 or 25 metres from the asteroid could neutralize the threat. The X-rays released in the explosion would vaporize the asteroid’s surface and push it away from its Earth-bound trajectory like a rocket. This study is published in The Planetary Science Journal. 

This lunar crater, discovered in October 2025 by Robert Wagner, is 222 metres wide, making it the largest, newly formed crater ever found in the solar system. (Robert Wagner/Intuitive Machines/NASA Goddard/)

Birdsong shares similar patterns to human speech

Across the globe, human speech shares patterns no matter what language is being spoken. It turns out birdsong does too. In a recent study, researchers compared the songs of 367 bird species and 52 languages and found recurring patterns in both, including the sequence of sounds, coordinated vocal movements and variations in pitch. Jon Sakata, a biologist at McGill University and his team consulted a large library of international birdsongs collected by citizen scientists for this research. Their study was published in the journal Science.

An illustration of a Fox Sparrow, a species of bird that lives across North America. (Damond Kyllo)