{"id":444649,"date":"2026-01-31T06:49:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T06:49:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/444649\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T06:49:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T06:49:11","slug":"jan-31-polar-bears-are-thriving-in-svalbard-and-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/444649\/","title":{"rendered":"Jan 31: Polar bears are thriving in Svalbard, and more …"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Text<\/p>\n

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The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.<\/p>\n

Quirks and Quarks54:00Polar bears are thriving in Svalbard, and more…<\/p>\n

On this week’s episode of Quirks & Quarks with Bob McDonald:<\/p>\n

Why are polar bears in Svalbard doing well, but not in Canada?\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Quirks and Quarks8:16Why are polar bears in the Barents Sea doing well, but not in Canada? <\/p>\n

Polar bears might be the poster animal for the perils of climate change in Canada, but according to a new study, the same cannot be said for polar bears in the Barents Sea north of Norway and Russia. Scientists spent nearly 25 years studying close to 800 polar bears in the Barents Sea region and discovered that those polar bears seem to be doing just fine even though melting sea ice is also a major issue. CBC science journalist, Anand Ram<\/a>, reported on this study, published in the journal Scientific Reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"AA mother polar bear and cub hanging out near Churchill, Man. (Elisha Dacey\/CBC)<\/p>\n

READ MORE: No sea ice, no problem for these Barents Sea bears \u2014 for now <\/a><\/p>\n

Sargassum seaweed is becoming such a problem, you can see it from space<\/p>\n

Quirks and Quarks8:12Sargassum seaweed is becoming such a problem, you can see it from space<\/p>\n

There is a huge stretch of floating sargassum seaweed in the Atlantic between the Gulf of Mexico and Congo in Western Africa. In satellite images, the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt looks like a golden-brown smear over the Atlantic Ocean. It’s not the only vast expanse of the seaweed, known as macroalgae, floating in the ocean or making its way to land. In a new study, Chuanmin Hu<\/a> from the University of South Florida found that macroalgae is a global problem that is growing by 13.4 per cent a year. His study is in the journal Nature Communications<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\"aerialAerial view of a line of sargassum floating off the beach in Mexico, on June 18, 2025. (Elizabeth Ruiz\/AFP\/Getty Images)Why some people only get mild sniffles with a cold and others get sick<\/p>\n

Quirks and Quarks8:01Why some people only get mild sniffles with a cold and others get sick<\/p>\n

When the common cold rips through a household, workplace, or classroom, it can hit people in different ways. Some just get the sniffles, while others experience severe illness that can last for weeks. Scientists at the Yale School of Medicine, including immunobiologist Ellen Foxman<\/a>, grew nose cells in a petri dish to watch what happens when the virus gets into our cells. They found the key to the severity of the illness is how quickly infected cells can send out an early call for help. The research was published in the journal Cell Press Blue<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\"AHumans often carry rhinoviruses in their nose even when they don’t exhibit any signs of illness. Previous studies found that children under the age of 5 have a rhinovirus present in their noses about a third of the time. (Chepko Danil Vitalevich\/Shutterstock)A woolly rhino’s extinction secrets discovered in another animal’s stomach<\/p>\n

Quirks and Quarks8:06A woolly rhino’s DNA found in an ancient wolf\u2019s stomach reveals their quick demise<\/p>\n

When scientists who were studying an exceptionally well-preserved ice aged wolf pup that was found frozen in Siberian permafrost, they were delighted to discover a hunk of meat in its stomach covered in golden fur. A team of scientists, including bioinformatician Camilo Chac\u00f3n-Duque<\/a>, used novel techniques to extract DNA from the wolf pups\u2019 last meal, and were able to reconstruct the entire genome of an extinct 14,400 year old woolly rhino. It\u2019s the first time DNA has been extracted from the undigested remains in another animal. The work was published in the journal Genome Biology and Evolution<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\"AThe piece of woolly rhino tissue found inside the stomach of the Tumat-1 puppy. Researchers initially thought it was from a cave lion because of the golden fur. (Love Dal\u00e9n)How to change a memory \u2014 one scientist’s quest to understand memory permanence<\/p>\n

Quirks and Quarks19:03How to change a memory \u2014 one scientist’s quest to understand memory permanence<\/p>\n

Memories can be a double-edged sword: they can sometimes give a warm and fuzzy emotional boost, but less welcome memories \u2014 especially when they transform into an addiction or PTSD \u2014 can be crippling. A new book about how we might be able to change our memories, says it will never be as simple as targeting a brain region and zapping them away, mainly because of how distributed memories are across the brain. Steve Ramirez<\/a>, from Boston University, is the author of How to Change a Memory: One Neuroscientist\u2019s Quest to Alter the Past.<\/a> It\u2019s partly a deep dive into his scientific research on the matter and part memoir about how he has dealt with difficult memories of his own. <\/p>\n

\"a Steve Ramirez is the author of How to Change a Memory: One Neuroscientist\u2019s Quest to Alter the Past, and is a professor at Boston University. (Janice Checchio)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 4 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":444650,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":["post-444649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=444649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/444650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}