CBC Discover & Learn Podcast Shows – Apple Podcasts

Satisfy your curiosity.

Channel • 24 Shows

History

History

Updated 1 Oct
Society & Culture

Society & Culture

Updated 18 Jul
News

News

Updated weekly
Arts

Arts

Updated 11/07/2023
Science

Science

Updated 22 Apr
Society & Culture

Society & Culture

Series
Society & Culture

Society & Culture

Updated 22 Apr

12/02/2021

A cascade of hazards

As the rescue and recovery in Uttarakhand, India unfolds, scientists are asking if climate change was the cause. This week, we explore the cascading climate impacts of glaciers, and what can be done to keep people safe.

12/02/2021

•

29 min
17/06/2020

EPISODE 4 - The Innovators

Survival drives innovation, and wildfires have driven us to find creative ways to protect ourselves and our communities. People all over the world are inventing new tools, techniques and methods to battle these increasingly devastating fires. Meet some of the people creating a new landscape for firefighting in this episode of World On Fire.

17/06/2020

•

39 min
12/03/2021

Carbon offsets: climate action or 'dangerous distraction'?

Carbon offsets are billed as a necessary tool for climate action. But decades of projects have failed to reduce emissions. With a new Canadian system in the works, we ask what's the problem with offsets and how can we make them work?

12/03/2021

•

27 min
09/08/2021

Parenting "Healthy" Eaters

Parents play a crucial role in shaping their children’s relationship to food. Host Samira Mohyeddin asks what does it really mean to raise a “healthy” eater? Guests include Levi Garber, Unforked producer; Virginia Sole-Smith, journalist and author of The Eating Instinct: Food Culture, Body Image and Guilt in America; and kids in Sackville, New Brunswick.

09/08/2021

•

27 min
29/01/2021

Taking CO2 out of home heating

Reducing the carbon footprint of homes across Canada is no easy task. We ask what role does home heating play? From individual homeowners, to community-lead change, find out who is taking action and why.

29/01/2021

•

34 min
26 JUL

Boomers are loaded. So why the seniors' discount?

Canadians under 65 are now more likely to experience poverty than seniors, so is it time to throw some discounts their way? Also, why Reddit is eclipsing Facebook and X and how the economics of today's music industry force musicians to squeeze their superfans.

26 Jul

•

26 min
17 MAY

Sounds and smells of nature, and more...

The recent solar storm scrambled undersea sensors The solar storm that lit up the evening sky with aurora recently was also detected by Canada’s Ocean Network system of undersea oceanographic observatories off both coasts of the country and up in the Arctic. The compass instruments that normally provide the direction of ocean currents fluctuated by as much as 30 degrees at the height of the solar storm and were picked up as deep as 2.7 kilometers. Kate Moran, the CEO and President of Ocean Networks Canada, said these measurements could prove to be useful for solar scientists to understand the depth of the impact geomagnetic storms can have on our electromagnetic field. Robots are stronger, and faster, and better – but still lose to animals Despite being built to run, robots still can’t beat real animals in a race, says a new study published in Science Robotics. Researchers compared the physical abilities of animals to the latest generation of agile autonomous robots and showed that while they can exceed biology in strength and speed, robots still can’t match the performance of animals. Simon Fraser University professor Max Donelan explained that biology has better integrated systems, which makes animals able to respond faster to the situation at hand. How European brown rats took over North America The brown rat is the clear undisputed winner of the rat race, having established ecological dominance in most cities across the continent. A new study led by Eric Guiry from Trent University involved analyzing piles of rat bones from dig sites and centuries-old shipwrecks to put together a timeline of when and how brown rats took over North America. He found that brown rats came across the pond much earlier than expected, and surprisingly dominated over black rats very quickly, even though the two animals weren’t actually in competition for the same food. The research was published in the journal Science Advances. Decoding whale talk and primate calls Scientists are turning to technology to help decode animal communication. In the Caribbean researchers sorted rhythmic sperm whale clicks into an entire alphabet, while on land, machine learning algorithms revealed a new level of complexity in the calls of orangutans in Borneo. Eavesdropping on nature sounds to save ecosystems in US National parks In a basement at Penn State University, researchers with the Protected Areas Research Collaborative (PARC) Lab are listening to thousands of hours of recordings from the US National Park service in order to track every single noise - whether it be natural or human-made. This data is being used to understand how to preserve natural sounds in the parks, which have been shown to be beneficial to both humans, and wildlife. Now, the team is adopting machine learning and artificial intelligence to listen to more data than ever before. We spoke with co-principal investigator Peter Newman, and co-lab manager Morgan Crump. In a separate paper, recently published in Science Advances, researchers are calling attention to nature’s smellscapes—the various chemicals put out by trees and animals—and how they can affect humans. The multidisciplinary, international team, led by Gregory Bratman from the University of Washington, provides a conceptual framework for investigating nature’s smells, to fill in the gaps about what those scents are doing to humans, but also, to know what we’re doing to those scents.

17 May

•

54 min
17 JUL

The Emancipation of Turkish Writer Ahmet Altan, Pt 2

For nearly five years, Turkey imprisoned one of its most significant writers. Fifty-one Nobel laureates called for his release. Now free, the resilient Ahmet Altan reflects on the meaning of freedom, inside and out.

17 Jul

•

54 min
14 FEB

Obtaining Justice Without Demonizing Your Enemies: Martha Minow

In the age of growing polarization, how do you tackle injustice without demonizing your enemies? Former Harvard Law School dean Martha Minow tackles that question in her 2023 Horace E. Read Memorial Lecture.

14 Feb

•

54 min
14/05/2022

How cracking open a climate story helps kids cope

New climate change books for kids help them cope with scary emotions and turn anxiety into action. Hope for the return of the wolverine in Labrador. And is climate change a ballot box issue for Ontario voters?

14/05/2022

•

54 min

Expand your knowledge and satisfy your curiosity with podcasts exploring the topics affecting us all — from science, climate, and tech news to history and human nature. Award-winning series that enlighten, entertain and inform.