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The AIH Transcript for August 19 2020

Hosts: Helen Mann and Talia Schlanger

HELEN MANN: Hello, I'm Helen Mann, sitting in for Carol Off.

TALIA SCHLANGER: Good evening, I’m Talia Schlanger, sitting in for Chris Howden. This is As It Happens.

[Music: Theme]

Prologue

TS: Tonight:

HM: Old school. An infectious disease specialist has this advice for parents worried about sending their kids back to school — for most, the benefits of returning to the classroom during COVID far outweigh the risks.

TS: Origin story. We hear from a researcher whose work has scientists around the world warming up to the idea that penguins first originated near Australia and New Zealand — and not in frostier climates.

HM: Dystopian nonfiction. A year ago, British student Jessica Johnson wrote an award winning story about an algorithm that determined students grades based on social class. She tells us how she came face-to-face with the kind of future she predicted.

TS: Deja brew. After a Calgary professor uncovered an old ad for a mysterious drink named Cronk, a local brewer decided to tap into the excitement by whipping up a batch. And tonight, we sample the results.

HM: Roll calamari. When Rhode Island appeared in the Democratic National Convention’s Roll Call last night, they did so with a uniquely on-brand endorsement of the state's official appetizer. Oh yeah, and Joe Biden.

TS: And... Dog's breakfast. Germany's agriculture minister is doing her best to mandate dog walking, but questions about enforcement abound. And our guest says the policy doesn't quite pass the sniff test.

TS: As It Happens, the Wednesday edition. Radio that suspects the new rule will be a mastiff headache.

Part one: Back to school risks, Orwell story winner, German dog walking law

Back to school risks

Guest: Martha Fulford

TS: Back-to-school may be just around the corner, but in Ontario, students are already heading back to the classroom — in the name of research. Today, Sick Kids Hospital began a two-day simulation study, looking at the effect of safety measures on students and teachers. They're not the only ones weighing the risks. In Calgary, parents must soon decide between in-class or virtual learning. In BC, unions are calling for smaller classes, while in Toronto, parents are still waiting for options from school boards. Here's how two mothers in Toronto described their mood as September approaches:

MOTHER ONE: They alternate between feelings of extreme anxiety, feelings of frustration, anger. My biggest concerns are things like physical-distancing, proper ventilation and filtration and air circulation. And then also, keeping class sizes really, really small.

MOTHER TWO: Do I feel confident sending my kids to school? No, I don't feel confident sending my kids to school. Do I feel like I have a better or a better option? No, I don't.

TS: Two Toronto parents sharing their concerns about sending their kids to school today on CBC's Metro Morning. According to one expert, it's imperative that kids return. Dr. Martha Fulford is an infectious diseases specialist. We reached her in Hamilton, Ontario.

HM: Dr. Fulford, we just heard two parents worried about sending their kids back to school. Even the prime minister said this week he's on the fence. What do you make of their worries?

MARTHA FULFORD: It's unfortunate because I think we've become so concerned about just COVID that we're forgetting to take a step back and look at what we're actually trying to accomplish. In August, we have a lot more information about who's actually at risk for the virus. We have much better testing. We have very good contact tracing. But we also need to have a much more tempered and calm discussion about, well, what actually happens if you get COVID. What are they afraid of? And so some of I think what we need to do is actually have a discussion about risk perception versus actual risk. And it would be nice if we could sort of have everybody take a step back and think of what the benefits of education are — and not just worry about COVID.

HM: How big are the risks right now, though, when you look at the statistics in terms of COVID transmission, at least as you see them?

MF: Right now, they're low. We have very low numbers in Canada. We have very good testing capacity. And our public health, as long as we continue to fund it very well, are very good at contact tracing and controlling clusters. And we have to remember, this is Canada. We're comparable to the European countries. We're not out of control the way perhaps we might be seeing south of the border. And because we are able to track it. And in a school, it would be a confined or at least a defined cohort. So if there were an outbreak, we would actually be able to identify it. But also, very, very, very important, I think, is to remind people that outbreaks in young people, if we contain it, and it doesn't go anywhere, and it doesn't lead to hospitalization or an adverse outcome, then that's actually good news. And we should be reassured by those numbers.

HM: Some of these children and teenagers may not suffer particularly adverse effects, but they may live with people who could, immunocompromised people, people who have illnesses.

MF: Correct.

HM: Elderly grandparents, for example. So how do families measure the risks as it pertains to them?

MF: It's a challenge. We're never going to be risk-free. It's not going to go away. And so it is a risk mitigation. But again, I would encourage people to look at the actual numbers on what this virus actually does, what the true adverse effect is per hundred or per thousand of the population because it's actually quite reassuring. But there are households where you may need to have a little bit more caution when a child comes from school. You may need to have some discussion of what risks are we prepared to take in our home as we would have in the past with any other respiratory infection. So I think a huge part of this conversation must be the harms of not going to school and the benefits of going to school, both for the children, for society, and for our future. So I personally would be very comfortable having a child go back to school. And I would be thrilled because I think the benefits far outweigh the risk at this stage.

HM: In many jurisdictions, the debate is focused on class sizes and the ability to distance children from each other, also whether kids should wear masks. How important do you think these particular measures are?

MF: I think it's a hierarchy of everything we do. It's no one measure. One of the single most important things that I think we need to encourage and allow and facilitate is actually people who are sick should not come to school. Then in terms of the other things, it's the engineering controls, it’s the degree to which you can space desks. It's the degree to which you can have distancing. And there's no magic distance. Two metres in Canada, one-point-five metres in Germany, one metre in France or Japan. There is clearly a role for masks in high-risk situations. But even in hospitals, where we're trained to wear masks, it is very, very difficult to wear a mask all day long properly. And the outbreaks that have happened in healthcare facilities have actually been the result of a failure of personal protective equipment. And so realistically, we need to not obsess on masks, yes or no? I think it's the whole package of everything that will make the difference.

HM: If the risks are currently quite low. Why do you think so many people are afraid of what will happen as kids return to school?

MF: I’m not sure we've done as good a job at communicating as we could have. And I say we as sort of physicians, of some of the infectious disease physicians as to the actual real risk. People are scared now, and it’s sometimes hard for them to even understand what they're scared of. And that's why saying it would be nice to take a step back and have the numbers put in context. So we've had, for example, the Kingston outbreak that was associated with the nail salon. It happened. It was a cluster. Public health identified it, contained it. There were no hospitalizations, no adverse outcomes. And that's actually very encouraging. For governments, it will be critical, of course, to continue to appropriately fund both our labs and public health, because that's the cornerstone of control of all this, is the ability to do fast, rapid testing and fast, rapid contact tracing, so we can control clusters, and we don't have a situation were overwhelmed.

HM: Now, you're an infectious disease specialist. You're not a fortuneteller. But what do you think we are going to see here in Ontario and across the country come September?

MF: I think we're going to see numbers coming and going. And I'm not going to call the waves, because there will be panics about that term. But I think we'll have numbers going up and down and up and down, almost sort of undulating. But I think the thing for me that would be the most important is to look at who's getting it. How quickly we can identify them. And are they vulnerable people? So if we don't have a surge in our hospitals and we've got a control on our ability to cope, then we should be comfortable that we can carry on. I also think that, again, as a personal opinion, but for me, the very last thing that should ever close if we were ever in that situation again would be schools. I think we really need to think as a society, what's our priority? What do we value? What do we want to see going forward? And for me, it's maximizing opportunities for the children. So I would hope that we learn that, or we learn to accept that these numbers are going to come and go, that, yes, we're going to have small outbreaks. Yes, it's going to be there. We have to learn how to coexist with this. We have to balance or temper our response to it. And we need to maximize the good things we can do in terms of allowing people to resume some sort of a new normal life.

HM: Dr. Fulford, thank you very much for speaking with us. I appreciate your time.

MF: My pleasure.

HM: Bye-bye.

TS: Dr. Martha Fulford is an infectious diseases specialist and associate professor at McMaster University. We reached her in Hamilton, Ontario.

[Music: Jazz]

Orwell story winner

Guest: Jessica Johnson

TS: When British student Jessica Johnson wrote a story about a biased algorithm that determined school grades, she didn't think her fiction would become fact. Hers was a well-crafted dystopian tale. She even won an Orwell award for it. Then, this year, exams in the UK were cancelled — amid the pandemic — which meant that crucial final marks needed for university entrance were to be calculated by a computer formula, instead of by a teacher. Last week, 280-thousand students who finished with top grades in their A-level studies had their high marks slashed. Some even lost their spots at university, including Ms. Johnson. Now, the government has reversed its grading decision. We reached Jessica Johnson in Manchester, England.

HM: Jessica, you just got some great news. Tell me what you found out.

JESSICA JOHNSON: I just found out I got into my top choice university, which is St. Andrews University. So I'm really excited about that.

HM: Oh, congratulations!

JJ: Thank you.

HM: Now, this was not a sure thing. I understand it's been a very stressful week. How did you find out at first that your earlier acceptance to St. Andrews had become in question?

JJ: This year, we had a bit of a fiasco with our exams. So we had A-levels, which is an exam that you take at 18. You have one exam or set of exams for that subject. And then that dictates whether you get into your university place or not. So I had had a requirement of the grades A, B, B to get into the University of St. Andrews. On Thursday, when I received my results, I got A*, A, A, B. However, to get into St. Andrews, I needed an A in English. And I got a B in English. Those grades were given to me on the basis of an algorithm, which was completely out of our control. We had hardly anything to do with what grades we got given this year. Aside from the fact that our rank was based upon the work that our teachers had seen us produce throughout the year.

HM: it's quite astonishing to think that an algorithm is determining your future like this.

JJ: Yeah.

HM: You say that they haven't been able to explain much what's behind it. I mean, how did they develop it? Where does this algorithm come from?

JJ: I absolutely have no idea. I think maybe they released a document which was supposed to explain it, but I think it's still a bit questionable. Nobody really understands it. You’d think that based upon this algorithm, I would have had the algorithm explained to me. It's been a very difficult, stressful time because we've been out of school since something like March or April. [HM makes a sound in agreement] And since then, I've had hardly any communication with my teachers. And I've had no idea what the outcome of my grades would be this year.

HM: So you don't have any idea why you personally were downgraded?

JJ: No. I was, for instance, in my history year group, I was ranked second at a grade A*, which is the highest grade you can get. And then on the day, I got given an A — even though I was ranked second in my year. So the algorithm is supposed to downgrade you if you are further down the list. But I was second. So it didn't really make much sense. And I was disheartened, angry. I was really upset. You know, I've worked really, really hard for those grades and they got taken away from me. You know, there was some students that were given a U grade, which is basically a fail or ungradable. And you only really get a year grade in the UK if you don't turn up the exam. And because we haven't sat exams, how opnm earth were those students given U’s? it made no sense.

HM: Did you have any communication with the University of St. Andrew over this time?

JJ: Well, we tried to ring up admissions. They didn't really know what they were doing over the past few days. But as of today, my place at St. Andrews has been confirmed. And this is a result of us getting our centre assessment grades, which is basically the grade that all students were predicted by teachers that we would get at the end of the year.

HM: So the education secretary, as I understand it, and Prime Minister Boris Johnson were both defending this algorithm for a while. There was a lot of pushback, but they stood by it until they didn't.

JJ: They promised and insisted they were not going to change. So students protested outside of the Department of Education because there were people that got so unfairly downgraded, and their grades were not a representation of them at all.

HM: Right.

JJ: For instance, the government were being called out because basically, if you live in a disadvantaged area, you were, for some reason, more likely to be a victim of downgrading. Or, that's how it seems. For instance, in the north of England where I live, it seems that more students were being downgraded or not achieving the grades they were supposed to in comparison to, say, people in the southeast. There was a bit of a disparity across the regions as well.

HM: So in a particularly fascinating twist here, you wrote an award-winning story [both chuckle] on a biased school assessment algorithm and its impact.

JJ: Yes.

HM: It's eerily similar to what happened to you. What is actually at the centrE of your story? Tell us, in a nutshell, what the story is?

JJ: I based my story on the preexisting inequalities within the education system. And then, I added an algorithm and a banding system to turn it into a dystopia. It just follows two students’ experiences of the day that they achieve their results, and the day that they get assigned to these bands, which sort of limit them. Say, for instance, one of my characters wants to be a doctor, but each band represents a different social class as such. So band number one would be where the doctors are. However, this student was born under band number two.

HM: And you won a big prize for this?

JJ: Yeah, I won the Orwell Youth Prize, which is a prize as part of the Orwell Foundation. So, yeah, that was really exciting. And that was last year, yeah.

HM: So that was last year. This starts happening in real-life, and what goes through your mind?

JJ: Yeah, it was crazy. At first, when they introduced an algorithm, it did sort of ring a bell to the story I had written. But I didn't think it would be that similar. I thought it actually turned out to be. Obviously, when the results day came out, when we found out about disadvantaged students, perhaps being more at risk of this downgrading. And therefore, being more at risk of their futures being taken away from them, it just reminded me so much that.

HM: We know St. Andrew's is a particularly prestigious university. What are you going to be studying there?

JJ: I'm studying in English, which again, is another ironic thing about my whole situation. I got rejected for English. And then, a short story that I wrote ended up like resembling the situation completely. So I'm doing English now.

HM: Sounds like you got a pretty bright future ahead of you. And I appreciate you talking with us.

JJ: Yeash. Thank you very much.

HM: OK. Bye.

JJ: Thank you. Bye-bye.

TS: Jessica Johnson is the winner of an Orwell Youth Prize in 2019, for her story called "A Band Apart." She'll be attending St. Andrew's College this fall. She's in Manchester, England. And you can find more on this story on our webpage at: www.1cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: Elevator music]

German dog walking law

Guest: Titus Arnu

TS: Dogs in Germany may soon be getting a lot more walkies. A proposed new law would require dog owners there to take their pets for walks twice a day. But that idea hasn't got everyone tugging at the leash. Titus Arnu is a dog owner and a columnist with the newspaper Suddeutche Zeitung. We reached him in Munich.

HM: Titus, you could soon be required by law to take your dogs out walking for an hour each day. How do you think they'd like that?

TITUS ARNU: It depends on the dog. I have two dogs. One is two years old. The other, 14-and-a-half. And the younger one, he is very happy to walk with me any time, as long as he wants, too. But the older one is OK with 10 or fifteen minutes, and then he's done and wants to go home.

HM: What kind of dogs do you have?

TA: Two Labradors.

HM: OK. Now, do you think that all dogs, maybe not 14-year-olds, but all dogs need to walk this much?

TA: I don't think so. But in general, the proposal, it's not a bad thing. Because a lot of dogs, I think they are not treated right. And maybe they have to stay in kennels, or they are kept on their leashes all the time. But, of course, I think it depends on the dog.

HM: Now, if you're 14-year-old didn't like this, what would it do?

TA: [chuckling] He stops walking and sits down, and he says, let's go home.

HM: And if you had to carry that dog home [chuckling], I'm assuming it being a lab, that wouldn't be too easy?

TA: [chuckling] I couldn't carry him. I tried once when he was injured in the mountains. And I think he weighs 32 kilos. So yeah, that's quite heavy to carry him.

HM: How are people responding to this proposal? I'm assuming there's a mix of opinions. What kind of things are you hearing?

TA: In general, the proposals, people say it's a good thing because it's not only about the time you have to walk with the dog. It’s, for example, the regulation of breeding of dogs. It's a good thing to think about it. But of course, the main problem is, I think, how to check up on the duty. I mean that the people, there are nine or I think nine-point-five million dogs in Germany. And there's nobody who can control --

HM: Right. It's a question of enforcement — how do you police this?

TA: Yes [chuckling], the police wouldn't do it. And who even wants to control it?

HM: Would there be fines for people who didn't walk their dogs for an hour a day?

TA: I don't know yet because it's a proposal of the Ministry of Agriculture, and it's not law yet. But it will become law next year, I think.

HM: Why do you think the agriculture minister put forward this idea at this point?

TA: Yes, I think there are still many people who are not taking care of the animals in a proper way. And they don't treat them as they should be treated. And that's the main reason I think they came up with this law.

HM: The dog walking is one thing, but are there other components to this proposed legislation as well, other animal welfare issues that are addressed in it?

TA: Yes, I think the other point is that they are going to put up some regulations for four breeders. They say, for example, that you won't be allowed to breed more than three… How do you say?

HM: Three litters, three times?

TA: Three litters per year, yeah. Three litters per season. And the other thing is transportation of animals in general because there have been a lot of scandals in Europe about transportation of, for example, cows or chicken or something. They are being transported throughout the European Union. And this is going to be regulated more strictly.

HM: So do you think it's possible, like parts of this proposed legislation will become law and parts may be abandoned?

TA: I think so, I think so. Because in Germany, this proposal is going to be discussed in the different states and the organizations who are responsible for dog breeding. And I think [chuckling] not everybody is going to agree.

HM: In the meantime, do you think that this has prompted people a bit to think about how they interact with their dogs, how much exercise they give them?

TA: Yeah, I'm pretty sure, because it's quite a big topic. First of all, it sounds funny, but all the newspapers and radio stations and TV are featuring this topic. So I think people talk about it. And maybe, after all, it's reasonable to say let's take care of the dogs and then treat them as just they want to be treated.

HM: You are taking your younger dog, Oscar, to the mountains tomorrow, I understand. How long you think he'll be able to hike for?

TA: He will be able to hike forever, I think. [both chuckling] More than I would be able because he's two years old, and he’s very strong. And I walk with him for eight or 10 hours and it's no problem, so.

HM: Yeah, my dog is very stubborn. If that dog has had enough, she will just sit down and that's the end of it, so.

TA: [chuckling] Yeah, of course.

HM: Well, thank you very much for telling us about the proposal and the reaction to it. I appreciate your time.

TA: Thank you. Okay.

HM: Bye.

TA: Thank you. Have a nice day. Thank you.

TS: Titus Arnu is a dog owner and a columnist at Suddeutche Zeitung. He was in Munich. You can find that interview — along with some photos of Mr. Arnu and his dogs, Oskar and Bruno, on our website: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: Electronic]

Rhode Island roll calamari

TS: So depending on who you ask, last night's roll-call montage at Night Two of the Democratic National Convention was either a poignant reminder of our isolation ... or the most entertaining part of the whole shebang. Maybe both. But Rhode Island, at least, seemed to favour entertainment — by highlighting one of its local "landmarks" above all.

JOSEPH MACNAMARA: Rhode Island, the Ocean State, where our restaurant and fishing industry have been decimated by this pandemic, are lucky to have a governor, Gina Raimondo, whose program lets our fishermen sell their catches directly to the public. And our state appetizer, calamari, is available in all 50 states. The calamari comeback state of Rhode Island casts one vote for Bernie Sanders, and 34 votes for the next president, Joe Biden.

TS: State party chair Joseph McNamara submitted his state's 35 delegate votes in a video from, yes you heard that right, "the calamari comeback state of Rhode Island". Beside him, on Oakland Beach, a masked John Bordieri showed off a heaping plate of ... yes... fried squid. Mr. Bordieri is the executive chef at Iggy's — a chain of seafood restaurants celebrated in the Ocean State. He didn't seem all that celebratory himself, mind you. Perhaps he was remembering the controversial choice, a few years back, of calamari as Rhode Island's state appetizer. Controversial because many thought a clam-based dish should be recognized instead. Or maybe his demeanor was more current. Speaking to the Washington Post, he said he's not even sure he'll vote for Joe Biden, because "Everything to me is always the same ... The only thing that really changes is the price of things going up." Well, the chef may think Mr. Biden is just the flavour of the week, but Rhode Island's delegates have placed their order. And they've snuck in the kind of endorsement we can all get behind. That of a beloved appetizer.

[Music: Classic surf rock]

Part two: Penguin evolution, Cronk brew

Penguin evolution

Guest: Rauri Bowie

TS: The question is millions of years old — 22 million years. And scientists think they finally have the answer. For eons, those who study penguins believed they originated in the frigid cold waters of Antarctica. But a newly-published study found that they actually evolved in much warmer waters. Rauri Bowie is one of the lead researchers and a professor of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley. We reached him in Berkeley.

HM: Professor Bolwie, if penguins didn't originate in Antarctica, where did they come from?

RAURI BOWIE: So our conclusions, based on some new work that we've just completed using whole-genome data, helped us resolve that question, which has puzzled people for a long time. And we were able to quite conclusively show that penguins originated along the coast of Australia and New Zealand and nearby islands in the Pacific. And that this occurred for living penguins about 22 million years ago.

HM: Why did scientists think that they might have originated in Antarctica?

RB: That's an interesting story. So it comes back to looking at the two most unique penguins, what many of us sort of identify as our first thoughts when we think about penguins. And that's the largest species, the emperor and the king penguin. So emperor penguins only occur on Antarctica. And king penguins occur both on Antarctica, but also some of the nearby islands. And these two very big species separate out from the other species. And because they occur in that environment, it was thought that that's where penguins originated. But it turns out that when you include all the species together in a single analysis and some fossil data, it suggests that penguins actually originated in slightly warmer waters.

HM: Now, I understand you always suspected that this was the case. What did you and your team do to find out?

RB: So some of the fossil data had hinted that New Zealand is really the hotspot of penguin evolution. And so we wanted to take a closer look at this question. And so we decided that the best way to do that was to try and obtain the most amount of information we could. And so to do that, we sequenced the whole genomes of 22 different penguins, representing 18 modern species. And then, we were able to use an analysis of this very large dataset to resolve this long-standing question.

HM: What is so exciting about this knowledge?

RB: Well, I think that there are two things that really interested me that came out of this. One is that we often think of penguins as occurring in these really freezing environments. But what we were able to show is that they actually originated in more temperate environments with the waters around New Zealand and Australia being about nine degrees celsius. And then we see twin radiations, one moving down into the much colder Antarctic waters. And then another one that when the passage, the Drake's passage, between the tip of South America and an article opened allowing the currents that flow around the bottom of the world to change, penguins were able to move up the south coast of South America. And eventually reached the equator where the Galapagos Islands are. And waters can be as warm as 26 degrees celsius. It's remarkable to me that these seabirds cannot occupy these very different oceanic environments. And then the second thing we could show is we were able to identify some of the mutations, some of the genes that have enabled penguins to be able to survive in these different kinds of environments.

HM: Why would the penguins move?

RB: Well, we think it's got to do with about five million years ago when the Antarctic ice sheet really intensified. By changing the circulation of the currents at the bottom of the world, it allowed for upwelling. So these nutrient-rich waters from the deep ocean get pushed towards the surface, which then brings in a lot of fish, things like sardines and that that feed on this nutrient-rich water. And so penguins were following that food resource, and that enabled them to, you know, drove them to occupy these new different habitats.

HM: It's hard to think of a harsher climate than Antarctica. How were they able to adapt to such vastly different climates?

RB: So in the Antarctic instance, you know, that's partly why we see emperor and king penguins being much larger than other species because they can conserve body heat. But we were also able to show that they've got interesting mutations in their genomes that enable them to control how they dilate and open up their blood vessels so they can reduce the amount of blood that flows to their skin and retain a warmer temperature inside. And they were also able to modify the efficiency with which they can carry oxygen in their blood, which is what allowed them to dove very deep and be able to feed on some of these deeper ocean nutrient-rich food sources in, for example, Antarctica.

HM: Wow! And this this process, as you've been referring to millions of years here, this is something that took a long time to change?

RB: Yes, so I think that's, you know, another really important point to make is that although penguins can occupy these very different environments today, it's taken them 20 million years to be able to occupy, you know, waters from freezing temperatures to up to sort of tropical oceans. And the rate at which climate is changing today suggests that penguins are not going to be able to adapt fast enough to keep up with the pace of change. And we are already seeing dramatic impacts. So we've seen mass die-off of penguin chicks in Antarctica recently. Emperor penguins have had to relocate. So the rate at which warming is happening is just too fast for evolution to be able to keep pace with it.

HM: So how at risk are these various populations?

RB: I think a lot of these populations are at dramatic risk. And one of the other things we could do without our genome data is we will, for the first time, be able to track how penguin population sizes have changed over the last million years. And we can show that penguins respond very positively when the globe cools. So during the last glacial periods, many penguins had their most abundant numbers. And after that point, there was about 40 to 70-thousand years ago. Penguins have been declining. And as climate warms now, we think that many of these isolated island populations, which we have to remember are very small, are likely to disappear. And so there's an urgent conservation sense to preserving their habitat.

HM: And how do you do that, given that so many of them are in these areas that are warming?

RB: Well, it's a complicated question to do that. And many of these areas are already, you know, preserved in the sense that they're occurring in nature reserves and that. But the most important thing I think we can do is educate the public about how climate is changing and how everybody can play a role in reducing those emissions that will then, you know, help alter warming. And ultimately, that will have a much, you know, have an impact across a very large part of the globe. And that's part of why we wanted to do this work, to help people understand that although organisms occur in many places today, it's taken them millions and billions of years to do so.

HM: And given how adorable penguins are, presumably they're pretty good ambassadors for getting that message across?

RB: Exactly, you know, everybody loves a penguin, as I like to say. And as a consequence, they can act as a real ambassador, a flagship, for many of the other seabird species and other species that occur in the same environments that might not be quite as charismatic, but are just as much under threat from the same kinds of environmental impacts.

HM: Professor Bowie, thank you very much for sharing your research with us.

RB: Sure. Thank you very much.

HM: Nice to talk to you. Goodbye.

RB: Bye-bye.

TS: Rauri Bowie is a professor of integrative biology at Berkeley. And that's where we reached him. His penguin research was published in the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."

[Music: Electronic]

Ottawa religious statue guy

TS: Ten years ago, Bill Staubi went to a closing sale at an Ottawa antique shop. The store was trying to get rid of inventory so they gave him two statues — one of Saint Theresa and one of Jesus. He decided to put them in his bathroom and thought they would just collect dust next to the soap dispenser. Instead, the two statues started a decade-long project to cover every inch of his bathroom with other religious artifacts. Yesterday, Mr. Staubi spoke with CBC Ottawa Morning about the bathroom shrine he calls "The Grotto" — and why he's decided to take it down.

BILL STAUBI: Gradually, it just grew and grew. And then I got into the collecting of items from garage sales and flea markets. People started bringing me things from vacation, travel, things that they had in their garages and back shelves and sorted away. And from there, it just took off,m and people started to take an interest in it. And the collection grew over time.

HALLIE COTNAM: I was just looking at pictures of your collection [BS chuckles] on our website, www.cbc.ca/Ottawa. And it got so crowded that the little sink in the bathroom was filled with statuary. Now, there are no pictures of the commode. [said while chuckling] Please tell me that some of these religious statues didn't make it too close to that?

BS: Well, they didn't make it too close to the seat, but the top of the tank was certainly covered with things. And pretty much every other inch of the room had something.

HC: Did any of your guests ever say, Bill, you might not be a religious person, but I am. And I find that a little questionable?

BS: Nobody actually ever said that The Grotto offended them, or that the collection offended them. Some people found it a bit odd. [both chuckling] A lot of people found it a bit odd. But no, over the course of the decade that The Grotto was there, people saw it for what it was: an unusual art installation, something that could have layers of meaning to it if you wanted to explore it. But understood that it wasn't being done out of disrespect for religion or for religious artifacts.

HC: During the pandemic, though, you decided that it was time to make some pretty big changes. What happened?

BS: Well, each year, I would take everything out [chuckling], clean it all off, dust it down, wipe down the counters and things, and resurrect The Grotto. So when that time rolled around this year, I waddled on in to do that. And as I was cleaning, I've been in a bit of a reflective mood, like I think a lot of people are during the pandemic, [HC hums in agreement] thinking about where things are going and where I want to go in my life and readjusted Canada. And so those thoughts are buzzing through my head as I'm tidying up. And I just realized that the time has come. It's been 10-going-on-11-years, and I want to do something different. And so it was time to pack up The Grotto.

TS: That was Bill Staubi speaking with Ottawa Morning guest host Hallie Cotnam (HAL-ee COTT-nam) about a shrine he built in his bathroom.

[Music: Hip-hop]

Cronk brew

Guest: Blake Belding

TS: It all started with an ad for a mysterious beverage called "Cronk." You might recall that earlier this summer we spoke with University of Calgary researcher Paul Fairie. He had uncovered an ad about the beverage in an 1883 edition of the Calgary Herald newspaper. After posting the ad online, Mr. Fairie explained to guest host Duncan McCue how a friend finally tracked down a recipe for the 19th-century drink.

DM: [laughing] It seems like a pretty vague recipe from what I've read, you know, scent to suit your taste.

PF: Yeah. So that's definitely the mystery element I think that whoever is brewing it will have to have to wrestle with.

TS: Blake Belding is the brewer who wrestled with that recipe — and finally quenched our collective "Cronk" thrist. Mr. Belding is the co-owner of Cold Garden Beverage Company, which just released their first batch of the century-old brew. We reached him in Calgary.

HM: Blake, we are all dying to know here, what does Cronk taste like?

BLAKE BELDING: Well, I would say it tastes kind of like a herbal sarsaparilla.

HM: There used to be an ice cream parlour here in Toronto that had what they called sarsaparilla. And it was kind of like root beer. I remember tasting it. It was a very modern variation on that. What about the other undertones? What else is there?

BB: Yeah. So it does have a root beer-ie component to it. I mean, root beer, the base of root beer is sarsaparilla. And originally, Sassafras, which is a very unique aroma and flavour. And so we weren't able to use Sassafras, so we used kind of a collection of other herbs to try and get that flavour. So I would say it's like a very herbal dry root beer because it’s not sweet. The molasses, the sugar all fermented out. But the undertones of molasses are very present still.

HM: Why were you unable to use Sassafras?

BB: So we didn't know this at the time, but Sassafras, it’s slightly carcinogenic in certain amounts. And it's also used as a precursor for narcotic production. So you're allowed to purchase it and use it at home, but you're not allowed to use it in commercial preparations. So we rushed out and bought two pounds of it, and now we're stuck with this poison powder in our ingredients bin, and we don't really know what to do with it.

HM: We just heard a clip of Paul Fairie, who first discovered and told us about Cronk in June. How did you first hear about this drink?

BB: So somebody just made me aware of Paul's original Twitter post and all the kind of chaos surrounding it. I just kind of found myself thinking, I wish, I wish somebody could make Cronk a reality. And then I quickly realized that I was the person that could do that. So away we went.

HM: [chuckling] As a brewer. You had the skills and yet the materials.

BB: Exactly.

HM: So it sounded pretty vague, you know, the list of ingredients and the proportions and stuff. How did you figure out a recipe?

BB: Like, I mean, it's vague, but it tells you what to do. You know, it says take one pound of this, four pounds of this, one pound of this, boil it together, add a little bit of this. And so we did exactly what it said, except for the Sassafras, we substituted in a variety of herbs, about seven different herbs to get that flavour. And then, at the end, it just said, scent to taste, or scent to preference. I mean, we didn't really know what to go with. So we just wanted Cronk Original, and we and we didn't add anything else to it.

HM: So how potent is it in terms of alcohol?

BB: It's four percent alcohol.

HM: Right. So kind of like a light beer.

BB: Like a lighter beer, yeah. And we didn't really know what that was going to even look like, we'd never fermented molasses before. And so we just kind of had to roll with it and see how it ended up.

HM: I understand you did have a few failed attempts. Can you walk us through some of the test batches?

BB: I wouldn’t say a few failed attempts. [HM laughing] We’re not that bad. We did have one disastrous failed attempt, and this is completely my fault. I was working with Paul Referenced Jennifer Davidson in that clip, and she was giving us some tips on what type of cinnamon would have been available in the 1800’s and other certain ingredients. But the one thing we kind of glazed over or didn't talk about was the molasses. And it turns out that's the most important ingredient. And when it went time to buy everything, they didn't have there's blackstrap molasses, which is a leftover from the sugar making product process. And then this fancy molasses, which is like a tasty, delicious dessert molasses. And that's more like what they would've had back in the 1800s. And they didn't have any of that available in the store, especially 20 gallons of it, which is what I was looking for at the time. So I bought a bunch of blackstrap molasses, and that does not taste very good when you ferment all the sugar out of it. So left with whatever the blackstrap part is, and it was undrinkable sludge as we are to describe it.

HM: [disgusted sound] So when you replaced that molasses and you finally got this good batch, tell me, though, the moment you tasted it, what you thought?

BB: It was a huge feeling of relief because, at that point, we were fielding dozens of phone calls a day, dozens of emails, everybody around the country and around the world were asking us when and where they can get Cronk. And we originally said it was only going to be a couple of weeks, and then we tasted the bad stuff. We're like, oh, shoot. We're going to have to do this again and start telling everybody it's two more weeks, three more weeks. So when we tasted that second batch for the first time, and we could tell it was gonna be good, it was just like the ultimate feeling of relief, like Dr. Cronk had blessed me himself.

HM: Hmmm. Now, this is a limited run. Do you think you'll make another batch?

BB: I don't know. I really don't think so. It's hard right now because I believe we actually gonna sell out of our taproom supply today. Like, there's been lineups there this morning. So the plan was to only ever do one batch. And I think we're gonna stick to that. But we're gonna to sit down when the smoke settles and say do people want Cronk again? You know, is it something that if we do it again, are they going to buy it? Or was it just kind of an exciting time and place to be a part of?

HM: All right. Blake, thanks very much.

BB: No problem. Thank you.

HM: Bye.

BB: Bye.

TS: Blake Belding is the head brewer and co-founder of Cold Garden Beverage Company. He's in Calgary.

[Music: World music]

FOA: Swans are jerks

TS: If you've ever watched a swan glide across the water, you've probably noticed they exude an air of royalty that sends other birds to the shallows. Maybe it's their majestic plumage. Maybe it's the elegant curve of their necks. Or maybe, it's that all the other birds know that swans are huge jerks. That's the theory that scientists at the University of Exeter and the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust put to the test. They already knew about swans' reputation for aggressive behaviour. But after studying the birds by webcam they learned something new — swans are even more hostile to one other. The researchers concluded the vicious swan-to-swan behaviour made "ecological sense", since those birds of a feather compete for the same food sources. Ecological sense aside, here at As It Happens we've learned that whether you're a feathered friend or foe — it's always best to give these birds a wide berth. For instance, this story of the Chelmsford Canoe Club from our archives. In 2010, guest host Laura Lynch spoke with the club's secretary, Deborah Wilkes, about a swan named "Hissing Sid" that had to be removed from the local river.

LAURA LYNCH: So what's he been up to for the last two decades? He's been a pretty nasty bird. [laughing]

DEBORAH WILKES: He has indeed. He started off that he was just fairly aggressive when it was mating season, and he didn't like this. I think he's always been nasty. Whenever he sees a canoeist, he will puff his wings up and come towards you whatever time of year.

LL: And what does he do?

DW: Then, he will try and get round the back of you to jump on the back of the canoe and knock you in. [LL chuckling] Sometimes, if he can't do that, he'll just jump on the front and flap his wings in your face.

LL: How many times has he done that?

DW: Hundreds.

LL: Hundreds.

DW: Hundreds.

LL: What's the worst thing he's ever done?

DW: I think that the one that tipped the balance was when he jumped on the back of one of the junior girls, and knocked her in. ANd having knocked her in, proceeded to come round and try and drown her by walking on her head.

LL: I gather she's OK, though, is she?

DW: She's okay. Because two of our coaches immediately went to the rescue to herd him off. And, fortunately, she was quite near the bank, so she could touch the ground.

LL: You say that that was the turning point. But he'd been doing this kind of thing for 20 years.

DW: Yes.

LL: Why did it take this extreme action for someone else to decide it was time to do something about Hissing Sid? I think really, because we all know that he does live on the river, too. And you don't want to be causing a problem to the wildlife. And the fact that he's protected by the Queen makes everyone even more wary about moving him.

LL: Why is he protected by the Queen?

DW: All of the swans in England belong to the Queen.

LL: Come again?! [chuckling]

DW: I've no idea how far back it goes, but it’s always been true that the swans belonged to the Queen. I guess it comes from when the royalty were the only ones who could kill them and eat them.

TS: From 2010, that was guest host Laura Lynch speaking with Deborah Wilkes about a swan that was terrorizing her canoe club in Chelmsford, England. Chelmsford is approximately 96,666 swans — laid end to end — east of Reading.

August 19, 2020 Episode Transcript

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