The Current

Mosquitos, cockroaches, venomous snakes, and adults who steal candy from children, just some of the winning scientific discoveries at this year's Ig Nobel Prize. The award highlights research so bizarre and improbable you can't help but laugh at it. We speak with winner Chonghong Cao, a Canada Research Chair and Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at McGill University about how his team worked with dead mosquitos and 3D printers to win the technology prize.

Margaret Atwood is donating 1 million dollars to Western University. The money will establish a new chair in avian biology and honour her late partner and fellow novelist Graeme Gibson who loved birds. We speak with Chris Guglielmo Professor of Biology and Director at the Centre for Animals on the Move at Western University about what this donation could mean for the research of birds and why humans are still so fascinated by them.

Statistics Canada numbers show the economy stalled in July. The trade war is hitting some harder than others, like the Stelco workers in Hamilton, Ontario who got news that part of their steel plant is closing indefinitely. We hear from Ron Wells, one of their union leaders, plus Deloitte Canada's Dawn Desjardins tells us why she sees the country's growth continuing to slow down.

On this Day of Truth and Reconciliation, we speak with award-winning CBC reporter Jackie McKay who travelled to the village of Kispiox, BC, to learn about the man at the centre of a historic battle to hold the government and the church accountable for sexual abuse at the Alberni Indian Residential School. Willie Blackwater's class action lawsuit was one of the first in Canada, setting the stage for many others who came forward and the TRC. McKay's reporting and the rest of Willie’s story is featured in Season 2 of the CBC news podcast, See You In Court.

Almost 30 years after the death of Princess Diana, her brother Charles Spencer has written a new memoir about her life, her struggles, and the royal institutions that played a role in both. He sits down with Matt Galloway to discuss the book Swan Song: Diana, my sister, and her legacy.