Your daily 90-second dose of real science for real people, with Sandra Tsing Loh!
Feeling fat? Blame it on your gut—and by that we mean the bacteria that live inside it! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Jeffrey Gordon, from Washington University in Missouri, analyzed the belly flora of twelve obese people. He found they all had increased amounts
The humanities! Not so HUMAN? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Long ago, homo sapiens weren’t the only people on the block. Before modern humans arrived from Africa, Europe was home to Neanderthals. We usually think of this sister species as brutish and uncultured. And
Microchips as tasty as…potato chips? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. You may have heard of graphene. It’s pure carbon arranged in a one atom thick honeycomb pattern. In this form, carbon becomes stronger than steel, and makes better wires than copper. While potentially useful
Do you remember the classic movie, Fantastic Voyage? If not that, then at least Raquel Welch’s jumpsuit? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. It’s fun to think about how 21st century science has actually caught up with 1960s science fiction. In this case, think mini-submarines
Free the man in the phone! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Imagine you’re FaceTiming with your dad. But instead of seeing his face trapped in a two-D screen, his image is free-floating in the air – in three-D! Sounds like a sci-fi movie, right?
Why did skunks evolve with such di-STINK-tion? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Meet biologists Tim Caro and Theodore Stankowich. Yes, really. They study how some carnivorous mammals protect themselves from getting eaten. For example: meerkats huddle in groups, while skunks squirt noxious sprays. Why
Revenge is sweet. Science says so! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. We love a happy ending! The hero riding off into the sunset, while the villain reaps what he sowed. We pay to see this movie again and again. Is enjoying it part of
It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s… SUPER RICE? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Fertilizers are mostly made of NITROGEN. Plants needs it to grow. But, too much nitrogen SLOWS growth for some plants! Other plants grow BIG and TALL with lots of it.
Next time you’re sitting at a tippy restaurant table, don’t get mad. Think Wobbleology! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Wobbleology is the science of, yes, wobbly restaurant tables. New Scientist magazine coined the term. But the credit goes to these folks: researchers at Monash
Do prairie dogs do The Wave? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science, saying, Yup! Or rather, Yip! Prairie dogs, which are actually a type of rodent, live in towns of dozens of families. They share resources, watch each others’ backs – And, sometimes, do something