Your daily 90-second dose of real science for real people, with Sandra Tsing Loh!
Tide may be tough on stains, but could it also be tough on the environment? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Great news! Air pollution caused by cars has plummeted thanks to new laws. But for some reason, there’s still smog hanging over L-A. What
What makes Internet trolls tick? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science, saying: You’ve experienced trolls: people who will write anything online to make someone else look silly. These tricksters spew a lot of bile, but what are they like in real life? Maybe not that
When you’re asleep, how is your baseball game? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Every night, while we sleep, new memories from the day are thrown at our brains like baseballs from a pitcher’s mound. Our brainwaves swing at the perfect time to hit the
Is seeing REALLY believing? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Our world is full of things that demand our attention. Signs, lights, people! It should be overwhelming. But our brains are GOOD at prioritizing. How do they decide what’s most important? Meet Jacqueline Snow and
Think filing your taxes is a pain? Imagine doing it in macramé! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. It may sound far-fetched but that’s exactly how the ancient Incas kept records. With colored, knotted strings called khipu. Colonial documents verify that khipu were used in
Manatees: Just slow-witted, underwater bean bag chairs who swim into boat propellers, right? But wait! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Manatees got their bad rap a century ago. That’s when an anatomist cracked open the skull of a dead manatee and declared its smooth
What’s Batman’s REAL super-power? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Viruses take energy and nutrients from their hosts. BUT it also takes energy to FIGHT viruses! In us humans, eventually, either the host or the virus dies. But, BATS can carry viruses for YEARS. How?
I’d like the French manicure and some … fake fingertips? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science, and a new material with feeling. Literally! Meet Jonghwa Park, from Korea’s Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology. He and fellow engineers fabricated a special film out of
Now that hockey season’s ending, let’s check the damage. To participants’ groins, teeth, ears? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Consider this study on hockey noise done by University of Alberta audiologists Richard Liu and William Hodgetts. To measure the overall noise during three play-off
Do our pets experience the placebo effect? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. The placebo effect is when people’s belief that a treatment is working makes them feel better. But we can also imagine that a treatment is making our pets better. So how can