Ignorance is bliss! Trust me. This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. IF your government had a file on YOU, would you read it? During the cold war, East Germany kept files on millions of citizens. After the war, Germans could apply to look at their
Continue readingAuthor: Sarah Ruttenberg
Spread with a Kiss
Lovey, give us a kiss then! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Kissing can be a beautiful expression of love. But kissing also has an uglier side: spreading disease! So, what can kissing tell us about epidemiology? Enter Troels Arbøll and Sophie
Continue readingForever Young
Forever young, forever young… Thanks Rod Stewart This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. For millennia, we’ve searched for a fountain of youth. Has it finally been found? Enter Zhen Zhou and team at UC San Diego They discovered that cells age in two ways. One:
Continue readingThe Power of Language
Words can change your mind… literally! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Language is a huge part of human development. But can the language we speak physically affect our brains? Xuehu Wei and team at the Planck Institute in Germany wondered. They compared brain scans
Continue readingSpun Out
Ring around the rosyyy… This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Remember spinning around the playground as a kid til you felt like hurling–or maybe did!?? It turns out many other primates like to spin too! What makes this silly, dizzying pastime so much fun? Adriano
Continue readingChameleon Construction
Architects should take tips from… chameleons?! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Chameleons change color to maintain ideal body temperature. If only our houses could do the same! We’d save so much money! Wait… is that … possible? Well, Chenxi Sui and team from Duke
Continue readingCyborg Science
The age of cyborgs is here!!! Sort of… This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. In science fiction, cyborgs are part-human, part-machine. In the real world, technology hasn’t become quite that advanced yet. But we are certainly getting closer… How close? Enter Xenofon Strakosas and team
Continue readingDrought, Get Out!
Can we get some water over here? *HACK* This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. One-sixth of earth’s population lives in the desert. Beautiful, unspoiled. . . But dry! Our planet is covered in water, but most of it is saltwater. Turning saltwater into usable freshwater
Continue readingShape-Shifting Robots
That Magic School Bus is so LOW TECH! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Sure, Miss Frizzle’s bus could shrink down and jump inside you. Big whup. Nowadays, we can shoot drug delivery nanobots into your bloodstream. So what’s the next frontier? Would you believe
Continue readingElmer’s Cells
Ouch, a paper cut! Can you fix that with a little… glue?! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Our skin does a marvelous job of putting itself back together after an ouchie. When our skin cells regenerate, they have “glue molecules” that help them rejoin.
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