R-Ray Spex

WOW! X-Ray Specs! Remember ordering those? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science, saying yeah, mine didn’t work either! But, good news, kids! Researchers from M-I-T think they have a NEW way to see through walls. Dina Katabi used radio waves to map people’s locations. This

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Tasty Invention

Keep your hands out of your food! Unless they’re. . . robot hands? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Taste is the sensation triggered by our taste buds when they recognize flavor molecules. Chocolate – yum! Kale – not so much. But what if science

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Stimulating Scents

Gee, your hair smells terrific! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. When we smell, odor molecules dock into special proteins that alert our brain. Mmmm…bacon! Biologists call these proteins olfactory receptors, or O-Rs, and they do more than just smell! All kinds of cells use

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Viral Addiction

Has addiction gone VIRAL? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Retroviruses like HIV make us sick by inserting their genes into our cells. Usually, these genes cause cells to make new copies of the retrovirus. But occasionally, the genes mutate and can’t make new viruses.

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Robot Overlords

What does a robot and your boss have in common? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. With humanoid robots becoming more and more realistic, scientists are investigating them as social tools. Now researchers at University of Clermont Auvergne are using social robots for more… sinister

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DVD Extras

Is a new aid in treating heart disease. . . Netflix? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Streaming movies on demand has killed the D-V-D. What to do with the old disks? You only need so many suncatchers, right? Enter Hua-Zhong Yu’s team at the

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R-Ray Spex

WOW! X-Ray Specs! Remember ordering those? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science, saying yeah, mine didn’t work either! But, good news, kids! Researchers from M-I-T think they have a NEW way to see through walls. Dina Katabi used radio waves to map people’s locations. This

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Laser Vision

Want better vision? How about. . . squishing your eyeballs? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Eye shape is the key to perfect vision. But most of us have eyes as wonky as a Picasso portrait. Lasik eye surgery fixes vision by reshaping the eye’s

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Smell Detector

Is the bathroom still smelly? Odorbot to the rescue! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Ever dream of having a day when smelling unpleasant odors is a distant memory? Kenshi Hayashi and colleagues at Kyushu University share this dream. And they’re working on a solution:

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Caveman Cartoons

What do you picture when you hear… “WILMAAA!!?” This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. When describing a scene, humans create a visual image of it in their mind’s eye. Could computers do the same? Meet Tanmay Gupta and researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

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