Episodes – Page 138 – The Loh Down On Science

Bumble-Drones

January 21, 2019 Kellen Kartub

Flight of the bumblebee? More like flight of the bumble…drone! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Engineers are always looking to make things lighter, faster, and stronger. Origami-inspired structures are lightweight and cost-effective. That’s perfect for improving robot technology such as drones. However, they have

NUT-ricious Chocolate

January 18, 2019 Loh Down Staff

Healthy milk chocolate. Sound nuts? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Unlike its more sophisticated cousin dark chocolate, milk chocolate isn’t known for its health benefits. But what if we could change that? Scientists at the USDA and North Carolina State University may have found

Race for the Cure

January 17, 2019 Jessie Yaros

Computers always beat me at chess! What ELSE are they better at? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Pathologists discover two hundred thousand cases of lung cancer each year. Diagnosis requires time-consuming lab tests and a trained eye for pictures of lung tissue. Is there

Ant Jam

January 16, 2019 Priyam Patel

Getting on the highway at five o’clock? Pack a snack! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Traffic jams. Nobody likes them! Cars on the freeway, herds of cattle, even swarms of robots have to deal with traffic jams. What’s the secret to avoiding this misery?

Thinking Plants

January 15, 2019 Loh Down Staff

Can plants think? Would you believe… yes? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Consider barberry, a European shrub. It produces bean-sized fruits, each with one or two seeds. Its biggest threat is a tiny fruit fly. The fly injects its eggs into one of the

Motorized Meds

January 14, 2019 Jessie Yaros

Medications, start your engines! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. In the last few years, scientists have developed biological micromotors for delivering drugs. They’re supposed to work like propellers, steering those healing medicinal molecules more quickly into your bloodstream. But there’s a problem. These motors

Mystery Volcano

January 11, 2019 Loh Down Staff

Can a volcano cause global… cooling? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science, going back in time to… The early 1800s. When it’s cold! Throughout Europe and North America, there’s frost, and famine. That cold spell was blamed on the eruption of Indonesia’s Tambora volcano, in

Vision Quest

January 10, 2019 Krista Fruehauf

So many kids today are nearsighted. Is the villain… Candy Crush? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Facebook, Youtube, Fruit Ninja – everyone seems to be glued to their screens these days, especially the kids! Is all this screen time hurting children’s eyesight? Po-Wen Ku

Stronger than Silk

January 9, 2019 Thomas Baker

Eat pencil lead, silkworms! Literally! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Silks are used in many things, from bedding to bike tires to kimonos. How could we make these better? Stronger fibers! But how can you get a silkworm to spin extra strong fibers? Yingying

Robot Overlords

January 8, 2019 Will Thrift

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