Crop-tops, capris, and… cigarettes? Not cool! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. How can we stop teens from smoking? Social engineering, of course! Dr. Cheng Wang and team at UC Irvine examined anti-smoking interventions in two high schools. They compared two types of social networks
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Could robots give us a leg up? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Following a stroke, physical therapy is key for regaining mobility. But it’s tough, both on the patient and the physical therapist. Little help? Enter Emek Küçüktabak and team from Northwestern University. They
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Vote your conscience, or vote your… amygdala!? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Voting can give people a sense of purpose and strengthen community ties. But what about better health? Enter Femida Handy and Sara Konrath from University of Pennsylvania and Indiana University. They examined
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The laws of physics apply to everyone… Right? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Universal law states that if you push something, it pushes back equally hard. Scientists wondered if this rule holds in dusty plasma. Dusty plasma is a gas of charged particles mixed
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Aging rewrites immune systems, but is nature giving men and women entirely different scripts? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Maria Sopena-Rios from the Barcelona Supercomputing Center studied immune cells from nearly a thousand adults. The plot twist? Older women develop hyper-alert, inflammatory cells. This
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Think one flu shot fits all? Think again. This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Vaccines train your immune system to make antibodies, which recognize and help block viruses. But turns out…not everyone makes the same antibodies! Alexandra Fischer and team at Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet studied
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What LED scientists and neighbors to work together? LEAD! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. You can’t see or smell lead in soil. But for decades, lead from the former Exide battery smelter settled into L.A. neighborhood gardens. How much is left? Enter Jill Johnston
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Staring contest? How about a scaring contest… with a crow! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Urban birds, like crows, tolerate us. But how do they FEEL about us? Ask Yuiko Suzuki and team from Keio University. They attached wireless sensors with gel pad electrodes
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Time to shake a leg: literally! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Wanting to exercise is not always the problem. Sometimes it’s just exhausting. Florian Marchand and team at the University of Savoy Mont-Blanc set out to change our perception. They recruited fifteen cyclists. Each
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Paging Stuart Smalley: your daily affirmations might matter more than you think! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. We’ve all heard “mind over matter”. But can positive thinking REALLY improve your life? Dakota Witzel, and team at South Dakota State University investigated. They surveyed over
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