Tortoise Attack

Return to an age when GIANT TORTOISES walked the earth!? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Giant tortoises can grow to be four feet long and weigh as much as a tiger! They can be found in the Seychelles and the Galápagos Islands. These monster

Continue reading

Wolf to Woof

Puppies are fast learners! But imagine training a WOLF PUP to sit!  This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science.  Dogs started out with a wild streak, as wolves. But for fourteen thousand years, they’ve been our faithful companions.  Hannah Salomons and colleagues at Duke University wondered

Continue reading

Pika Perseverance

Pikachu? More like pika-EWWW! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. In the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau of Southeast Asia lives the plateau pika – a little rodent the length of a butter knife. BUT plateau life is no small feat! Temperatures can reach negative twenty degrees fahrenheit,

Continue reading

Batty GPS

Can bats see into the future? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. SWOOP! A black blob dashes by – BATS! Their flight path seems so random – how do these speedy creatures keep track of where they are and where they’re going? Nicholas Dotson and

Continue reading

Trunk-tastic

Pop quiz: How is an elephant like a ROOMBAH?? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Slurp! Like your beloved house-hold appliance, elephants also use suction to grab onto food – even the tiniest peanut!  Andrew Schultz from Georgia Institute of Technology and colleagues wondered –

Continue reading

Bin Birds

Who’s taking on racoons for the title of ULTIMATE DUMPSTER DIVER??!!  This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science, saying – SURPRISE! It’s the Sulphur-crested cockatoo! Before twenty-eighteen, these pranksters were reported opening garbage cans in three suburbs around Sydney, Australia. They used their beaks and feet

Continue reading

Smart Swimmers

Are smarter people more so-fish-ticated? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Fish may be colorful, but they aren’t very bright! Can they smarten up? Giulia Rossi and Patricia Wright from the University of Guelph in Canada think so! They study the mangrove killifish, a fish

Continue reading

Superhearing!

Say what, Batman?  This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Are those bats talking about ME? Bats can both squeak and hear at frequencies so high, you’d need SUPER-hearing to detect it! Or at least – BAT-hearing? Enter Ville Pulkki and colleagues at Aalto University in

Continue reading

Deep Divers

SPLASH! Take the plunge — and meet the world’s best divers! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Who are the smallest mammal scuba-divers in the world? WATER SHREWS! They live on shore, waiting to pounce on tasty insects underwater. While hunting, they can hold their

Continue reading