Apes in the Kitchen

Can you teach a chimp to cook? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science, saying: Chimps probably won’t be whipping up souffles anytime soon. But there is evidence they might want to. Meet Alexandra Rosati and Felix Warneken of Harvard University. They’ve been conducting some intriguing

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Starfish Wars

Where’s the Terminator when you really need him? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science, and an ecosystem under attack. Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is truly a wonder of the natural world. But it faces a dangerous interloper: The Crown of Thorns starfish, or “COT” for

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Super-Ants

Look, up in the sky! It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a… SUPER…ANT? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. To bugs, trees spell one thing: FOOD! Caterpillars and grasshoppers are connoisseurs of the leafy species. But is there a bright side to trees having

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Animal IQ

Dogs, and cats, and…bears? Who’s the smartest? Care to take a bet? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Suzana Herculano-Houzel, a neuroscientist from Vanderbilt University, hosted, if you will, a battle of wits. She believes that smarter creatures should have more neurons within their cerebral

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Worm Dinner

Worms have a taste for coffee cups? Who knew? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Styrofoam and other plastics can take over hundreds of years to degrade. Yeesh! Is there a way to make them go away faster? Stanford researchers may have a solution –

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Spider Reality Show

Spiders who love video games too much? Story at 11! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Jumping spiders are well-known for their good vision. But researchers have a hard time getting them to display natural behaviors in the lab. That’s why scientists at Australia’s Macquarie

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Giraffe Gab

I still don’t know what the fox says. Giraffes, though, are another story! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Cats meow. Dogs bark. A sound has never been ascribed to giraffes, though. Until now. Austrian researchers painstakingly recorded – and analyzed – almost one thousand

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Hawk Eyes

Ever wish someone would watch your kids like a hawk? Literally? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Imagine you’re a hummingbird. You’re small. Your eggs are small. Potentially, squirrel lunch. What can you do? Get protection. Hire a hawk! That’s where Harold Greeney comes in.

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Rethinking Bird Brains

Can you think faster than a pigeon? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Most of us claim to be amazing multi-taskers. But what about birds? Researchers from Ruhr [ROOR] University Bochum [BOH-kum] in Germany decided to put this challenge to the test. They had about

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Egg Shape Mystery

How do you like your eggs – over easy? Sunny-side up? Pointy??! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Some birds lay eggs shaped like teardrops. Others look like a ball. And there’s everything in between! Why so MANY different shapes? Enter Mary Caswell Stoddard, a

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