Hey man, can I bum a ride… to Mars?! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Spacecraft cleanrooms use rigorous procedures to ensure no microbial guests stow away on missions. However, some bacteria are hard to detect, since they don’t form spores. Madhan Tirumalai and team
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Welcome sweater weather! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. In Southern California, you can relax on the beach and hike in the mountains on the same day. You may need a windbreaker, hoodie, and jacket, though. What if you didn’t need all that wardrobe to
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There’s gold in them there… MICROBES?! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Over time, germs become resistant to our antibiotic hand sanitizers. Yuck! Can we stop them by… panning for ancient organisms?! Enter Marcelo Torres and team at the University of Pennsylvania. They studied archaea
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Join the enzyme evolution revolution… today! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Enzymes are cellular machines that perform a wide variety of critical tasks for human health. What if we crank them up? Researchers have tried a technique called ‘continuous evolution’ that uses millions of
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Don’t open Pandoraea’s box! Who knows what you’ll unleash! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Pandoraea is an awful bacteria that infects mucus in the lungs of cystic fibrosis patients. But could we use it for good? Here’s how that nasty stuff works. Meet Elena
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Is the cure for cancer… a jog? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Run for your health, they say. But can you outrun… a tumor? Enter Catherine Phelps from the University of Pittsburgh. Her team studied melanoma-prone mice. Some exercised, others stayed sedentary. Surprisingly, tumor
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No flash photography, and please, don’t feed the mold. This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Imagine priceless puppets slowly degrading over the years. Museum air TEEMS with sneaky microbes. How can we protect our historical artifacts? Enter Yuanyuan Wang and team from Beijing’s University of
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Bad heart? Chew on this. It’s doublemint. This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. What’s bad for your mouth could be horrible for your heart. Why?! Enter Shunsuke Miyauchi and team at Hiroshima University. They studied bacteria behind the gum disease gingivitis to understand its impact
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Zombie outbreak! Who ya gonna call? Mommy?! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. “Zombie” immune cells have been discovered that let tumors grow unchecked! But only in men’s bladders. How can we stop them? Qingchen Zhu from the Chinese Academy of Sciences went with a
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Summer’s coming and the heat is on! Unfortunately. This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Our sweat is odorless, but our armpits can, er, stink. Gurdeep Minhas and colleagues at Oxford found the culprit. In armpit bacteria, there is a transport protein. Picture a conveyor belt bringing
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