Are cockroaches lending a helping hand? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. I know – technically cockroaches don’t have hands… But they do have legs, and they’re revolutionizing prosthetic limbs. How? Yeongin Kim and colleagues at Stanford University have created an artificial nerve. It senses
Continue reading
Hey couch potatoes! Could watching TV power… your home? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Despite our best intentions, we constantly waste energy. Not because I fell asleep watching Jeopardy, again, but due to heat loss. Phones, computers, cars – almost any device or large
Continue reading
Smart watches are SOOOOOO 2017….! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Today’s smartwatches can track everything from your heart rate to your breathing. But Michael McAlpine at the University of Minnesota thinks we can do better. He and his colleagues want to print electronics directly
Continue reading
Help Me, Obi-Wan Kenobi — you’re my only hope! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. In Sci-fi films, communicating via 3-D holograms is all the rage. Here on earth, our two dimensional video conference calls? Not nearly as exciting. No longer, says Roel Vertegaal of
Continue reading
Microchips as tasty as…potato chips? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. You may have heard of graphene. It’s pure carbon arranged in a one atom thick honeycomb pattern. In this form, carbon becomes stronger than steel, and makes better wires than copper. While potentially useful
Continue reading
Do you remember the classic movie, Fantastic Voyage? If not that, then at least Raquel Welch’s jumpsuit? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. It’s fun to think about how 21st century science has actually caught up with 1960s science fiction. In this case, think mini-submarines
Continue reading
Free the man in the phone! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Imagine you’re FaceTiming with your dad. But instead of seeing his face trapped in a two-D screen, his image is free-floating in the air – in three-D! Sounds like a sci-fi movie, right?
Continue reading
Would you drive across a paper bridge? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Engineers in Japan and the United States are intrigued by origami. That’s the Japanese art of paper folding. Picture those paper cranes we made as children. Why would origami interest engineers? Think
Continue reading