Happy St. Patrick’s Day! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science and a fun bar bet! David van der Spoel and team at Norway’s Uppsala University wondered: Is it harder to lift a glass off a table wet with water, or alcohol? They measured the work
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What does space taste like? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission is back! With flavor! What flavor? Rock samples from Bennu, a billions of years old asteroid. And the taste is… familiar! Salt minerals! Similar to what’s left behind when water evaporates
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Is there life on Mars? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science saying… Sorry David Bowie, probably not, but there was water – billions of years ago. But how do we know? Why does it matter? Jack Gillespie and colleagues from Curtin University probed for answers.
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January 10th: Happy Houseplant Appreciation Day! This is Sandra with the Loh Down on Science. You’ve heard: “Don’t water your plants at noon, because they’ll burn!” Botanists from Hungary’s Eotvos University wondered if sun rays and water droplets could actually fry plants. They combined computer models with experimental tests on
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Hug a tree! Especially if you are one! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Meet Martin Bader and Sebastian Leuzinger from Auckland University of Technology. Hiking in New Zealand, they came across a kauri tree stump. Despite not having any green foliage, the stump was
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Why did the water cross the membrane? To get to the other side of course! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Water works in many amazing ways, including inside our own cells! But how do we study something as invisible as water? Antoine Vian from
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What if WE have the Midas Touch? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Turning water into metal? Sounds like something from an alchemy book! PURE water is not metallic — because the molecule structure is too stable. But, with enough pressure, we could SQUEEZE water
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Munch munch munch… Someday I will be a beautiful butterfly! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Caterpillars spend their days busily feasting, turning carbon-rich leaves into nitrogen-rich poo. This means less falling leaves and more caterpillar poop washing into nearby lakes. This can change the
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Let it snow or MAKE it snow?! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Winter is right around the corner! Time to get your skis waxed and skates sharpened! But what if it doesn’t snow? The problem goes deeper than winter sports. Water scarcity is becoming
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Who’s thirsty? Harry Potter says … AGUAMENTE！ This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. That’s the wizarding charm to summon clean water with the wave of a wand! What if we could do the same – pull water from the air? Enter Iwan Haechler and colleagues
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