Optical Clues to Your Health

The eyes are the window to the soul… And your heart too? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Tired of checking your heart health with pinchy blood pressure sleeves. Just take a retinal scan! The blood vessels in our eyes display unique branching. These are

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Sky High Surprises

Keep watching the stars! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. The VASCO project monitors anomalies in the sky, like strange lights and vanishing stars. While studying astronomical photographs from the 50’s, Stephen Bruehl and Beatriz Villarroel noticed something strange.  Bright spots were found in the sky the

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Onion Tears

Masterpiece Theatre presents: Tears of an Onion. This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Cut an onion, and enzymes break up sulfur compounds. But how do they get in your eye? Zixuan Wu and team at Cornell University compared onion cutting with varying knife sharpness and

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Protecting your Pearly Whites

Good news! Unless you’re a dentist… This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Tooth enamel is armor for your teeth. But there’s a problem – it gets destroyed by everyday life. Chewing, bacteria, that second cup of coffee… Currently, we polish our enamel with toothpaste. But

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Whale Language

Do whales tell tall tales? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Sperm whales communicate through sequences of clicking sounds called “codas.” How much meaning do these codas carry? Gasper Begus and team at UC Berkeley used machine learning to study codas. They found that the

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Leftovers for Bacteria

Tired of leftovers? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Current food waste disposal methods can lead to greenhouse gases and air pollution. Beenish Saba and team at Ohio State University found a disgusting solution. Bacteria CAN turn food into USEFUL lab chemicals like acetate, butanol,

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Quantum Calculations

Even computers need help with math! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. As electronics get smaller, we have to understand smaller objects – down to atoms! Energy is constantly in flux at the molecular level. Calculating HOW and HOW MUCH takes million-dollar supercomputers. Enter Hossein

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Chromatic Aromatics

From the lab bench to fashion week! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. The chemicals in fabric dyes are harmful to the environment, polluting our water sources. Researchers are looking for eco-friendly ways to modify fabrics. Like Rafael Grande and team from the University of

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Groovy Brain Vessels

Oh yeah, feel that beat, brainy! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. The blood vessels in your brain expand and contract to the beat of your heart. This is called arterial pulsation and it’s measured to study heart health. But! Methods for measuring it are

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This Bee’s a Whiz

Dot… dash… dot… dash… buzz?! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Humans can use morse code. What about bees? Alexander Davidson and colleagues at Queen Mary University of London put bumblebees to the test. They showed forty bumblebees flashing yellow circles. A short flash of

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