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
Sure, women know the pain of giving birth, but they’ve never been stricken by the Man Flu! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Say you, or someone you love, is bedridden with a cold. Completely debilitated. It’s a condition affectionately called the “man flu.” Are
When physicists get bored, curious things happen. This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Meet Mir Abbas Jalali of the University of California, Berkeley. He was playing with his wedding ring on his desk one day. Like you do. The ring wobbled and spun like a
Flying is literally a drag. But does it have to be? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Airplanes feel drag. It comes from pushing against air molecules. And we need gigantic engines and tons of jet fuel to get around it. Is there a way
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
What now? Family vacation photos . . . for science? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Time-lapse videos that span years or decades can tell us a lot about the world. They show cities growing, ecosystems drying, and even geologic changes. But who’s going to
Who stays more alert the day after a late night? Early birds? Or night owls? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Occasionally, we all stay up late, then have to get up early. When we’re sleep deprived like this, who’s more alert the next day?
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 –
Which piggy went to market? Which piggy stayed home? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Turns out that if we don’t look at our toes, we have trouble telling them apart by feel. Or so say Oxford University researchers. In their study, subjects closed their
They paved paradise, put up a parking lot, and then what? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. One of the many ways modern societies lose valuable drinking water is through toilets. So says environmental engineer Stanley Grant of the University of California, Irvine. He and
