Jetlag… in your tummy?! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. European vacation! Get ready for amazing food. But wait. No matter how much you eat, nothing hits the spot after you land. Why? It turns out that transatlantic flights mess up your sleep cycle AND
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Welcome to the memory storage department – graveyard shift! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Your sleep is divided into different stages, each helping store memories from the day. But how does your brain sort through WHICH memories to keep? Enter Hongyu Chang and team
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Guess what’s the next big VIRAL hit… This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Traditional methods for tracking new viral strains are slow, leaving us scrambling to update vaccines. In fact, many viruses go undetected completely! Enter Noemie Lefrancq and colleagues from Cambridge University. They developed
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Your therapist doesn’t get you? Maybe try one named HAL… This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Dariya Ovsyannikova and team from the University of Toronto put ChatGPT in the psychoanalyst’s chair! Human study participants first read either a negative or positive emotional prompt. Then they
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Can bacteria make us smarter? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Our gut contains “good” bacteria called microbiota! They help break down our lunch into essential nutrients. The more bacteria in our microbiota, the healthier we are! But wait, there’s more! Premysl Bercik and team at
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Ah, the first day of spring! Time to bathe our children in flowery essential oils and—what, no? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Crunchy granola parents! Put those lavender and tea tree oils down and just walk away. According to a New England Journal of
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Talk about life’s NUMTS and bolts! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Mitochondria – your body’s energy supplier – has a side hustle: inserting their D-N-A into your brain! Should we be afraid?! Enter the Mills team at the University of Michigan. They examined little
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Prepping your taxes? Feeling sad? Wait, that’s a GOOD thing! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Adam Anderson, from the University of Toronto, wondered how mood affects concentration. To make two dozen university students happy, he played them a quote, “jazzed-up version of Bach’s Brandenberg
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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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Want a D-N-A glow up?! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science… saying eat your veggies! Michael Nshanian and team at Stanford University studied how fiber-packed diets affect cancer. When digested, fiber produces molecules called propionate and butyrate. And they don’t just loosen things up in
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