Gotta have my drugs, man! But short on cheddar! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Cost is one of the biggest obstacles to getting the medicine we need. How can we make meds cheaper? Enter Tianwei Dai and team from the University of Liverpool. They
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Happy 2025! Oof da— Have you heard about Norway’s Doomsday Vault? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Never mind its grim nickname, Norway’s Crop Trust encompasses a storage vault—a kind of Noah’s Ark— for seeds. The purpose: to ensure crop survival and diversity if there’s
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Happy New Year! How about a big fat mug of champagne? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Gerard Liger–Belair from France’s University of Reims wondered: Do bubblier champagnes taste better? With German colleagues, he used mass spectroscopy to analyze bubbles. Bubbles have what Liger-Belair calls an
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Once upon a time, each holiday photo was like Halloween! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Oh, those awkward family photos from the 1960s, ‘70s, ‘80s. Smiling families in colorful holiday sweaters with red demon eyes like the Balrog from Lord of the Rings. The
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What do you see in the black mirror? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. It’s tough being a teen? No one understands you! And teens today report feeling even lonelier than past generations! “WHY?” asked Jean Twengea and team from San Diego State University. Over
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In a food coma after too much holiday fressing? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Researchers at the University of Manchester, lead by Dennis Burdakov, can explain. When we’re hungry, we have low levels of glucose in our bloodstream and brain. That activates tiny proteins
Continue readingOn Christmas Day we ask: church air is pure—literally? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Chemists at Australia’s Queensland University of Technology made a miraculous discovery. Stained glass church windows literally clear the air when lit by sunlight. Lead researcher Huai Yon Zhu believes medieval glaziers
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Santa Claus is coming to town—or is he? This is Sandra Loh with the Loh Down on Science, saying: Of course he is! All kids know that! Of course, children can also have imaginary friends. Meet Psychologist Stephanie Carlson from the University of Washington and Marjorie Taylor from the University
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It’s Stormy Monday….for spiders? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Meet Jonathan Pruitt and team from U-C Santa Barbara. They wondered if—similar to how humans rush to grocery store to hoard toilet paper—tropical cyclones make spider colonies more aggressive. They put a piece of paper
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Fine, I’ll share with you, but not everyone! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science, asking, how selfish does that make me? Ask Carlos Alós-Ferrer from the University of Zurich. He and his team created selfishness games for 600 volunteers. In one game, pairs of players
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