“Just add water!” And power! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. No, I’m not talking about Hamburger Helper. We’re looking at batteries: they power everything, but create mountains of waste. Can we invent one that’s green and simple? Enter Gustav Nyström and colleagues from Switzerland.
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Is artificial intelligence just a big ol’ boys club? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. AI learns from the internet – it soaks up EVERYTHING! The good, the bad…and the biases? Douglas Guilbeault and colleagues at Stanford studied how prejudice affects chatbots. The researchers analyzed
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There’s something in the air… This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Could wildfire smoke in the Amazon reach… the South Pole?! Enter Sudip Chakraborty from the University of Maryland. He used satellite data to track black carbon, a chemical produced by combustion. His team determined
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Friends don’t let friends… get wrinkly??? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Friendships are one of life’s joys, but could they also slow aging? Dr. Anthony Ong and team at Cornell studied over two thousand middle-aged adults to find out. They compared bloodwork to biological
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That’s no illusion! It’s a glowing fish! And I’m Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Why do they glow like that anyway? Is it magic? No… Emily Carr and team at the American Museum of Natural History wanted answers. Using special lights, they spotted biofluorescence, where fish
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Put the sugar on your… dome? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Losing your hair is a real head-scratcher! Minoxidil works, but it doesn’t dissolve in water. Can we make it easier to absorb? Enter Junying Zhang and team at China Pharmaceutical University. They had
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It’s a wonderful life… span? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Around the world, women outlive men. But… is that just a human thing? Enter Johanna Staerk and colleagues at the Max Planck Institute. They studied the lifespans of over FIVE HUNDRED mammals and SIX
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Do houseplants die … with a whimper? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Wilting leaves warn us too late. Farmers need earlier alerts. Could plants be… audible? Enter Lilach Hadany and Yossi Yovel at Tel Aviv University. Their team set up microphones by tomato and tobacco
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Does the perfect pasta sauce come down to… PHYSICS?! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Cacio e pepe: it’s just cheese and pepper, how hard can it be? Turns out, deceptively hard! It eludes perfection due to its temperature sensitivity AND precise ingredient ratios. So
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Hey Professor Fido! Tell me, do dogs really know what words actually mean? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Meet Claudia Fugazza, lead researcher on a fetching study of brainy pups. They played with unusually clever dogs! Here, owners used two toy types: tug-of-war “pulls”
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