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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Think of them as pocket-sized dragons! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Bats are relatively small predators, so a majority of their meals are insects caught by grazing. However, the fringe-lipped bat stunned researchers with its lion-like hunting abilities. Leonie Baier and team at Aarhus
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