Stop and Smell the Roses!

Just WALK it off…but WHERE? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Studies have shown higher rates of stress in the concrete jungle. Can a change of scenery help us out? Enter Sonja Sudimac and Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Human Development. They randomly assigned sixty-three

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Microdosing for Plants

I’m not drinking alone! I’ve got… my plant friends! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Yes, plants have Thirsty Thursday too, especially in droughts. So, scientists want to stabilize crop growth during water restriction. Could the answer be… alcohol? Raise your glass to Khurram Bashir

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Dreaming Spiders

Do spiders dream of… eight-legged sheep?! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science… saying… Wait! Spiders… dream? Well, to do that, they’d have to experience REM sleep. That’s a deep sleep state characterized by rapid eye movements. That’s when most of our HUMAN dreams occur!  Now,

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Junk Drawer

Ahoy!  Thar’s gold in that junk drawer! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science… saying… At least keys, old cell phones, those weird little IKEA joints to—argh!—assemble your Bilsbo’s. All are metal, of increasing demand today, and expensive to mine. Enterprising? You could be like Vancouver’s

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Healthy Split

Here’s a cookie idea that’s LITERALLY bananas!  This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Meet Asima Shafi and Faizan Ahmad from Aligarh Muslim University. They knew banana peels actually contain many essential nutrients! The researchers replaced regular flour with banana peel flour to make sugar cookies.

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Puppy Eyes

Can’t resist PUPPY DOG EYES? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Meet Zsófia Bognár and team at Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary. They gave over ONE HUNDRED dogs a piece of sausage. And even MORE sausage if they looked at the tester! The researchers compared the

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Cancer Catchers

Aww c’mon, shed a tear! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science, saying … It’s good for you, and our cells agree! To communicate, cells release tiny packages carrying genetic information and proteins that travel through us. They don’t know where these info-pacs go. But some

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Dirty Electric Cars

Feeling eco-virtuous in that Leaf or Tesla?  Slow down! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. “Green energy—its drawn from sunlight, air and pixie dust!”  Not. Powering e-car batteries? Still mostly fossil-fueled power plants. A typical EV battery? Mostly lithium, cobalt and nickel. Such metals come

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Offensive Chants

The World Series just ended, so let’s focus on Europe—sports hooligans! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Dutch acoustics engineers — Sander van Wijngaarden and Johan van Balkan — were soccer fans. Very annoyed soccer fans. The problem?  Negative fan chanting.  That’s a feedback loop of

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