Plastic, Heal Thyself!

Family potluck, plate of fixin’s. . . Another plastic fork bites the dust! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Plastic items break every day, from phone cases to prosthetics. If only they could fix themselves! Traditional plastic is like a long chain of repeating molecular

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Risky Red Tide

Could the new AA be algae-holics anonymous? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with The Loh Down On Science. Harmful algal blooms, or red tides, are bad news for everyone. Toxic red algae grow out of control. They poison shellfish and the people who eat them. Tiny shrimp-like creatures called copepods

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Guilty Pleasures

Hark! Is that the ice cream truck I hear? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Trips are fun — but guilt trips are not! Guilt shapes much of our actions, for better or worse. But can we control those guilty feelings? Kristen Duke and On

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Spoiling the Spoiler

Harry Potter fans: Spoiler alert! Snape kills Dumbledore! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Feeling upset right now? You’re not alone. A spoiler is learning the end of a story before it begins. This includes who won last night’s game, or what happened to your

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Trusty Wrinkles

Should I skip the wrinkle cream tonight? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science, saying yes! We all notice the wrinkles around our eyes. But what do wrinkles reveal about us? Julio Martinez-Trujillo and his team at the University of Western Ontario study wrinkle communication. They

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Looking for Trouble

Problems — do we get what we look for? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Maybe you’ve heard THIS story: a neighborhood watch lowers crime in an area. But once the burglaries stop, the watch doesn’t relax. Instead, people start calling in jaywalkers! It’s called

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Fish Fingers

Could that fish stick solve the secret to our sense of touch? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science, saying: the answer is right at our fingertips. Meet Adam Hardy. He and colleagues from University of Chicago want to know how fingers feel. To do this

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Going Gray

ANOTHER gray hair? Oh no! Break out the Lady Grecian Formula! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science, on going gray! Oh, those silvery locks, at too young an age – is stress to blame? Melissa Harris from the University of Alabama, Birmingham studied how stress

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Windy Warming

Windmills taking the wind out of your sails? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. More and more cities around the world are committing to renewable energy. Coal plants produce carbon dioxide which can lead to global warming. But other options aren’t perfect either! Meet Lee

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Alien Limbs

Coming soon… “The Leg from Outer Space!” This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science, and Alien Limb Syndrome! Patients with this condition describe feeling as if their arms and legs have a mind of their own. They’ll “scratch an itch” that doesn’t exist, or reach for

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