Trunk-tastic

Pop quiz: How is an elephant like a ROOMBAH?? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Slurp! Like your beloved house-hold appliance, elephants also use suction to grab onto food – even the tiniest peanut!  Andrew Schultz from Georgia Institute of Technology and colleagues wondered –

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Bin Birds

Who’s taking on racoons for the title of ULTIMATE DUMPSTER DIVER??!!  This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science, saying – SURPRISE! It’s the Sulphur-crested cockatoo! Before twenty-eighteen, these pranksters were reported opening garbage cans in three suburbs around Sydney, Australia. They used their beaks and feet

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Smart Swimmers

Are smarter people more so-fish-ticated? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Fish may be colorful, but they aren’t very bright! Can they smarten up? Giulia Rossi and Patricia Wright from the University of Guelph in Canada think so! They study the mangrove killifish, a fish

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Superhearing!

Say what, Batman?  This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Are those bats talking about ME? Bats can both squeak and hear at frequencies so high, you’d need SUPER-hearing to detect it! Or at least – BAT-hearing? Enter Ville Pulkki and colleagues at Aalto University in

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Deep Divers

SPLASH! Take the plunge — and meet the world’s best divers! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Who are the smallest mammal scuba-divers in the world? WATER SHREWS! They live on shore, waiting to pounce on tasty insects underwater. While hunting, they can hold their

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ZooTube

Awwwwww! Cute video alert! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Rolling pandas! Waddling penguins! Prancing elephants! Who can resist animal videos? They’re fun — and educational! Or are they???   Enter Thomas Llewellyn, from University of the West of England, and University of Exeter’s Paul Rose!

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Batty Knowledge

Ugh, this physics test is driving me BATTY! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. We humans aren’t born knowing physics! But what gives with a bat? Bats emit ultrasounds which tell them where objects are by how fast the sound waves return.  So . .

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Orangutan Obstacles

Can I get extra fries with that Big Mac? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science.  Rainforest animals like fruit-loving Bornean orangutans sometimes have trouble finding food due to deforestation and drought! They may eat 70% fewer calories than their bodies require. From a human perspective,

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Scuba Lizards

Image from article showing anole species forming an air bubbles underwater to “rebreathe”

So! How long can YOU hold your breath under water? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. We humans need an oxygen tank to go scuba diving. What would a lizard use?  Christopher Boccia at University of Toronto, Canada, and an international team study small anole

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