Spidery Surgery

Shooting webs! Climbing walls! What else can Spiderman do? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Broken bones are the worst! Fortunately, bone tissue can regrow. Installing metal plates can help support bone growth. But metal can be irritating – isn’t there a better way? Maybe!

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Nano Bandaid

Cut yourself shaving? Forget the wad of toilet paper—apply Frankenstein solution! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science, saying: It’s actually called hemostat solution, initially developed by a team of scientists at MIT. It works by bathing injured tissue in a blend of peptides, small fragments

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Fresh Eyes

New hope for the Three Blind Mice? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. The Farmer’s Wife may yet be foiled thanks to researchers from Fudan University. For sighted people, light gets picked up by cells in our eyes. These cells have sheets of pigment that

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Super Rice

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s… SUPER RICE? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Fertilizers are mostly made of NITROGEN. Plants needs it to grow. But, too much nitrogen SLOWS growth for some plants! Other plants grow BIG and TALL with lots of it.

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String Theory

Think filing your taxes is a pain? Imagine doing it in macramé! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. It may sound far-fetched but that’s exactly how the ancient Incas kept records. With colored, knotted strings called khipu. Colonial documents verify that khipu were used in

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Feel-Good Fingertips

I’d like the French manicure and some … fake fingertips? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science, and a new material with feeling. Literally! Meet Jonghwa Park, from Korea’s Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology. He and fellow engineers fabricated a special film out of

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Flash Flu Fix

Travelling on an airplane this flu season? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. AH-CHOO! Scootch scootch! Between the close quarters and recycled air, there’s a good chance you’ll catch something. You can try to protect yourself by wearing a mask or popping vitamin C. But

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Just Add Mushrooms

Look out! Pothole! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Potholes and cracks. Every commuter’s nightmare. If only the problem could fix itself! Enter Congrui Jin and her team at Binghamton and Rutgers universities. They filled in the cracks by hiring some self-motivated construction workers. Who?

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How Do You Goo?

Want a glue that sticks? Just scare a slug! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. When you cut your skin open, stitches and staples have you covered. But what keeps you together when the incision is INSIDE your body? Jianyu Li [JEEAHN-you LEE] and colleagues

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