Slipping on a banana peel – Cartoon pratfall, or fascinating biology? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. What makes banana peels so slippery? That’s what Kiyoshi Mabuchi colleagues at Japan’s Kitasato University wondered. So they set up a scientific slip n’ slide! They placed a
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We’ve all heard of “farm to table”—But what if your table is on Mars? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. It’s hard to get fresh veggies in space. But future colonists will need them for long-term survival. Enter researchers from Wageningen University in The Netherlands.
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Want to swim like Michael Phelps? Learn from a swordfish! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Swordfish are known for their iconic sword-shaped bills. But did you know they can swim sixty miles per hour?! That makes them the fastest swimmers on Earth! What’s their
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Waving the white flag has a seductive new meaning! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science, saying surrender — to the power of amphibian love. Meet the Bornean rock frog. These creatures live near waterfalls, and enjoy long hops on the beach. However, these romantic scenes
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Do you really need a brain to learn? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down On Science saying, maybe not—If you’re a slime mold! Those are single-celled organisms with a remarkably cooperative attitude. Individual cells come together into large colonies that appear to behave like single organisms. These
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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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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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Like your chili extra hot? Here’s another thrill you might enjoy—a tarantula bite! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. A study by David Julius of the University of California, San Francisco, looked at venom from a West Indian tarantula. It’s shown to activate the same
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Bzzz bzzz, smack! You—literally—smell good enough to eat! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Those pesky mosquitoes! They do more than just bug us. They spread malaria! Yikes! Even more horrifying? Once you’re infected by a malarial mosquito, you attract more of them! Never fear,
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Got thinning hair? Now we know why! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. All types of mammals experience hair thinning as they age. Ugh. In both sexes, it’s thought to be caused by shrinking hair follicles. But stem-cell biologists in Japan weren’t content with shrinkage
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