What’s the ants-er to road-rage? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science, saying, perchance – it’s ANTS! Ugh, traffic. Right? We’re all just trying to get from point A to point B! What’s the hold-up? Audrey Dussutour at Toulouse University in France thinks ants are the
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Ah, love – is it REALLY blind? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Male bees — you’ve got it rough. You’re born, you mate with a queen, and then you die. But, hundreds of other would-bee suitors are trying to do the same thing! How
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Look! It’s a bird… it’s a plane… it’s RoboBee! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Drones help us explore areas we can’t get to on foot. But the bulkier the drone, the more difficult and dangerous to fly. So smaller IS better! But microdrones can’t
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What’s smarter than a talking horse? A spelling bee? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Besides making honey, honeybees can communicate with dance, and even count! What CAN’T they do? Scarlett Howard from the Université de Toulouse BEE-searched this question. She tried to train bees
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Medium, large, extra-large – when it comes to eggs, does size matter? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Insect eggs come in all sizes and shapes. Fruit flies lay tiny, pointy eggs. Others, like the many-banded daggerwing butterfly, lay giant round ones — Well, relatively
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Holy biodiversity, Batman! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Ninety percent of plants and animals in Madagascar are found nowhere else! Sadly, insect outbreaks threaten this amazing biodiversity. When they chomp down local crops, farmers are forced to compensate for the loss with field expansion!
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When this couple wondered how to fend off bugs, a light bulb went on. Literally! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Meet husband-and-wife ecologists Michael and Teresa Justice. They made their home ground zero for an experiment on attracting insects. Every night they used a
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What do you get when you cross a mushroom with a spider? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Mosquitoes are not just annoying — some are deadly! Anopheline mosquitoes in Africa transmit life-threatening diseases like malaria with one bite. What’s worse, they’re becoming resistant to
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News flash: Zombies. . . ARE REAL. This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science, saying… I don’t mean the human living dead, but troves of zombie ANTS??!! It happens when a parasitic fungus hijacks their brains.The fungus releases chemicals into the ants that compels them to
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Are your next building contractors. . . TERMITES? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. These pesky bugs are a nightmare for homeowners. But – surprise! Turns out some termites are quite the little architects! African termites build towering skyscrapers out of dirt and termite spit.
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