An electronic “tongue” could one day sample food and drinks as a quality check before they hit store shelves. Or it could someday monitor water for pollutants or test blood for signs of disease. With an eye toward these applications, scientists are reporting the development of a new, inexpensive and highly sensitive version of such a device in the American Chemical Society journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.

Enjoy this first episode of the ACS series "Legends of Chemistry"

Utah engineers create fuel cell that can run without high heat.

Plants rely on sunlight to make their food, but they also need protection from its harmful rays, just like humans do. Recently, scientists discovered a group of molecules in plants that shields them from sun damage.

Reactions is revealing the chemistry you need to know to survive a zombie apocalypse

With fears growing over chemical and biological weapons falling into the wrong hands, scientists are developing microrockets to fight back against these dangerous agents, should the need arise. In the American Chemical Society journal ACS Nano, they describe new spherical micromotors that rapidly neutralize chemical and biological agents and use water as fuel. 

Frying is one of the world's most popular ways to prepare food — think fried chicken and french fries. Even candy bars and whole turkeys have joined the list. But before dunking your favorite food in a vat of just any old oil, consider using olive.

Drawing blood and testing it is standard practice for many medical diagnostics. As a less painful alternative, scientists are developing skin patches that could one day replace the syringe. In the American Chemical Society journal Analytical Chemistry, one team reports they have designed and successfully tested, for the first time, a small skin patch that detected malaria proteins in live mice. It could someday be adapted for use in humans to diagnose other diseases, too.

Is the process close to a commercial reality?

Alcohol consumption isn’t the only thing a breath analysis can reveal. Scientists have been studying its possible use for diagnosing a wide range of conditions in humans — and now in the beloved bottlenose dolphin. In a report in the American Chemical Society (ACS) journal Analytical Chemistry, one team describes a new instrument that can analyze the metabolites in breath from dolphins, which have been dying in alarming numbers along the Atlantic coast this year.