A team of researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) has developed the world’s first fluorescent sensor to identify the presence of a drug known as GHB that is commonly used to spike beverages. When the sensor is mixed with a sample of a beverage containing GHB, the mixture changes colour in less than 30 seconds, making detection of the drug fast and easy.

A waste product from making paper could yield a safer, greener alternative to the potentially harmful chemical BPA, now banned from baby bottles but still used in many plastics. Scientists made the BPA alternative from lignin, the compound that gives wood its strength, and they say it could be ready for the market within five years.

In the more than two months since the Jan. 9 chemical spill into West Virginia's Elk River, new findings reveal the nature of the chemicals that were released into the water and then into the air in residents' houses.

Support for natural history – the study of organisms, how and where they live and how they interact with their environment – appears to be in steep decline in developed countries, according to Joshua Tewksbury, a University of Washington professor and WWF International scientist.

Roy Curtiss III, a scientist at the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University, has been selected as the 2014 recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society for Microbiology (ASM).

Peter B. Littlewood, a professor of physics at the University of Chicago and the associate laboratory director for Physical Sciences and Engineering at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory, has been selected to serve as Argonne’s 13th director, President Robert J. Zimmer announced March 25.

Researchers in Spain have designed a vacuum chamber capable of mimicking conditions on Mars to test gear for use in future missions.

Proof-of-concept study could soon allow analysis of early earth chemistry on meteorites and other rocks.

A new biological treatment could help dairy cattle stave off uterine diseases and eventually may help improve food safety for humans, a University of Florida study shows

Caffeine-fueled cram sessions are routine occurrences on any college campus. But what if there was a better, safer way to learn new or difficult material more quickly? What if “thinking caps” were real?