Science begins with observation, and many defining moments in scientific progress followed the introduction of new ways to observe the world, from microscopes and telescopes to X-rays and MRIs.

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.

The Pittcon 2015 Program Committee is pleased to announce the recipients of 14 prestigious awards honoring scientists who have made outstanding contributions to analytical chemistry and applied spectroscopy. Each award will be presented during a symposium at Pittcon 2015, March 8-12, 2015, New Orleans, Louisiana.

Our two highlighted tradeshows this month include the Materials Research Society Fall Meeting and Exhibit (MRS) and the American Society for Cell Biology’s annual meeting (2014 ASCB/IFCB). The 2014 MRS Fall Meeting takes place November 30-December 5, 2014 in Boston, Massachusetts, featuring over 6,000 presentations. Not long after, the 2014 ASCB/IFCB Meeting–a premier biomedical research conference–runs December 6-10 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Its Keynote Talks will span the origin of life to the cosmos. Remember that the companies highlighted here in Tech News will be exhibiting, but these specific products may not be at the shows.

For answers, researchers turned to mice, stem cells, and the “tooth fairy”

Drexel engineers improve strength, flexibility of atom-thick films.

Researchers at the University of Maryland have invented a single tiny structure that includes all the components of a battery that they say could bring about the ultimate miniaturization of energy storage components.

The rapidly melting ice sheets on the coast of West Antarctica are a potential major contributor to rising ocean levels worldwide. Although warm water near the coast is thought to be the main factor causing the ice to melt, the process by which this water ends up near the cold continent is not well understood.

Here is an idea worth following: “share” for tenure; “like” to get cited

A team of neuroscientists has devised a fast, inexpensive imaging method for probing the molecular intricacies of large biological samples

The University of Delaware’s Mark Moline knew that his grandfather, O. Karl Olander, was a Navy chaplain in the Pacific during World War II. But it wasn’t until his mother shared his grandfather’s journal and scrapbook that Moline realized his grandfather had been on the USS Princeton, one of the aircraft carriers that attacked Palau in March 1944.

Crop producers and scientists hold deeply different views on climate change and its possible causes