A new blood test, which could be performed at a crime scene, could help determine the age of a suspect or victim within just an hour.

Biomedical Engineering and Chemical Engineering Professors Bob Tilton and Todd Przybycien recently co-authored a paper with Ph.D. students Brittany Nordmark and Toni Bechtel, and alumnus John Riley, further refining a process that could soon help provide clean water to many in water-scarce regions. The process, created by Tilton’s former student and co-author Stephanie Velegol, uses sand and plant materials readily available in many developing nations to create a cheap and effective water filtration medium, termed “f-sand.”

Waste oil from orange, tea tree and eucalyptus essential oil production mixed with diesel provides a sweet-smelling biofuel blend with comparable performance to diesel-only fuel.

From vine to wine, grapes undergo a remarkable transformation. But sometimes this makeover results in vino that doesn’t taste quite right. In a new study scientists report that they have found a way to use tiny magnetic particles to remove off-tasting substances in cabernet sauvignon without altering its desired bouquet.

Revolutionary new test analyses fingerprint sweat to determine cocaine, opiates, amphetamines and cannabis use.

Scientists have created a tiny toaster-sized chemistry lab built around a very small mass spectrometer for a rover that will drill beneath the Martian surface looking for signs of past or present life.

An ambitious new workflow has married two cutting-edge proteomic analysis techniques to improve imaging of large protein assemblies. The combination of electron cryo-microscopy (cryo-EM) and cross-linking coupled mass spectrometry (CX-MS) allows deeper interrogation of protein structures to a level of detail that the techniques are incapable of obtaining on their own.

Advances in sequencing technologies are providing scientists with a powerful way to view microbial communities in unprecedented detail. Metagenomics is a rapidly evolving field that is uncovering a wealth of hidden biodiversity, revolutionizing our understanding of uncharted corners in the living world.

Determining what happens to a drug after it enters the body is a key consideration in the drug development process. Liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (LC-MS) has emerged as one of the most powerful analytical tools for the screening and identification of drug metabolites. Advances in the field of LC-MS have allowed scientists to analyze drug metabolic pathways and drug-drug interactions more closely, and improve therapeutic strategies for many challenging diseases.

Improved access to clean and safe drinking water is key for health and survival and has been classified as a human right. Here, we take a look at some of the novel solutions, both hi-tech and low-tech, that scientists are designing to help monitor drinking water source safety.

Microbes play an important role in the marine ecosystem, however, the effects of climate change have the potential to upset this fine balance, leading to increasing issues with cyanobacterial blooms. Exciting work seeks to look at the knock on effects on the marine food web and ways to combat these toxic blooms.

Those involved in the production, processing and distribution of food know that food safety is not an issue to be taken lightly. Of note, mycotoxins in food are subject to strict legislative limits and therefore their detection and quantification are a key area of interest.