If you’re a doctor working in a remote area or on the battlefield, getting access to medications can be tough. That may sound like the start of a commercial, but it’s a sometimes tragic fact. As far as we’ve come in the history of medicine, treatment isn’t as portable as we would like.

There’s a basic test used to identify bodily secretions at crime scenes. It’s not the only test, but it is useful in primary investigations—unless you spill a lot of commercial flour around.

Yeast is an incredible organism—you can thank it for booze!—and thanks to the marvels of modern genetics, we’ve made it incredibly versatile. Just a month after announcing a method for hacking yeast to produce narcotics, researchers just announced that the creation of yeast that produces THC and cannabidiols.

Your drink is the result of a battle between chemistry and biology. Lucky for you, chemistry won. That’s why your glass of scotch doesn’t taste like rotten eggs and stinky meat.

The man in the picture is considered the "Father of Microbiology." He helped to discover and sketch microorganisms. When he turned his microscope on beer, he saw some of the most useful microorganisms in the world — but he failed to recognize them.

Beginning April 13, you'll have a chance to try Ninkasi Brewing Company's "Ground Control," an imperial stout brewed with yeast that, last year, traveled to space.

A rose is a rose is a rose, except when it’s actually a yeast. A company called Ginkgo BioWorks in Boston is partnering with French fragrance company Robertet to create a genetically-modified yeast that makes the rose oil used in perfumes.

A loaf of bread isn't fluffed up by chemistry alone. It's slowly built up by colonies of yeast, which you heartlessly extinguish when you bake the dough in the oven. There's an ecosystem in every loaf, and a special kind of loaf, sourdough, is built by a special kind of ecology.

Beer may be as old as civilization itself, but modern molecular biology could teach craft brewers some new tricks. Troels Prahl, a brewer and microbiologist with White Labs, is currently analyzing the full DNA sequences of yeast from 2500 batches of beer in hopes of finding the yeast genes that explain why a lager…

On June 18, beer-lovers and fossil-enthusiasts alike—at least those around Ashburn, Virginia—will have a chance to sample the very first beer derived from a fossil.

Biting into a rotten piece of fruit or meat is a thoroughly unpleasant experience. According to a 40-year-old theory, it's because microbes have evolved to taste disgusting as a way to fend off competitors — namely you. But proving this theory has been difficult, until now.

Though the "sparkling" part of champagne is a key part of it's appeal, those tiny bubbles were a huge problem for about a century's worth of French wine makers. We'll let you in on the making, and the downside, of bubbles.

Some Frankenstein yeast cells had part of their own DNA removed and some human cell tissue put in. Why did this happen? So they could be so stuffed full of iron that they're super-magnetized and moved with magnets. Are us mere mortals far behind?

While the newly-generated variety of brewing yeast cooked up by boffins at the RIKEN Nishina Center for Accelerator-Based Science doesn't shoot laser beams or gain super-strength when you piss it off, it does apparently make a very tasty rice wine.

Close to 1,500 years ago, indians living in what is now Quito, Ecuador buried their most revered dead in 16-meter-deep tombs. An ancient alcoholic beverage was commonly included in these burial vaults. Now, by examining the clay vessels used to ferment and store this brew, a team of South American researchers has…