Washington State University

Research into Alzheimer’s diagnostic technologies has highlighted the potential of a new biomarker in the blood, which was shown to distinguish healthy patients from early asymptomatic Alzheimer’s patients with a high degree of accuracy.

Through experiments on roundworms and human cells in the lab, scientists have found a potential new pathway for the treatment of cancer that involves a naturally occurring fatty acid and a recently discovered form of programmed cell death.

Researchers have found the first evidence Native Americans smoked a plant other than tobacco. Smooth sumac was likely consumed for medicinal qualities, but it's the method used to make the discovery that is really getting archaeologists excited.

Scientists at Washington State University have come up with a new design for a sodium-ion battery that offers comparable energy capacity and cycling ability to some lithium-ion batteries already on the market.

Organic compounds have been discovered on Mars in recent years. A new study examines the different ways that one type in particular, thiophene, may have formed, and intriguingly one of the most plausible scenarios involves ancient microbial life.

Described as a “dream material,” lithium metal could give lithium-ion batteries a huge boost but safely integrating it has proven problematic. Scientists have now come up with a new design that avoids these issues and stops it going up in flames.

The sodium chloride that's commonly used to de-ice highways is harmful to the environment, plus it corrodes both road materials and vehicles' metal bodies. There may soon be a kinder, gentler alternative, though – made from discarded grape skins.

Move over Granny Smith and Red Delicious, there’s a hot new apple in town and it’s built to outlast them all. The Cosmic Crunch apple is hitting shelves today, promising a storage life of up to 12 months when kept in the right conditions.

​Commonly used to make a wide variety of items, low-density polyethylene can be recycled into new plastic, but there's much more waste than recycling facilities can currently handle. With that in mind, scientists have now devised a method of converting the material into something else – jet fuel.

​If you worked as a taste-tester of spicy foods, you'd only be able to try a few samples at a time – after that, your taste buds would become desensitized and need a rest. A newly-developed "electronic tongue," however, can accurately measure the spiciness of multiple foods for hours at a time.

​Styrofoam isn't eco-friendly stuff. It's made from petroleum, it can't be efficiently recycled, it's non-biodegradable, and it creates pollution when burned. A new plant-based foam reportedly has none of those drawbacks, however, plus it's claimed to actually insulate better than regular Styrofoam.

​We've already seen assistive robots for seniors, which sit in one place in the user's home. A team at Washington State University, however, has developed one that figures out where its user is, then goes to them and offers its assistance when needed.