food science

The comparison is not in your head. Stink bugs and cilantro share an odor molecule, and the same chemistry helps explain why some people think the herb tastes like soap.

Yelp searches for pumpkin spice lattes are up 301% this year, and Starbucks moved its launch to Aug. 25. Here's why the industry keeps starting fall earlier.

Club soda and sparkling water start with identical carbonation, but one goes flat first because of what else is dissolved in it.

Dry ice skips the liquid phase entirely because of basic physics — and a widening CO2 supply gap is turning that same physics into a shipping headache.

Unpopped "old maids" aren't random. A Purdue food chemist found the difference between a good popper and a dud comes down to moisture and a kernel's cellulose hull.

Clear glass looks appealing on a shelf, but for olive oil it's a slow-motion quality problem. Here's the food chemistry behind the dark bottle, and where even dark glass falls short.

The shiny and dull sides of aluminum foil come from a manufacturing quirk, not a cooking rule — and lab tests show almost no difference between them.