A Yale University senior died last night during a freak accident in a chemistry lab. According to the New Haven Register, Michele Dufault was working on her senior thesis project when "hair got caught in a lathe, a piece of machinery that spins very quickly, and it pulled her in, sources said." The New Haven fire department responded to an emergency called in at 2:33 a.m. and found Dufault with no pulse. more ›

Cold-case investigators are ripping up the basement of a Queens plumbing-supply store in hopes of finding the remains of a Baruch College student who disappeared 12 years ago after her married chemistry professor got her pregnant. Cops received a tip a decade ago that Kristine Kupka might be buried beneath the Jamaica shop, but the man who managed the property—a cousin of professor and "prime suspect" Darshanad Persaud—wouldn't allow them to search. But according to the Post, after the building was leased to a new business, cops got permission and a "cadaver-sniffing dog" indicated the presence of human remains. more ›

Columbia professor Martin Chalfie (pictured) was named one of the three winners of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry this year. Chalfie, Osamu Shimomura of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA, and Roger Tsien of University of California, San Diego shared the prize "or the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP." more ›