Fish freshness easily monitored with a new sensor

05-Dec-2025 - To see if a fish is fresh, people recommend looking at its eyes and gills or giving it a sniff. But a more accurate check for food quality and safety is to look for compounds that form when decomposition starts. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Sensors have developed a simple, effective ...

Detecting evidence of lung cancer in exhaled breath

Sensing technology could provide a breakthrough in non-invasive lung cancer screening

11-Nov-2024 - Exhaled breath contains chemical clues to what’s going on inside the body, including diseases like lung cancer. And devising ways to sense these compounds could help doctors provide early diagnoses — and improve patients’ prospects. In a study in ACS Sensors, researchers report developing ...

Four-legged, dog-like robot ‘sniffs’ hazardous gases in inaccessible environments

Portable mass spectrometry for on-site detection of hazardous volatile organic compounds via robotic extractive sampling

12-Jun-2024 - Nightmare material or truly man’s best friend? A team of researchers equipped a dog-like quadruped robot with a mechanized arm that takes air samples from potentially treacherous situations, such as an abandoned building or fire. The robot dog walks samples to a person who screens them for ...

Distinguish sugars with eye-catching and stretchy rainbow film

02-Dec-2022 - Rainbows and sugar may conjure up images of a certain leprechaun-branded breakfast cereal. But now, researchers in ACS Nano report a kaleidoscope-like film for telling different sweeteners apart that displayed multiple colors when stretched by hand. When evenly stretched with a simple apparatus, ...

Biosensor detects brain tumors with less than a drop of blood

30-Sep-2022 - Despite significant advances, mortality from brain tumors remains high with five-year survival rates of 36%, according to the National Cancer Institute. More accurate diagnoses might improve the situation, but tissue biopsies are invasive and can miss important information about a tumor’s ...

How to tell if that plastic bottle or bag has recycled material in it

27-Sep-2022 - To encourage more recycling, the U.K. taxes single-use plastic products containing less than 30% recycled material. But aside from a manufacturer’s word, there isn’t an easy way to verify this composition. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering have developed a ...

Detecting nanoplastics in the air

“Nanoplastics are a major concern if they’re in the air that you breathe, getting into your lungs and potentially causing health problems”

29-Aug-2022 - Large pieces of plastic can break down into nanosized particles that often find their way into the soil and water. Perhaps less well known is that they can also float in the air. It’s unclear how nanoplastics impact human health, but animal studies suggest they’re potentially harmful. As a step ...

Exposing what’s in tattoo ink

Ingredient lists often aren’t accurate

29-Aug-2022 - From life-like faces to elaborate nature scenes, tattoos are a true art form. Although people have decorated their bodies for millennia for ceremonial and religious reasons, many people today adorn themselves with these images as a form of self-expression. But the inks used for tattoos are ...

Doping by athletes could become tougher to hide with new detection method

Ion mobility-mass spectrometry to detect known dopants and newly created illicit steroids not yet known

12-Apr-2021 - As the world awaits the upcoming Olympic games, a new method for detecting doping compounds in urine samples could level the playing field for those trying to keep athletics clean. Scientists report an approach using ion mobility-mass spectrometry to help regulatory agencies detect existing ...

An inexpensive 'dipstick' test for pesticides in foods

06-Nov-2009 - Scientists in Canada are reporting the development of a fast, inexpensive "dipstick" test to identify small amounts of pesticides that may exist in foods and beverages. Their paper-strip test is more practical than conventional pesticide tests, producing results in minutes rather than hours by ...