A BIOELECTRONIC sensor the size of a postage stamp could sniff out bombs and other explosives.
Most commercially available explosives detectors tend to be expensive, bulky and complex – and hence difficult to use in the field. That may change thanks to a new sensor invented by Shelley Minteer and her colleagues at St Louis University in Missouri.
The detector is a spin-off from the Minteer group’s work to develop fuel cells powered by mitochondria, the parts of cells that generate energy by burning a chemical called pyruvate. Produced by the digestion of sugars, pyruvate is the compound that starts the…
