The latest news from academia, regulators research labs and
other things of interest Posted: May 18th, 2012 Synthetic scent
hounds - Nanostructured sensor for the detection of very low
concentrations of explosive (Nanowerk News) To prevent terrorist
attacks at airports, it would be helpful to detect extremely low
concentrations of explosives easily and reliably. Despite the
development of various sensor technologies, dogs continue to be
the most efficient detectors. In the journal Angewandte Chemie
("Bio-Inspired Nanostructured Sensor for the Detection of
Ultralow Concentrations of Explosives"), a German and French
team has now described a type of micromechanical sensor with a
structure derived from the sense organs of butterflies. One
approach used for sensors is based on microcantilevers. These
are tiny flexible cantilevers like those used to scan surfaces
with atomic force microscopes. When used in "chemical noses" the
microcantilivers are coated with a material that specifically
binds to the analytes bein