A Massachusetts-based startup called C2Sense [csmonitor.com], using research conducted at MIT, has created what they call “disruptive gas sensing technologies” that will be used to sniff out rotting food, Wired reports.
Early detection of spoilage is critical to keeping other foods in a container from going bad. Take fruit for instance: as a piece of fruit ripens, it releases a gas called ethylene, which accelerates the ripening of nearby fruits, prompting them to release even more ethylene, quickly spoiling, as the saying goes, the whole barrel.
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Shnorr says his company hopes to make sensor chips cheap enough to be built into food packaging that could be scanned with smartphones, which would provide users with a “freshness reading.”
Noses are passe.