Photo: U.S. Department of Agriculture / Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Food and Wine: To test whether food contains the harmful bacteria E. coli, scientists place samples of the questionable sustenance in culture dishes to see if germ-filled colonies form. They wait for days—two or three, to be exact—to know whether the food is safe to eat, or whether it should be pulled from shelves. But new technology could speed up the food-safety testing process to mere moments, according to research from MIT.

Researchers at the institute have developed a liquid droplet that when dispensed on food binds with any bacterial proteins that might be present—and that bond can be seen with a trained, naked eye or a smartphone app…

Read the full article at Food and Wine.