10-minute test for deadly stomach bug.

The article provides information about a handheld sensor that can quickly spot contamination by deadly strains of the Escherichia coli bug could help prevent infected food reaching consumers. Detecting the bug is a slow process that involves removing whole batches of foodstuffs from production lines while cultures are grown or DNA amplified. Now Raj Mutharasan, an engineer at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, has developed a cheap, quick and simple detector that just about anyone can use. The device works by detecting how the mass of a few E. coli cells changes the vibration of a miniature glass beam.