The recent Yemeni bomb threat has only highlighted the need for quick, accurate ways of detecting explosives. With their excellent sense of smell and the ability to discern individual scents, even when they’re combined or masked by other odors, this task is usually given to man’s best friend. But training these animals can be expensive and good sniffer dogs can be hard to find. Scientists have now developed an electronic sensor they say is more sensitive and more reliable at detecting explosives than any sniffer dog.
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The device is made from an array of silicon nanowires, coated with a compound that binds to explosives to form a nanotransistor. To enhance the device’s sensitivity, the scientists developed each one with 200 individual sensors that work together to detect different kinds of explosives with what the scientists say is an unprecedented degree of reliability, efficiency and speed

Good… now maybe we can dump the x-ray scanners and intrusive pat-downs.