A MODIFIED liquid-crystal display could quickly detect bioterror agents like anthrax or plague bacterium. And because it is based on such a widespread technology, its inventors say the detector could be cheap enough to use across large, vulnerable networks such as postal services.
Attacks such as the anthrax letters sent in the US mail in 2001 have made technologies for detecting bioagents a priority. To give adequate warning, a sensing system must rapidly detect very low concentrations of pathogens, but until now no detector has been able to combine speed with sensitivity. For instance, complex procedures such as amplifying DNA…
