What if instead of taking a water or soil sample to the lab, you could take the lab to the sample? That’s what a team of researchers reporting in ACS Sensors did with a new nitrate-monitoring “lab-on-a-drone” system. The drone allows for easy, real-time water sampling and analysis in hard-to-reach areas like steep ditches or swampy lowlands. The technology could help farmers optimize their fertilizer use and prevent waterway pollution from excess nitrate runoff.

Snow and ice can damage paved surfaces, leading to frost heaves and potholes. These become potential hazards for drivers and pedestrians and are expensive to fix. Now, researchers propose in ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering a figurative and literal green solution to improve the durability of roads and sidewalks: an algae-derived asphalt binder. For temperatures below freezing, results indicated that the algae binder reduced asphalt cracks when compared to a conventional, petroleum-based binder.

Iron-on patches can repair clothing or add personal flair to backpacks and hats. And now they could power wearable tech, too. Researchers reporting in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces have combined liquid metal and a heat-activated adhesive to create an electrically conductive patch that bonds to fabric when heated with a hot iron. In demonstrations, circuits ironed onto a square of fabric lit up LEDs and attached an iron-on microphone to a button-up shirt.

To see if a fish is fresh, people recommend looking at its eyes and gills or giving it a sniff. But a more accurate check for food quality and safety is to look for compounds that form when decomposition starts. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Sensors have developed a simple, effective electronic device that quickly measures one of these compounds. The prototype sensor can determine how fresh a fish is in less than two minutes.