Fishing out the bad apples: Novel quantitative method to assess the safety of food

Histamine is a dangerous compound that occurs in spoiled food, such as mackerel, left at room temperature for too long. Unfortunately, existing histamine detection methods are inconvenient and expensive. To tackle this issue, a team of scientists from Chung-Ang University, Korea, has developed a novel histamine quantification strategy based on fluorescent carbon nanoparticles and histamine-binding peptides. Their approach is simple and inexpensive and allows one to efficiently assess food safety.