By Stephen Beech

A simple new sensor can determine exactly how fresh fish is in less than two minutes.

To determine the freshness of a piece of fish, cooks traditionally look at its eyes and gills or give it a sniff.

But a far more accurate check for food quality and safety is to look for compounds that form when decomposition starts.

Now, Australian scientists have developed an electronic device the size of a clothes peg that quickly measures one of those compounds.

The prototype sensor can determine how fresh a fish within two minutes, according to a study published in the journal ACS Sensors .

Study co-author Professor Nicolas Voelcker said: "For fish, signs of spoilage - cloudy eyes, bruised gills, foul or fishy odors - might take hours or even days to appear.

"In contrast,

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