When there’s an outbreak of foodborne illness, health inspectors are on the case looking for clues that lead to the tiny culprit making people sick. But instead of sending samples to an off-site lab, inspectors could soon hold the answers in the palm of their hands. Michigan researchers came up with a quick, easy and cheap way to test for toxins and germs using nanotechnology, the study of things on a molecular scale. “It’s a chemical, electrical way of telling the presence of something you’re looking for in a very quick manner,” said Fred Beyerlein, CEO of NanoRETE, the company developing the technology. If contaminated spinach is the suspect, an inspector would put a spinach leaf in a bag of clean water, swish it around until particles wash off the leaf, then test the water for germs. The sensor picks up on changes in the electrical conductivity of the water to find pathogens.