An EU-funded research group has come up with an "electronic nose" which can identify and grade coffee beans and control the quality of oak wine barrels and pigs sent to meat-processing plants.
The device, known as FOX 2000, performed well against 24 human experts when successfully identifying coffees from Brazil, Cameroon, Colombia and Uganda. It could also "sniff out" the best oak wine barrels and detect pigs sent for processing that had been castrated either clumsily or too late. Meat from these animals has an unappetising odour.