An interesting idea...

An Albequerque psychologist has invented a sticker that monitors fruit ripeness through ethylene levels. I'm not sure how well this could work, but it's an intriguing idea, regardless. Apparently they're considering more field applications than the original vision of using the stickers to pick out fruit at the grocery store.

I wonder if the sort of ethylene sensor one can build into a sticker has the level of precision to compete with the innate (or fairly easily picked up) human sense of what's ripe and what's not. Maybe it's just me, but in general there seems to be a sort of ripe "vibe" from fruit, not specifically tied to color or softness or aroma but more a combination of all those things. And that does me pretty well (although not with plums for whatever reason. Seems like I'm always biting into unripe plums...) But it'll be cool to see if these things pan out. Certainly better technologies for monitoring ethylene would be welcome in both the pre- and post-harvest fields.