Chemical weapons are easy enough to detect with the right equipment but such equipment is often not at arm's reach when the use of such weapons is first suspected. Samples of contaminated surfaces need to be taken and run through detection devices and this takes valuable minutes. It would be better if soldiers could automatically detect the presence of dangerous compounds right when they are encountered and now a new system that integrates detection systems into a glove looks like it can grant this ability.
The new technology is a flexible glove with a tiny electro-chemical lab stitched into it that is designed to transmit its findings in real time to a nearby phone. The glove can, quite literally, sound the alarm by triggering an application installed on the phone to vibrate or beep. You can read more in The Economist article that I wrote on this here. Alternatively, if you would like to hear me describe the research on The Economist's science podcast, you can do so here.