Drone-mounted lab monitors fertilizer runoff in real time

What if, instead of taking a water or soil sample to the lab, you could take the lab to the sample? That's what a team of researchers reporting in ACS Sensors did with a new nitrate-monitoring "lab-on-a-drone" system. The drone allows for easy, real-time water sampling and analysis in hard-to-reach areas like steep ditches or swampy lowlands.