At restaurants and cocktail parties, you go weak in the knees when you see a vintage bottle of Shiraz on the table. But if you're like millions of other oenophiles, you might hesitate before taking a single sip, no matter how good it looks: Even the priciest bottle of wine can leave you reeling with a skull-crushing headache the next day. Sometimes you'll be fine, but it's always a roll of the dice. How can you be sure you won't regret your nightcap in the morning?

Well, researchers have stumbled upon a solution to that all-too-common problem: A new device that allows you to find out whether your pleasure is really your poison before you take a single sip.

A group of chemists working to detect life on Mars realized that their gear could have practical purposes for the earthbound among us when they figured out a way to detect the presence of chemicals called biogenic amines in ingestibles such as cheese, chocolate, nuts, and, of course, alcohol.

Foods and beverages (wine, in particular) with high levels of amines are to blame for the splitting headaches that many of us feel after a Bacchanalian feast. And for some unlucky individuals, even miniscule levels of amines can cause serious pain.

But thanks to the new amine detector, you can check out the headache-inducing potential of a bottle of wine almost instantly, by testing the quality of a single drop. The suitcase-sized prototype is a bit unwieldy to lug around to restaurants, but the developers are working on building a PDA-sized version, which could definitely come in handy at your next party or wine-tasting event.

With guidance from the new device, there'll be no excuse for feeling awful the morning after – unless those three glasses of '67 Shiraz were really worth the pain.

Learn more. (Associated Press)


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