People who are blind take pictures and videos and share them with others but face a unique challenge—they cannot independently review their pictures and videos to identify unnecessary private or sensitive content. A set of new techniques being developed by researchers at the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and partner institutions will empower people who are blind to independently safeguard private information in their pictures and videos. The collaborative project received a four-year, $1,199,993 grant from the National Science Foundation.

Researchers from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) have decoded the genome of the mangrove tree, Bruguiera gymnorhiza, and revealed how this species regulates its genes in order to cope with stress. Their findings, published recently in New Phytologist, could one day be used to help other plants be more tolerant to stress.

— In one of nature’s unexpected bounties, a harmless food-grade solvent has been used to extract highly sought rare-earth metals from coal ash, reducing the amount of ash without damaging the environment and at the same time increasing an important national resource.Coal ash is the unwanted but widely present residue of coal-fired power. Rare-earth metals are used for a variety of high-tech equipment from smartphones to submarines. The separation method, which uses carbon dioxide, water and food-grade citric acid, is the subject of a Sandia National Laboratories patent application.

Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a new process that makes use of existing industry standard techniques for making III-nitride semiconductor materials, but results in layered materials that will make LEDs and lasers more efficient.