Floodlight™ software — a tool that aids in the efficient discovery of vast numbers of chemicals present in a wide variety of substances including food, air and consumer products — was developed by Southwest Research Institute and recognized by R&D World magazine as one of the 100 most significant innovations of 2021. This cheminformatics machine learning tool integrates with analytical chemistry software to provide deep analysis of two-dimensional gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GCxGC-MS) and metadata.

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.

— 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.

A study detected unprecedented mortality in the Atlantic Rainforest among tiny frogs that live on land, with signs of infection by chytrid fungus. The episode coincided with an atypical period of drought, which may have forced the animals to seek water in streams where the pathogen is abundant.