When looking for a needle in a haystack, it's helpful to know what a needle looks like. A new software tool developed by researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) makes it possible to find chemical 'needles' in data 'haystacks' without having to know anything about the 'needle' in advance.
The NIST software should be especially useful for analyzing ultrapure metals - recently shown to have superior strength, corrosion-resistance and other properties - and for monitoring nanoscale semiconductor fabrication. Commercial X-ray detector manufacturers already have included the method used in the software into their products.