The next phase: Using neural networks to identify gas-phase molecules

This breakthrough work has been recognized as a finalist for a 2018 R&D 100 award. R&D 100 awards, called the "Oscars of Innovation," are given out by R&D Magazine to the most significant innovations developed in a given year. Neural networks -- so named because they operate in an interconnected fashion similar to our brains -- offer chemists a major opportunity for faster and more rigorous science because they provide one way in which machines are able to learn and even make determinations about data. To be effective, though, they have to be carefully taught. That is why this area of research is called machine learning.