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A provisional patent by Tom Bruno and Kim Urness of the Applied Chemicals and Materials Division on Inductive Flash Desorption was published on June 7, 2018. Their patent covers an approach to rapidly remove chemicals that have adhered to a surface, for analysis or characterization. Major applications are in the area of lubrication, forensics and biological fouling. Additionally, on June 8, the patent application for Nucleic Acid Sequencer for Electrically Determining a Sequence of Nitrogenous Bases in a Single Stranded Nucleic Acid was published. In this work, Division staff member Alex Smolyanitsky demonstrated in silico a novel method for sequencing DNA that should be both faster and more accurate than the best approaches to date. The approach relies on attaching DNA base pairs as functionalizations to a graphene sheet and then monitoring the resultant capacitance changes as base pair bonds form and deflect the membrane. The work was originally described in the journal Nanoscale.