Number 194 (Story #3), September 13, 1994 by Phillip F. Schewe and Ben Stein ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORKS , logic programs which can be "trained" to do certain types of pattern recognition, have been used to extract information from complex observational data sets in a number of research areas, such as atomic physics, chemistry, and geophysics. Neural network algorithms will soon be used by scientists at Livermore to deduce the properties of laser- produced plasmas (such as temperature and density) form the complex spectrum emitted by the plasmas. Currently the neural network is being trained and tried out on spectra associated with known plasma properties. The Livermore scientists hope eventually to establish a library of network responses which can be accessed in future plasma spectroscopic work. (A.L. Osterheld et al., Phys. Rev. Lett., 12 Sept.)