Short answers, pulled from the story.
Ferdinand Reich and Hieronymus Theodor Richter discovered indium in 1863 while working in Freiberg, Saxony. They identified the element by observing a bright blue line in a spectrum that did not belong to any known element.
Indium is a shiny silvery-white metal that is so soft it can be cut with a knife and has a boiling point of 2072 degrees Celsius. It can wet glass and produces a high-pitched cry when bent due to crystal twinning.
Indium is used as indium tin oxide to create transparent and conductive coatings on glass for computer, smartphone, and television screens. This application became the largest end use of indium by 1992 and accounts for 50% of current consumption.
Professor Mas Subramanian and former graduate student Andrew Smith discovered YInMn blue in 2009 at Oregon State University. This intensely blue pigment is the first new inorganic blue pigment discovered in 200 years and is non-toxic and fade-resistant.
Indium is used in control rods for nuclear reactors as part of an alloy containing 80% silver, 15% indium, and 5% cadmium. Radioactive indium-111 serves as a radiotracer in nuclear medicine to diagnose infections and find growth hormone receptors in neuroendocrine tumors.