Short answers, pulled from the story.
German chemists Ferdinand Reich and Hieronymus Theodor Richter discovered indium in 1863 while examining ores from mines near Freiberg in Saxony. They found the element by observing a bright blue spectral line during their analysis of minerals like pyrite and sphalerite.
Indium is a silvery-white post-transition metal with a Mohs hardness of just 1.2 that melts at 156.60 degrees Celsius. It produces a high-pitched crackling sound when bent due to crystal twinning and becomes a superconductor below 3.41 Kelvin.
The element ranks 68th most abundant in Earth's crust at approximately 50 parts per billion and rarely forms its own minerals or occurs in elemental form naturally. Only two primordial nuclides occur as natural indium-113 and indium-115, with indium-115 making up 95.7% of all natural indium.
Indium production occurs exclusively as a by-product during processing of sulfidic zinc ores where it hosts primarily within sphalerite. China led global output with 290 tonnes while South Korea produced 195 tonnes and Japan contributed 70 tonnes to world totals in 2016.
Flat-panel displays consume half of all indium worldwide today through transparent conductive coatings called indium tin oxide applied onto glass substrates for LCD screens. Other applications include indium phosphide semiconductors for transistors and CIGS solar cells that combine copper indium gallium selenide for second-generation thin-film energy capture.