Dec
22
22
Rudy Baum
Another Trip Around The Sun
Posted by Rudy Baum on December 22, 2008 in The Editor's Blog
Today is the last issue of C&EN in 2008 as we do not publish an issue on the last Monday of the year.
It is hard to believe that we have completed another year—another trip around the sun, in the parlance of the R.E.M. song. It has been an eventful year, for our nation and for the chemistry enterprise.
We reflect on some of the significant events of the year in three stories in this issue. The cover story is our annual “Chemical Year in Review,” which has appeared in the last issue of the year since 2002. This year’s review was written by Senior Editor Stephen Ritter, who took over responsibility for the feature from Deputy Assistant Managing Editor Stu Borman.
Ritter took a somewhat different approach to the “Chemical Year in Review” than Borman. Out of the several hundred articles published in C&EN in 2008 on important research advances, Ritter chose 12 items to focus on and presents them in roughly chronological order. As he writes in his introduction to the feature, “These choices … are necessarily subjective, and we do not pretend that they are comprehensive. Indeed, these studies represent only a few examples of the many ways in which chemists are pushing the boundaries of what we know and what we can do.”
Help For Universities
Dec
15
15
Posted by Rudy Baum on December 15, 2008 in The Editor's Blog
During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama promised that if elected he would work to double over 10 years the budgets of the agencies primarily responsible for basic research in the physical sciences—NSF, NIST, and DOE’s Office of Science. Despite the extraordinarily bad economic conditions the U.S. now faces, many observers believe that Obama will work to make good on that pledge once he becomes president.
With the U.S. economy now in what appears to be free fall, President-Elect Obama has begun to unveil his plans for a massive economic stimulus package. His plans, outlined in very general terms in a radio address on Dec. 5, should be of considerable interest to the chemistry enterprise because they focus on energy efficiency, infrastructure, schools, and information technology.
Obama promised to focus spending on four main areas. One would be a “massive effort to make public buildings more energy efficient,” he said. Another would be “the single largest new investment in our national infrastructure since the creation of the federal highway system in the 1950s.” It would also include a “sweeping effort to modernize and upgrade school buildings” across the nation.
The Chemistry Of Biology
Dec
8
8
Posted by Rudy Baum on December 8, 2008 in The Editor's Blog
Woolly mammoths were spectacularly exotic beasts that roamed through the frozen northern reaches of Europe, Asia, and North America for a few million years until they became extinct 8,000 to 10,000 years ago. They coexisted with, and were hunted by, modern humans, who drew pictures of them on cave walls. Although the disappearance of much of their habitat at the end of the last ice age certainly played a role in the extinction of woolly mammoths, predation by humans also contributed to their demise.
Because quite well-preserved mammoth carcasses have been retrieved from the ice in Siberia and elsewhere, people have hoped that it might be possible to re-create mammoths by taking genetic material from a carcass and somehow implanting it in the egg of a modern elephant. This has not proved to be feasible because DNA in even well-preserved specimens has deteriorated into small fragments.
In November, a team of scientists from Pennsylvania State University and a number of other institutions around the world reported the sequencing of about 70% of the nuclear genome of the mammoth (Nature2008, 456, 387 ). The team, which was led by Penn State scientists Webb Miller and Stephan C. Schuster, had previously reported the sequence of mammoth mitochondrial DNA.
Thoughts While Diving
Nov
24
24
Posted by Rudy Baum on November 24, 2008 in The Editor's Blog
Three days after the U.S. elections, my wife, Jan, and I left the country for a week of scuba diving on Bonaire, an island in the Netherlands Antilles off the coast of Venezuela.
Bonaire is about as far off the beaten track as one can get, especially for a news junkie like me. There are no newspapers other than advertising circulars. There’s television, but Jan and I tend not to watch broadcast news.
And scuba diving just lends itself to tuning out the outside world. It’s a relatively physically demanding activity—it’s amazing how much weight it takes to sink a human body in a 3-mm-thick wetsuit—so you go to sleep early and sleep well. There is also a fair amount of time during the day to sit back and reflect.
Employment Outlook 2009
Nov
3
3
Posted by Rudy Baum on November 3, 2008 in Ripped From the Pages, The Editor's Blog
This week’s suite of cover stories is C&EN’s annual “Employment Outlook” feature. The stories were coordinated and edited by Senior Editor Corinne Marasco, who also wrote the lead story.
Not surprisingly, Marasco’s interviews with numerous company representatives and university department heads revealed that the economic chaos of recent weeks has turned the outlook for jobs for chemists somewhat cloudy. “Although industrial representatives who spoke with C&EN this year report that their companies are hiring,” Marasco reports, “they are doing so with a ‘wait and see’ attitude toward a possibly weaker job market in 2009. The exception is chemical engineers, who continue to be in high demand at all degree levels.”
Indeed, one hard truth that comes through in Marasco’s story is that, if your passion is chemistry and you want a job in industry, you’d better plan on getting that Ph.D.—or develop a passion for chemical engineering. For example, Cary W. Wilkins, director of recruitment for the Americas at Shell Chemicals, told Marasco that the overall market is very good for chemical engineers at all degree levels and for Ph.D. chemists, groups that Shell is recruiting.
Nobel Nonsense
Oct
20
20
Posted by Rudy Baum on October 20, 2008 in The Editor's Blog
Nobody criticizes the Nobel Prize committees or their selections. The august Swedish academies are just too daunting for criticism. They hand down their verdicts on who is worthy and who is not, and we applaud.
That needs to stop. Some Nobel Prize selections over the past couple of years have been so wrongheaded that it needs to be pointed out.
This year’s prize in medicine or physiology is a case in point. Awarding Luc Montagnier and François Barré-Sinoussi half of the prize for discovering HIV—the virus that causes AIDS—while ignoring Robert Gallo’s contribution to that discovery is blatant rewriting of scientific history.
I was a young C&EN reporter in San Francisco when the AIDS epidemic broke out in 1981. I started writing about the frightful new disease soon after, even though some members of C&EN’s staff thought that the topic was too far afield for a magazine focused on the chemistry enterprise. I was convinced that AIDS was a disease that would become widespread and an important scientific topic in its own right.
Thoughts From CPhI
Oct
13
13
Posted by Rudy Baum on October 13, 2008 in The Editor's Blog
I spent two-and-a-half long and productive days at the CPhI conference in Frankfurt two weeks ago. Beginning with the annual C&EN reception the evening before the official start of CPhI, through two days of interviews and casual conversations at lunches, receptions, and dinners, I spoke to dozens of the leading figures in the fine and custom chemicals industry.
There’s a lot of ferment out there, as C&EN Senior Editor Lisa Jarvis reported in a news story in last week’s issue (C&EN, Oct. 6, page 9), and as C&EN Senior Editor Rick Mullin will elaborate on in his CPhI review, which will appear in the Oct. 20 issue.
Despite the chaos in the financial markets, which does appear to be hurting some biotech companies, business is pretty good. The halls of the Messe Frankfurt were humming with more than 22,000 CPhI attendees.
Big pharma seems to have settled more comfortably into a clearer relationship with fine and custom chemicals companies, especially Western companies. Large pharmaceutical companies have not yet evolved entirely into exclusively drug discovery and drug sales and marketing entities, with everything in the middle outsourced to a variety of service providers, but they seem to be well on their way. (more…)
Energy Sustainability
Oct
6
6
Posted by Rudy Baum on October 6, 2008 in The Editor's Blog
I recently attended a forum sponsored by Harper’s Magazine at the National Press Club on “The Geopolitics of Energy Sustainability: Meeting Demand in a Changing International Environment.”
The four speakers at the forum were erudite and represented different sectors of the energy policy universe. Kent F. Moors, the moderator, is executive managing partner of Risk Management Associates International and president of ASIDA, an energy consulting firm. The panel consisted of Elizabeth Cheney, vice president of exploration and production for Shell Americas; Bruce Schlein, vice president of environmental affairs for Citigroup; and John C. Topping Jr., president and chief executive officer of the Climate Institute.
Moors painted a fairly bleak picture, concluding, “At most, we have 30 years left of a sustainable crude-oil-based economy. The big fields are gone. We are looking at smaller fields, geologically difficult fields, and poorer quality crude oil. We need alternative energy sources, including alternative sources of hydrocarbons. This must include ways to increase the efficiency of existing fields, including mitigating the environmental damage of exploiting them.”
Moors observed that weaning ourselves from petroleum will be the “most difficult, excruciating change we have ever faced.” (more…)
Sex And Reproduction
Sep
22
22
Posted by Rudy Baum on September 22, 2008 in The Editor's Blog
Carl Djerassi is obsessed with reproduction.
It’s not surprising, really. One of the major figures of 20th-century chemistry, Djerassi practically started his career with the synthesis of norethindrone, which formed the basis of the first oral contraceptive. He is often referred to as “the father of the pill.”
The pill decoupled sex from reproduction and ushered in a social revolution, the effects of which are still being played out. Djerassi has been fascinated by the social effects of the birth control pill throughout his professional life.
For at least the past decade, Djerassi has also been fascinated by another reproductive technology, intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), which accomplishes the flip side of what the pill accomplished: ICSI decouples reproduction from sex.
(more…)
A Weighty Issue
Sep
8
8
Posted by Rudy Baum on September 8, 2008 in Ripped From the Pages, The Editor's Blog
Every week, we strive to bring you a magazine that keeps you informed of the broad chemical enterprise. This week’s issue pulls out all the stops. It contains many engaging, informative, important, and inspiring stories and features that remind us once again just how dynamic the chemical enterprise is.
Permit me to skip around a bit so I don’t start with the obvious. Just because it falls at the end of the magazine, after the traditional “back of the book material,” do not overlook the outstanding stories in this year’s Education Supplement. This feature was coordinated and edited by Corinne Marasco, a senior editor in the ACS News & Special Features Department. Marasco also wrote the introduction to the feature and “The Ivory Tower Goes Green,” a story that shows how green chemistry in the curriculum can inspire professors and students alike.
(more…)
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