SH UTTERSTOCK/YANG H . KU/C &E N
ROBIN M. GIROUX, C&EN WASHINGTON
C&EN’s staff is constantly caught up in the news— and deadlines—of the day and week. This is our lives, and it’s how we bring you the news of the chemical world. But as the year draws to a close, we take a reflective turn and look back over the stories we’ve covered and trends we’ve followed. Our science/technology reporters, beginning on page 16, revisit some of the best of the science we featured in 2013—in no particular order, they hasten to add. We strive to highlight ways that chemists have pushed the boundaries of what we know and how we go about learning more. Starting on page 20, our business reporters describe how, after years of financial turmoil, 2013 brought relative economic calm for chemical companies plus, for those active CEN.ACS.ORG
in the U.S., the benefits of low prices for natural gas. Our government/policy reporters, beginning on page 26, marvel that despite partisan budget battles that led to across-the-board federal budget cuts and a 16-day government shutdown, Congress did manage to clear a few science-related bills. Pages 30 and 31 convey the year’s news in quotes and photos, including some from The Watch Glass, C&EN’s Tumblr blog, through which we celebrated our 90th anniversary with pictures and excerpts of articles from our storied past. And to round out this annual retrospective, starting on page 32 our science/ technology reporters revisit some of the scientific advances that we highlighted a decade ago, in our 2003 year in review.
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DECEMBER 23, 2013
