From the Editor 1155—16th St., N.W., Washington, DC 20036 (202) 872-4600 or (800) 227-5558 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Bibiana Campos Seijo EDITORIAL DIRECTOR: Amanda Yarnell PRODUCTION DIRECTOR: Rachel Sheremeta Pepling BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT & PUBLISHER: Kevin A. Davies SENIOR ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER: Marvel A. Wills BUSINESS NEW YORK CITY: (212) 608-6306 Michael McCoy, Assistant Managing Editor, Rick Mullin (Senior Editor), Marc S. Reisch (Senior Correspondent), Alexander H. Tullo (Senior Correspondent), Rachel Eskenazi (Administrative Assistant). CHICAGO: (917) 710-0924 Lisa M. Jarvis (Senior Correspondent). HONG KONG: 852 9093 8445 Jean-François Tremblay (Senior Correspondent). HOUSTON: (281) 486-3900 Ann M. Thayer (Senior Correspondent). LONDON: 44 1494 564 316 Alex Scott (Senior Editor). WEST COAST: (315) 825-8566 Melody M. Bomgardner (Senior Editor) POLICY Cheryl Hogue, Assistant Managing Editor Britt E. Erickson (Senior Editor), Jessica Morrison (Associate Editor), Andrea L. Widener (Senior Editor) SCIENCE/TECHNOLOGY/EDUCATION WASHINGTON: Lauren K. Wolf, Assistant Managing Editor Celia Henry Arnaud (Senior Editor), Stuart A. Borman (Senior Correspondent), Ryan Cross (Contributing Editor), Matt Davenport (Associate Editor), Stephen K. Ritter (Senior Correspondent). BERLIN: 49 30 2123 3740 Sarah Everts (Senior Editor). BOSTON: (973) 922-0175 Bethany Halford (Senior Editor). CHICAGO: (847) 679-1156 Mitch Jacoby (Senior Correspondent). WEST COAST: (626) 765-6767 Michael Torrice (Deputy Assistant Managing Editor), (925) 226-8202 Jyllian Kemsley (Senior Editor), (510) 390-6180 Elizabeth K. Wilson (Senior Editor) JOURNAL NEWS & COMMUNITY: (510) 768-7657 Corinna Wu (Senior Editor) (651) 447-6226 Jessica H. Marshall (Associate Editor) ACS NEWS & SPECIAL FEATURES Linda Wang (Senior Editor) EDITING & PRODUCTION Kimberly R. Bryson, Assistant Managing Editor Craig Bettenhausen (Associate Editor), Taylor C. Hood (Contributing Editor), Manny I. Fox Morone (Associate Editor), Alexandra A. Taylor (Contributing Editor) CREATIVE Robert Bryson, Creative Director Tchad K. Blair, Interactive Creative Director Robin L. Braverman (Senior Art Director), Ty A. Finocchiaro (Senior Web Associate), Yang H. Ku (Art Director), William A. Ludwig (Associate Designer) DIGITAL PRODUCTION Renee L. Zerby, Manager, Digital Production Luis A. Carrillo (Web Production Manager), Marielyn Cobero (Digital Production Associate), Joe Davis (Lead Digital Production Associate), Krystal King (Lead Digital Production Associate), Shelly E. Savage (Senior Digital Production Associate), Cesar Sosa (Digital Production Associate) PRODUCTS MANAGER: Pamela Rigden Snead CONTENT MARKETING EDITOR: Mitch A. Garcia SALES & MARKETING Stephanie Holland, Manager, Advertising Sales & Marketing Natalia Bokhari (Digital Advertising Operations Manager), Kirsten Dobson (Advertising and Marketing Associate), Sondra Hadden (Senior Digital Marketing Specialist), Quyen Pham (Digital Advertising & Lead Generation Associate), Ed Rather (Recruitment Advertising Product Manager) ADVISORY BOARD Deborah Blum, Raychelle Burks, Kendrew H. Colton, François-Xavier Coudert, Cathleen Crudden, Paula T. Hammond, Matthew Hartings, Christopher Hill, Peter Nagler, Dan Shine, Michael Sofia, Michael Tarselli, William Tolman, James C. Tung, Jill Venton, Helma Wennemers, Geofrey K. Wyatt Published by the AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY Thomas M. Connelly Jr., Executive Director & CEO Brian D. Crawford, President, Publications Division EDITORIAL BOARD: Nicole S. Sampson (Chair), ACS Board of Directors Chair: Pat N. Confalone, ACS President: Donna J. Nelson, Cynthia J. Burrows, Michael P. Doyle, Jerzy Klosin, Gary B. Schuster Copyright 2016, American Chemical Society Canadian GST Reg. No. R127571347 Volume 94, Number 49
Happy holidays
S
o, apparently, “chemistry is not an exact science.” At least not according to Mario Andrada, the Rio spokesperson who earlier this year during the Olympic Games in Brazil used that very same statement while trying to explain why the water in the diving pools had turned green. Of course we know him to be wrong—if chemistry isn’t an exact science then what is?—but it definitely is my favorite quote published in C&EN this year. And I can tell you there have been many; our reporters carry out thousands of interviews every year. We have just selected the best—the most amusing, insightful, controversial—and collected them into a section that we have named Quotes of the Year. You can find it on page 48 and also online at yearinreview.cenmag.org/ the-year-in-quotes. Let us know which one you like best and why. You’ll see that this week’s issue is a follow-up to the review we published on Dec. 5. We continue to take stock of the most notable moments of 2016, but whereas the Dec. 5 installment was focused on pharmaceuticals, this one looks more broadly at the year’s biggest chemistry headlines, from TSCA reform (page 33) to the impact of the U.S. presidential election (page 34) to a selection of the coolest compounds reported in 2016 (pages 30 and 31). We also step back in time and learn what has become of some of the year-end picks that we made a decade ago. All this content, as well as the pharmaceutical feature, is available at yearinreview. cenmag.org. Looking back at 2016, I can honestly say we have been extremely busy. My highlights, in terms of the quality of journalism that exemplifies what C&EN is all about, are the 2016 Talented 12 and all the activities we arranged around the announcement of the winners at the ACS national meeting in Philadelphia (we recorded their talks and have made them available on YouTube) and the coverage we provided around the
Nobel Prize announcements. This year we introduced a number of interactive features, including a database that you can query about the first 50 years’ worth of Nobel nominations as well as a map that shows the geographic distribution by birth, affiliation at the time of the award, and place of death of chemistry’s 171 Nobel winners. Besides these, we undertook several initiatives intended to make the experience of consuming C&EN content better for our readers. Of course you’ll remember that at
the end of February we redesigned the print magazine. A few weeks later we also updated our website to reflect the print product’s look and feel, while also making the site mobile friendly. We followed with an update of the C&EN mobile phone and tablet apps to incorporate new functionality. Our aim is to make the experience of reading C&EN content more pleasurable, be it on a phone, tablet, desktop, or in print. With that, I’d like to wish you all happy holidays and best of luck for 2017. We’ll be back in the new year.
Editor-in-chief @BibianaCampos
Views expressed on this page are those of the author and not necessarily those of ACS.
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C&EN | CEN.ACS.ORG | DECEMBER 12/19, 2016
