Serving the chemical, life sciences, and laboratory worlds
VOLUME 92, NUMBER 2 JANUARY 13, 2014
COVER STORY
WORLD CHEMICAL OUTLOOK The chemical industry upshifts in light of new energy resources and signs of a recovering economy. PAGE 9
QUOTE OF THE WEEK “There is a cloud. Who cares about which particular disc my file is on? Let’s get in the cloud.”
NEWS OF THE WEEK 4
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THERMO FISHER SCIENTIFIC DIVESTS
Firm spins off three businesses to GE Healthcare for $1.06 billion. 5
GOVERNMENT & POLICY 23 24
BIOMEDICAL R&D SPENDING SHIFTS
The U.S. and Europe see declines in public and private investment; Asian R&D spending rises. 6
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SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY 26 28
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2014 WINNERS
Alivisatos, Banholzer, Kiessling, and Kitzmann.
BETTER ENZYMES FOR CATALYSIS
Engineered E. coli yields metal-free enzymes for making high-value chiral diols in a single pot. 8
ACS NATIONAL AWARDS
RESEARCH ALLIANCE TURNS SOUR
Children’s Medical Center in Boston sues Celgene for nonpayment on licensing agreement.
“BOOK OF SECRETS” BOUNTY AND MORE
Chemical Heritage Foundation gets rare, nearly 600-year-old alchemy texts.
NEW OPTIONS FOR PLANT SAFETY
Policy options for improving chemical plant safety are released by a White House task force. 7
CONCENTRATES TRACKING WOUNDS WITH SPECTROSCOPY
Raman and near-infrared spectroscopy show promise as ways to determine whether wounds are healing.
NAILING SURFACE STRUCTURES
Method can solve structures of biomolecules on a surface, including distortions.
CONCENTRATES “PATENT TROLLS” IN THE CROSSHAIRS
Intellectual property rights may suffer collateral damage from bills targeting litigation abuse.
ACS EDITORS’ CHOICE
Drawing from its suite of journals, ACS makes one article of broad interest available for free each day. 6
C&EN’S 2013 COMPANY OF THE YEAR
DuPont’s decision to spin off its performance chemicals business makes it the choice.
Aimed at city-scale applications, these energy production and storage devices may advance quickly with the help of quinones.
MIKE PAYNE, PHYSICS PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE PAGE 19
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FLOW BATTERIES MARCH FORWARD
MEETINGS 36
CALL FOR PAPERS
ACS seeks papers to be presented at the fall 2014 national meeting in San Francisco.
SAFE SHIPPING OF OIL BY RAIL
Sen. Charles Schumer seeks overhaul or replacement of problematic tank cars.
THE DEPARTMENTS BUSINESS 17 19
CONCENTRATES LAB AUTOMATION
Seeking to upgrade data analysis IT, academic labs find few commercial software options.
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COVER: Shutterstock/C&EN CENEAR 92 (2) 1–48 • ISSN 0 0 09-2347
LETTERS EDITOR’S PAGE ACS COMMENT OBITUARIES CLASSIFIEDS NEWSCRIPTS ▶
