A Royal Encounter in Thailand Chemists from 10 countries gathered on Jan. 11-13 in Chiang Mai, Thailand, to participate in Pure & Applied Chemistry International Conference 2012 (PACCON 2012). Organized by Chiang Mai University and the Chemical Society of Thailand, PACCON 2012 attracted about 1,400 participants and featured a keynote lecture by...

Are there some experiments that should never be carried out? Is there some knowledge that is too dangerous for humans to possess? Can the dissemination of knowledge, once it has been discovered, be limited to only a few people? These are some of the questions being raised by two papers from two virology groups that created an avian H5N1[A(H5N1)] influenza...

In “Transcendent Life?” I wrote about the philosophical essay, “Life Transcending Physics And Chemistry,” by Michael Polanyi that was the cover story of the Aug. 21, 1967, issue of C&EN. In this post, I want to take note of another interesting element I found in that issue, one that vibrantly illustrates progress humankind has made in the past half...

My wife Jan and I celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary recently by spending a long weekend in Chicago. Among the interesting things we did while we were there was to take a 90-minute architectural boat tour along the Chicago River sponsored by the Chicago Architecture Foundation. Chicago is justifiably proud of its rich architectural heritage. Classic...

Do you have a favorite chemical engineer? I received an e-mail from Claudia Flavell-While, Director of Publications, Institution of Chemical Engineers, which publishes a monthly magazine, tce, that read in part: We’ve just opened the voting on a mission to find some of the most influential chemical engineers in history, and we’d like to extend an invitation...

A reader recently wrote to ask whether she could purchase an article—specifically the cover story in the Aug. 21, 1967, issue—from the C&EN Archives. The answer, of course, is that she could, for $10. (As of January 2012, ACS members will be able to download 25 journal papers, book chapters, and C&EN Archives stories for free each year.) C&EN...