Filed by Celia Arnaud

The expo is closed. There’s only a few technical sessions left. The end of any meeting starts to look like a ghost town as people head home.

I’m not sure, but I think I’m the last C&EN reporter here. I’m attending a session on systems-wide approaches to drug action and toxicity this morning, a couple of talks on protein engineering this afternoon, and then I head home this evening.

I enjoy national meetings, because there’s always so much to learn. But by the end, I’m ready to go home, even when the meeting is in a city I love as much as Boston.

For all the attendees who stayed to the end, have a good last day and a safe trip home. See you next time in New Orleans.

Filed by Linda Wang

By 7 AM on Sunday morning, a bleary-eyed registration line had begun to snake through the convention center.

The line at Starbucks was not moving much faster.

One of the first to arrive at the ChemJobs Career Fair on Sunday, medicinal chemist Raj Nagarajan prepares for his day.

During the community outreach event at the Boston Science Museum on Sunday, a kid guesses how much sugar is in chocolate milk.

A clear and comfortable evening prompted many to walk to Monday night’s Sci-Mix.

By Tuesday afternoon, the luggage locker was standing-room only.

Filed by Carmen Drahl

Ordinarily, I’m not a USA Today reader, but the stack of them in my Boston hotel room was getting kind of tall, so I picked one up just for kicks. In last Monday’s edition, I found this article, which describes “the 25 top milestones” of science during the past 25 years, in honor of USA Today’s 25th anniversary. I don’t see a single discovery on that list that could exclusively be claimed by the chemistry community, although I’m happy to be persuaded otherwise. (Maybe #8?)

Take a look yourselves and tell me what you think. Feel free to suggest stuff that you think should’ve made the list. I’m willing to bet that quite a few of the scientists behind those discoveries are speaking in Boston this week. After next Monday, USA Today’s main link switches to “25 travel milestones,” but you can still access the science list from there.

Filed by Susan Ainsworth

There are many good reasons to take a tour of the exposition hall at any of the ACS national meetings. It’s a great way to learn about cutting-edge technologies, make new contacts, and, with any luck, pick up a few new toys.

As I plowed my way up and down the many colorful aisles in Halls A and B of the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center this afternoon, I looked for special giveaway items that would stir envy in the hearts of many.

As I explained my mission to many exhibitors, some lamented that there were few tchotchkes available at this meeting.

But my training as a reporter paid off, and I did uncover some.

These were my top three:

1. The KnowItAll U green t-shirt distributed at the Bio-Rad Laboratories booth to promote its spectroscopy resource for research and teaching.

According to the company, KnowItAll puts the largest single collection of spectra (more than 1.3 million IR, NMR, MS, Raman, UV-Vis, and Near IR) at the fingertips of every student, faculty member, and staff member in an institution—at any computer, campus-wide.

2. An apparatus for cleaning eye glasses generously doled out by Fisher Scientific. (At first I thought this item was a newfangled ear-bud set for my iPod.)

3. The Whomp It! blow-up mallet given out by of Pharma Algorithms, a Toronto-based firm that develops ADME- and toxicity-predictive models and software tools. The packaging describes it as a “new, low-tech wonder” capable of solving any computer problems. “No reboots, just revenge,” it promises.

After procuring this item and deeming it one of my favorites, Associate Editor Rachel Petkewich informed me that the Whomp It! had also appeared on the giveaway A-list that she compiled at the ACS national meeting held last fall in San Francisco. (Perhaps we both see it as a valuable tool for venting our frustrations during the next period of writer’s block.)

I must award an “honorable mention” to Corning for their prized giveaway: a new square 250-mL polycarbonate bottle filled with orange M&M’s candies. Everyone in the exhibit hall seemed to have one, so there were none left for me by the time I found Corning’s booth late on Tuesday afternoon. Nobody seemed willing to part with one, at least not until all the candy was consumed.

Filed by Linda Wang

Going to Sci-Mix is like visiting an enormous art gallery. There’s so much to see, and every poster is unique. But unlike at an art gallery, there are many distractions at Sci-Mix—free beer, for one. The challenge is to get people to stop in their tracks as they make a beeline for the beer line. Here are three of my personal favorites:

I liked the pretty pastels, breathtaking photos, and extra large font that Justin Lytle used in his poster on nanoarchitectured materials. Lytle is a postdoc at the Naval Research Laboratory, in Washington, D.C.

Who could resist the rubber duckies that Timothy Black passed out to visitors of his poster on chemical health and safety? Black is a high school junior being homeschooled.

I had no idea what Joshua A. Schrier was trying to do with his poster, but it was pretty cool. Schrier is a postdoc at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Filed by Rachel Petkewich

Boston is famous for lots of things—including fresh seafood, dropped Rs, and a passion for the Red Sox. Having grown up a few miles north of Boston, I eat plenty of fish, proudly display the regional accent, and, yes, hid my husband’s Yankees hat after we got married.

I love some good clam chowda too. So when I heard that Gerald DeMenna, an adjunct professor of chemistry at Sacred Heart University, in Fairfield, Conn., would give a little talk about chemistry of clam chowder to a group of science writers gathered on Monday evening, I had to see what he’d say. (Especially because I couldn’t go to his Tuesday talk.)

Now when I think of chowda, I admit to only thinking of one kind. But two chafing dishes at the gathering held two different concoctions: the (glorious) cream-based New England Clam Chowder and that thin, red, tomato-based (imposter) known as Manhattan Clam Chowder.

I went straight for the real chowda, while DeMenna carefully sampled both specimens. How did they rate? He gave the Manhattan soup at hand a B+. The New England favorite garnered an A– from him and an A from me.

“A good cook is nothing more than a good synthetic chemist,” DeMenna noted before enlightening us with some tales of his cooking and results from his previous chemical analyses on the two types of clam chowders. He found that Manhattan-style is more acidic, with a pH of 5. The New England version contains potatoes and comes from heating milk and cream, which naturally leads to a more alkaline pH of 8. Therefore, he says, New England chowda has four times the sugar content and half the available protein of its Manhattan counterpart. No wonder I like the New England stuff so much better!

Filed by Rudy Baum

On Tuesday of the ACS meeting in Boston, Harvard University chemistry professor and Chemistry Nobel Laureate E. J. Corey received the first ACS Publications Division “Cycle of Excellence High Impact Contributor Award” at the Publications Division/C&EN booth in the Exposition. Corey has published more than 500 papers in ACS journals during his more-than-50-year career. Many of them are among the most highly cited papers in ACS journal history.

After the award ceremony, Corey sat down to sign his newest book, “Molecules & Medicine,” and reprints of five seminal papers for well-wishers. The papers included “Enantioselective Synthesis of α-Amino Nitriles from N-Benzhydryl Imines and HCN with a Chiral Bicyclic Guanidine as Catalyst,” which was published in the first issue of the ACS journal Organic Letters (1999, 1, 157). The paper is the most highly cited paper in the journal’s history.

Corey was at the booth signing books and reprints for well over an hour. More than 300 individuals waited patiently in line for a chance to shake the celebrated synthetic organic chemist’s hand and have him sign these important papers and his exciting new book, which provides an informative and comprehensive examination of the chemistry of modern pharmaceuticals.

Filed by Susan Ainsworth

If you haven’t attended an ACS national meeting lately, you don’t know what you are missing. I know that I didn’t.

It’s been a while since I attended an ACS meeting. In May, I returned to the C&EN staff after an 11-year stint as a mom to my 15-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter (and as a freelancer for the magazine). I had been a reporter in the C&EN business group from 1989 until 1997, first as an associate editor and later as head of the Houston bureau. And I remember covering ACS national meetings as an editor for Chemical Week in the 1980s.

In my new job as senior editor for C&EN’s ACS News & Special Features group from Dallas, I have anticipated this meeting with great enthusiasm. (And okay, it had a little bit to do with going from a sweltering 98^o to a blissful 70^o, I’ll admit.) It’s that verve that has kept me plodding away through some logistical hurdles.

Even though I had studied the meeting program, I had not anticipated how big the ACS national meetings are these days. On my arrival after a long flight from Dallas, it appeared that ACS had almost taken over the city of Boston. ACS flags waved on nearly every street corner (or at least in front of every hotel, it seemed), marking sites where papers were being presented.

Clicking on my TV as I unpacked my carry-on, I was immediately treated to some ACS features about chemists and the Chemical Abstract Service. Picking up the hefty on-site meeting program as I checked out the glitzy new convention and visitor center, I was a bit overwhelmed by the sheer number of presentations being made.

But I really began to appreciate the breadth of the meeting as I paid one taxi driver after another upon realizing that I didn’t have time to walk or take the shuttles provided. Right off, the taxi ride from the airport sent me straight to the hotel cash machine.

The next cab ride—to a staff dinner at the home of Deputy Assistant Managing Editor Amanda Yarnell with Associate Editor Linda Wang—also set me back quite a bit, given that our driver refused to listen to the great written directions Amanda provided and got lost. (At one point, he tried to dump Linda and me in an alley, explaining that our destination was just at the end of it. We pointed out that we were not game for scaling the 12-foot fence that stood in between and, needless to say, refused to disembark there.)

On Monday, I hailed endless cabs, darting back and forth across the city, attending some dynamic talks about age discrimination and open innovation sponsored by the Division of Professional Relations at the Sheraton Boston Back Bay and some presentations at the convention center, including an inspiring talk about being an effective leader by Cordis’ Cynthia Maryanoff, recipient of the Henry F. Whalen Jr. award for business development. Then it was back across the city to my hotel to change and take another cab ride (accompanied by some great, loud reggae) to a staff reception and dinner.

But, all in all, taking endless cab rides seems a small price to pay to gain entry into an astounding array of amazing presentations, which could never be corralled into one region of a city. It’s a bit exhilarating to think that many of the greatest minds in modern day chemistry are here in this city with me. I am not the only one who feels it. Most chemists—from longtime ACS members to fresh-faced students—seem happy to be swept up in the whirlwind of events that make up this national meeting, even if it means having to pay a small fortune in cab fares to maximize the experience.

Today, I will spend my birthday (and more cab fare) attending a smorgasbord of compelling events and talks. I’ll go back to the heat of Dallas with new contacts, new insight, and a greater appreciation for the expanding contributions of ACS, not to mention a strong impetus to submit my expense report promptly this time.

Filed by Linda Wang

One of my favorite parts about the national meeting is the abundance of good food at every reception, luncheon, and special event. The downside to all this is that I’m getting really fat.

I’m finding that for all good things, there’s also a dark side. I decided to find out whether other meeting-goers have experienced this phenomenon.

Paul Holmes, a senior scientist at BD, in Franklin Lakes, N.J., likes the fact that he no longer needs to share a hotel room like he did during his postdoc days. That doesn’t mean he can splurge. He still needs to find the best price he can to stay within his company’s budget.

Dilani Jayawardhana, a second-year grad student in chemistry at the University of Texas, Arlington, loves the convenience of public transportation, because it’s a rarity in Texas. On the flip side, she was on a shuttle yesterday morning that was delayed because of an accident. “In that situation, I wish I had my own vehicle,” she says.

Carsten Kreuder, a research chemist at Lanxess in Canada, likes having wireless access available virtually everywhere, unlike 11 years ago, when he last attended an ACS national meeting. The downside is that you still have to do your work, he says.

Sometimes, what seems to be a less-than-ideal situation can turn into an opportunity. Duan Shen, a fifth-year grad student in chemical engineering at RPI says occasionally she won’t find anything in the program that looks related to her research. So she’ll just drop in on a random talk and, to her surprise, discover that they’re using an analytical method that she can apply to her research.

Filed by Celia Arnaud

With photos of Frank Sinatra adorning its walls, Lucky’s Lounge in South Boston is better known as a jazz spot. Monday night, though, Lucky’s was the venue for a science café hosted by the ACS Department of Local Sections & Community Activities and the public television show “NOVA scienceNOW,” produced by WGBH.

For those of you unfamiliar with science cafés, these informal gatherings are meant to stimulate discussion about a topic of current scientific interest between scientists and the general public. The event poster, with its “beer + science = good conversation,” sums up the casual atmosphere cultivated at these cafés. They start with a short presentation—no slides and hopefully in plain English. Then the questions, discussion, and even debate begin.

This wasn’t my first science café. I’ve been to one in the Washington, D.C., area, but that one was arranged especially for science writers, who often have science backgrounds themselves. Last night, I tried to listen from the point of view of people without a science background, who are really the target audience for science cafés.

At this café, Doug Treco, who works with Jack Szostak at Massachusetts General Hospital, talked about the lab’s work to develop chemical systems with emergent properties that can self-replicate and evolve—artificial life, if you will. I enjoyed hearing about their research.

I realized that a layman would quickly get lost in the maze of words like enzyme, monomer, and nucleotide that were being thrown around. Some in the audience probably tuned Treco out. In the back half of the room, where I was standing (the event was standing room only), conversations continued. At one point, the moderator stopped Treco to take a quick survey: How many people understood what Treco was talking about? About half the hands went up, likely representing people who were there for the ACS meeting. One man in the audience, who has attended other science cafés in the Boston area, described himself as a science fan but not a scientist.

Café Sci’s website says that it “encourages open, easy-to-understand conversation. No lectures. No PowerPoint. No technical jargon.” They missed the mark this time, but the audience seemed forgiving.

Lucky’s was a new venue for Boston’s Café Sci, which usually meets across town in a local pub in the Inman Square neighborhood of Somerville. To find out more about science cafés, check out the website www.sciencecafes.org, which describes the concept in more detail, shows where to find active science cafés, and gives tips on how to start your own café.