I consider myself pretty lucky. At $125 a ticket, not everyone gets to attend the ACS Oscars (a.k.a. the awards banquet). In fact, this is my second time attending this glamorous affair, and like the first time, there were women in sparkly dresses, men in tuxedos, and all the hors d’oeuvres you can eat. What was different about this event, for me, is that now I know many more people in ACS. Not a minute went by before I saw another familiar face.

At one point during the evening, it occurred to me that this is what the national meeting is all about. It’s not about trying to make it to all the events I can possibly attend. And it’s not about coming up with the best story idea under the sun. I think people will agree with me when I say a successful meeting is when you’ve met some new people and reinforced the relationships you already have.

During the awards event, I saw many people hug each other as if they hadn’t seen each other in years. Many people took the opportunity to get group photos, which will become precious to them in years to come. It was truly a reason to celebrate.

Hopefully, one day I can attend an awards banquet and say I know everyone in ACS. But then, some of the fun will be over too.

My favorite part of the national meeting is running around with my camera and seeing what everyone else is up to. Here are some memorable scenes.

POLISHED Julien Couet, a polymer chemist at Imtek Freiburg, in Germany, gets his shoes shined at the convention center.

Click “more” to see other images from the meeting.

A LIKENESS Fan Yang, a graduate student at the University of Illinois, Chicago, gets a caricature of her drawn during the First-Time Attendee Orientation & Reception on Sunday night.

CHICAGO-STYLE Jana Hoerner, a junior chemistry major at the University of the District of Columbia, finishes off a hot dog.

REST Two meeting attendees get some shut-eye.

SHOE TRACKS A convention worker erases streaks made by meeting attendees.

These past couple of days, I’ve spent quite a bit of time on buses, shuttling back and forth from the convention center to my room at the Sheraton. Each trip takes anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour, depending on whether a bus has just left. Part of me is irritated by how long the commute takes; another part of me is secretly thankful that I’m forced to relax and enjoy the ride.

Not all of the chemistry is happening inside McCormick Place. Four C&EN reporters ventured out to Alinea, a restaurant in Lincoln Park that uses science as a tool in its cooking—some might call it molecular gastronomy. If any of you are fans of “Top Chef,” this is the stuff of Marcel Vigneron.

The restaurant’s signature dish (more of a bite, really) is the “black truffle explosion,” and we got the chance to visit the kitchen to see how it is made. Essentially, black truffle juice is gelatinized, then the delicate little balls are set in a ravioli skin. When cooked, the gelatin liquefies, creating a very different kind of ravioli than the kind I buy in the freezer section of my grocery store. The idea is that, when eaten, you get a taste of liquid gold.

Yes, you ask, but how does it taste?

Later that night, we had the chance to try the goods. First, I should note that the truffle explosion comes with a warning from the server: Be sure to fully close your mouth over the morsel, or you’re facing a minor disaster. I am happy to report that our four diners made it through unscathed—ACS does not need to worry about paying anyone’s dry-cleaning bill.

But back to the truffle. There was a long moment of silence after each of us popped the treat into our mouths.

Well, it turns out you can’t really go wrong with black truffles. If I had the resources, I’d be sprinkling them on my cereal. But this was something truly remarkable—the flavor was incredibly intense, yet surprisingly controlled. I had worried the truffle would swamp my taste buds, but instead, after an initial burst, that one bite left a coating on the palette that produced a lasting, delicious savory flavor. Followed up by a sip of red wine—a Paolo Bea Montefalco Rosso Riserva Pipparello, to be exact—I had a strong taste of dark chocolate in my mouth. It was quite spectacular. Someone should be selling these things on a street corner.

LIQUID GOLD Andrew Graves prepares the black truffle explosion.

Only a handful places in this country have art conservation laboratories, and a group of reporters attending the ACS meeting got a behind-the-scenes tour of the labs at the Art Institute of Chicago on Monday afternoon.

Two patina-coated lions welcome visitors to the Institute’s enormous and stately building, which currently has about 4,600 objects on display. It is the third largest art collection in the country and home to the famous painting of a farmer and his wife by Grant Wood called “American Gothic.” It’s also undergoing a major expansion referred to as the Modern Wing.

The labs, which are not open to the public, were established in 2003 with $2.75 million from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. In fact, a security guard told me that he had worked at the Institute for years, and yesterday afternoon was the first time he had been in the labs. He said employees know that going into the labs without proper authorization generally means getting fired. I must say, I had never attended a lab tour with so many security guards following us around.

These labs are not your typical university organic labs, complete with glassware and packed lab benches. I did see one beaker and a small hood for analyzing paint samples, however. We saw mostly fine works of art and nondestructive analytical equipment. After all, what good is using analytical equipment to find out about an object if you ruin the object in the process?

I peered at artifacts through microscopes and saw pigment particles in a new light. The scientists also discussed how they incorporated infrared and Raman microspectrophotometers and instrumentation for X-ray fluorescence microspectrometry into ongoing projects and collaborations with nearby Argonne National Laboratory and Northwestern University.

I was particularly impressed with the explanation of some of the work being done with paintings. Under proper conditions, these scientists and conservators could use modern techniques to see the artist’s original sketches on the wood. Many of these sketches translated to the final painting, but a few yielded surprises about the final decisions that the artist made about where to, for example, place a foot in a painting of Madonna and child.

For studying 3-D objects, there is X-radiography and infrared imaging that can reveal air bubbles in metal sculptures and other mysteries below the surface. The stationary equipment is fine for small objects that can be moved to the instrument, but what about the big installations? The scientists use a wireless device that looks like a bar-code scanner and do their work “in the field.” That is, right in the middle of a museum installation.

Filed by Lisa Jarvis

Back in October, Newscripts ran an item about Theodore W. Gray’s beautifully constructed periodic table, which uses real samples to bring every element of the table to life. We at the magazine came to life here in Chicago when Gray brought his wares to the exhibition center—posters, place mats, individual element samples, and, most important, the live version of his table.

I had to elbow my way through a mob of people to reach it, but I managed to get up close and personal with the live version of “The Elements.” It lived up to the hype. The posters are probably more in my price range, but it would be pretty cool—inspirational even—to have the 10-foot glass-and-wood version mounted in my office. Bosses, take note. We may need to make some adjustments to the budget for next year.

Gray says for about two or three weeks after Newscripts ran, the site enjoyed “unusually good” sales. This is his first time at the ACS meeting, which Gray readily admits is his target audience. And if his constantly packed booth is any indication of how business is going, it seems like the three-hour drive from Gray’s base in Champaign, Ill., was well worth it.

Gray is discovering that all this publicity—C&EN, local papers, and even Popular Science have written about “The Elements”—can bring some unconventional science enthusiasts out of the woodwork.

Last November, Popular Science—Gray is also a contributor to the magazine—ran a three-page tear-out of “The Elements.” The sheet includes Gray’s mailing address, rather than a Web address, on the bottom as a means for readers to get more information about his wares. He has since received a flood of letters from prisoners, many of whom have requested he send them more information about elements.

Though that may not have been the response Gray expected, he felt compelled to respond to their interest in science. The end result, he jokes, is the “Books for Prisoners” charity, which is really just Gray sending the inmates books about science. They get one of three books: “Nature’s Building Blocks: An A to Z Guide to the Elements,” by John Emsley, “Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood,” by Oliver Sacks, or “The Periodic Table,” by Primo Levi. So far, the charity has run him about $600 in books, which is all covered by the swell of sales in his periodic table.

Clearly, the beauty of the elements is spreading.

Filed by Rudy Baum and Beth Halford

Rudy and I are liveblogging. The signature event at the C&EN booth in Chicago on Tuesday is an appearance by George Whitesides. Stay tuned.

This year’s Priestley Medal winner is signing copies of the March 26 issue of C&EN. George is on the cover, and his Priestley Medal address and a profile of him are the cover stories.

Click “more” to see photos.

The biggest moment so far came when Yagang Zhang, an organic chemistry graduate student at University of South Carolina, asked George to autograph his shirt. “That’s a first!” George said as he signed. “I’ll never wash this shirt,” Yagang replied. I spoke to Yagang a few minutes later. “George will win the Nobel Prize soon,” Yagang predicted.

SIGNATURE COLLECTION

The line of people seeking to have their issue of C&EN signed by George is about 20 people long, as it has been since George arrived at 12:30 PM.

BLOGGER-IN-CHIEF Rudy Baum hard at work.

Thanks to Paul from Chembark for the tip on Nutter Butters®

Imagine stepping out of your hotel at the ACS meeting, expecting to find the shuttle bus to the convention center waiting to whisk you away, and instead finding that the street has been taken over by runners—hundreds, even thousands, of them—running past the hotel. Well, that’s what I encountered on Sunday morning as I set off for the McCormick Place convention center.

Fortunately, I had my camera with me, and I started shooting. Even though I wasn’t running myself, I found it exhilarating. The runners kept on coming and coming. At first, I thought this was one of those “fun runs” that have been held at ACS meetings in the past. But soon it became clear that there were far too many runners for them to be chemists at the meeting.

I later found out that this was something called the LaSalle Bank Shamrock Shuffle 8K, which had registered some 30,000 participants. What a glorious way to start the outdoor running season!

Filed by Ivan Amato

It takes a gargantuan amount of effort, resources, skill, and logistics to get massive expositions, such as the ones at ACS national meetings, up and running. On Sunday morning I took my camera and strolled the main floor as crews meticulously, by hand, unpacked crates and assembled the fixtures, displays, instruments, and thousands of other whatsits, which within a day would sum to the exposition at the 233rd ACS national meeting. Click “more” to see a selection of images that captures only a few pixels of the big picture.

A group of high school students in Chicago for the conference shops on Michigan Ave. Anyone know who these proud chemistry lovers are? We’re impressed with their early affinity for science.

Filed by Lisa Jarvis