Today, ACS is launching its first open access multidisciplinary research journal. Aspiring to communicate the most novel and impactful science developments, ACS Central Science will feature peer-reviewed articles reporting on timely original research across chemistry and its allied sciences. Free to readers and authors alike, original research content will be accompanied by additional editorial features. These additional editorial features include news stories contributed by the Society's award-winning science journalists, invited topical reviews (called Outlooks) from acknowledged experts around the world, and provocative First Reactions, in which leading thinkers provide incisive summaries and reflections on research presented in the journal and other issues of scientific importance. In her inaugural editorial, Editor-in-Chief Carolyn Bertozzi lays out her vision. Titled "The Centrality of Chemistry," Bertozzi discusses what being "the central science" means, the journal's selection and review criteria, and the benefits of open access publishing. She envisions ACS Central Science "serving as a portal into the worlds of chemistry and chemical engineering, thereby elevating [chemists'] visibility and stature in society." She notes, "popularized almost 40 years ago, the term 'central science' is now widely used to describe chemistry's focal role in bridging the physical and life sciences, and the basic sciences with applied … Continue reading →

IMAGE:The same code that Aspuru-Guzik and colleagues created to calculate the vibrational spectrum of anthracene was used on this lighthouse, showing that compressed sensing works for pictures, and for molecules.... view more Credit: American Chemical Society A method smartphones use to simplify images when storage space is limited could help answer tough chemistry problems. In a report appearing in ACS Central Science, researchers apply this technique, called compressed, or compressive sensing, to quickly and efficiently address central questions, like predicting how molecules vibrate. As these predictions get better and faster, researchers could get closer to the ideal of a "virtual laboratory," which could address many issues without ever lifting a pipet. Aln Aspuru-Guzik and colleagues explain that compressed sensing has already been applied to experiments to reduce the amount of collected data to reproduce a given signal. But its application to calculations of molecular properties has been limited. Compressed sensing could help by removing zeroes (extraneous information) from matrices, which are arrays of numbers widely used in science to understand and analyze physical phenomena. One of the most computer-intensive calculations that chemists perform using these matrices is the simulation of vibrational spectra, essentially a painting picture of how a molecule … Continue reading →