Lots of interesting tidbits in this week's C&EN:
- Marc Reisch notes that Agilent is getting out of the NMR business; sigh.
- One of the interesting aspects of getting the American Chemistry Council's morning newsletter is seeing them consistently back Republican senatorial candidates. Not a surprise, but perhaps something I was not fully aware of. Glenn Hess takes note of the trend.
- Also interesting to see that Mary Landrieu (D - LA) is strongly supported by ACC.
- I am extraordinarily skeptical that these results in PNAS on a compound in broccoli that improves autism symptoms will be replicated; we'll find out soon enough, I suppose. (article by Elizabeth K. Wilson)
- I enjoyed this article about the chemical aspects of Thomas Edison's labs by Susan Ainsworth.
HP and its sister Agilent seem to make a hobby of poor investments. Just how much of the value of the Varian instruments business will be left in Agilent after the NMR line is discontinued?
ReplyDeleteI suppose this is good news for JEOL though. Are there any other serious competitors for Bruker?
She's a friend of the industry and has seniority. Also it helps to cultivate friends on both sides of the aisle where possible to help with the optics of legislation. Things become 'bipartisan' with only a dash of opposition party support.
ReplyDeleteI would be enormously skeptical of the idea of getting the Chemical Safety Improvement act moving again. The difficulty is finding something that the chemical industry supports without completely alienating environmental groups. It might be enough to draw a filibuster. Then there's also the balance of state vs federal regulation. This will probably be one of the few times you'll see the GOP advocate for more regulation at the federal level instead of the state level. It's unfortunate because TSCA is surely in need of an update.
Silly question: any chance of another company buying Varian NMR, so that the US will still have a manufacturer of NMR spectrometers and magnets?
ReplyDeleteCurses on Agilent: another example of MBAs shutting down American technology and science.