JAAS News

The 2010 APWC is begining this morning in Cheng Du, China (or this evening for those in the states; and way too early/late for those in Europe).  Cheng Du is a wonderful city, and among other distinctions is the center of the Panda Bear world! The National Panda Research Center is located just 20 minutes away by taxi, and several of us took the opportunity to visit.  As you can see, they are really amazing animals and worth the trip…

JAAS Editor Dr. May Copsey and Ling-Yi

PANDA BABIES!

Having a Snack

The Silver Anniversary of the journal was marked by a special one-day session held in Beijing today!

Over 100 members of the analytical chemistry community from around the world participated in a day of great research and discussion, making the event a great success.  The symposium title ‘Highlighting the past, present, and future of atomic spectrometry‘ was indeed the theme, as speakers covered a wide range of topics, from Glow Discharge spectroscopy (myself), to the use of ICP-MS for biological and DNA-based analysis (Prof. Xinrong Zhang), and the use of isotope ratio for a number of elements (C and S included) for forensic and food-science analysis (Dr Rebeca Santamaria Fernandez), new laser ablation strategies for ICP-MS analysis (Prof. Takafumi Hirata), novel applications and instrumentation with continuum-source ETAAS (Prof. Martin Resano), and the role of isotope ratio ICP-MS in a number of unique applications related to the natural environment (Prof. Ashley Townsend).

Manufacturer representatives gave some wonderful technical presentations about the latest instrumentation developments in ICP-MS from Thermo Scientific (Dr Lothar Rothman), ICP-MS from Nu instruments (Dr. John Cantle), ICP-MS from Agilent Technologies (Dr. Steve Wilbur), and the continuum AAS platform from Analytic Jena (Dr. Tai Zhao).  The program closed with two interesting presentations: one from Prof. Zhaochu Hu and Prof. Shan Gao that described the recent evolution of analytical chemistry in China over the last 25 years – and another from Dr Niamh O’Connor and Dr Norbert Jakubowski detailing the inner workings and procedures (and philosophy) of manuscript editing at the RSC.

With over 100 participants, the room was full and discussion was stimulated by the promise of a candy for each question posed to the authors!  Another great Jakubowski innovation!

JAAS Silver Anniversary Symposium Speaker Lineup

Good Friends at the Great Wall: Martin, Ashley, Rebeca, and Steve

Beijing, China: Invited speakers began to arrive in Beijing for the special one-day symposium celebrating the 25 anniversary of JAAS to be held on the campus of Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.  Many took advantage of the great weather (and a bit of extra time) to visit the city and see the sights!

Above, the stalward group of Prof. Martin Resano (University of Zaragoza, Spain), Prof. Ashley Townsend (University of Tasmania), Dr. Rebeca Santamaria-Fernandez (Institute of Photonic Sciences, Barcelona, Spain) – along with yours truly – had the chance to visit (and climb) on the Great Wall.

Many Thanks to our kind hosts and JAAS (particularly Prof. Xinrong Zhang, Niamh, and May) for arranging the tour!

Just a quick reminder– The conference registration deadline for the 2011 European Winter Conference in Zaragoza, Spain is November 30.  After that date, registration rates increase–so do it ASAP!  More information can be found online at:

http://www.winterplasmazaragoza2011.es/registration_info.php

JAAS Presenters: (L-R), Dr George Chan, Dr Norbert Jakubowski (Presider), Dr Charlotte Giesen, Mr. Jake Shelley, Dr May Copsey (Ed.), Dr Jorge Pisonero, Prof. Carsten Engelhard, Dr Daniel Proefrock

The 25th anniversary of the journal was marked at the FACSS conference with a celebratory session dedicated to young investigators in atomic spectrometry.  It turned out to be one of the highlights of the atomic program at FACSS.

Many thanks to the FACSS conference for hosting the event, and to all the participants for presenting their latest research results-the future is indeed bright!

Professor Houk from Iowa State University presented the plenary lecture on Tuesday, October 19 at the 2010 FACSS conference.

Professor Sam Houk

The title of Sam’s presentation was “Celebrating 30 years of ICP-MS”, Sam provided much of the early history of ICP-MS and many wonderful anecdotes about the early years of ICP-MS.

Check out Sam’s Editorial in the Journal: “Thirty Years ago this month…”

The FACSS conference was host to an anniversary symposium marking the first paper published on ICP-MS.  The paper by Houk and coworkers (R.S. Houk, H.J. Svek, V. A.Fassell,C. Taylor, and A. Gray, Anal Chem,(1980), 52,2282.) was a watershed moment in modern atomic spectrometry, and was cited as the one of the 60 most influential papers published in Analytical Chemistry.  The occasion was marked by a full day of presentations, Speakers included:

• Prof. Don Douglas, University of British Columbia
• Dr. David Koppenaal, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
• Prof. Paul Farnesworth, Brigham Young University
• Prof. John Olesik, The Ohio State University
• Dr. Dan Weiderin and Dr. Chuck Douthitt, Elemental Scientific and Thermo
• Prof. Norbert Jakubowski, BAM, Berlin, Germany
• Mr. Jeremy Felton, Indiana University
• Prof. Naoki Furuta, Chuo University
• Dr. Steve Wilbur, Agilent Technologies
• Dr. Kaveh Kahen, Perkin Elmer
• Dr. Dirk Ardelt, Spectro Instruments
• Dr. Steven Ray, Indiana University

Happy Birthday ICP-MS!