Tiny Victories from Bloggy Activism

The chemblogosphere has certainly taken an activist turn in the past few years. Remember feeling the excitement of Paul's 2009 NaH oxidant live-blog? The ensuing four years saw chem blogs "cantrilling" space dinosaurs, uncovering IBX's secrets, investigating suspicious TEM images, and even weighing in on Nobel Prize selection. Heavy stuff!

Long-time readers understand that I've been in something of a self-imposed exile in the past few months, owing to a lengthy job search. But I couldn't resist writing about a mini-Christmas-miracle that arrived on 12/26. Seems that Dr. Brian Myers, the current ACS Division of Organic Chemistry webmaster, had acted upon my June post investigating the strange DOC logo:

"As a result of this posting, the ACS Organic Division has reverted to using the older version of the logo where the "D" is more prominent. It turns out the logo was "updated" in about 2007 while trying to make a high-resolution graphic for posters, NOS bags, and such. At that time, the leadership was unaware of the fact that the molecule was supposed to spell out DOC.  

As one senior DOC executive committee member recently wrote: 'I assumed it was a truncated steroid, which made historical sense. However it isn't because the ethyl and methyl aren't attached to the right places of what would be the CD rings.'"

Presto, Change-o!

Huzzah! The corrected logo now proudly adorns the DOC main page, and I even got a shout-out in their FAQs. I'm not gonna lie - I felt a small twinge of pride seeing this tiny change I helped effect.

But how did we get the logo in the first place?

Challenge: Dr Myers wants to know if anyone out there can remember the initial DOC logo designer:

"As far as I can tell, the first appearance of the logo was in 1985 on the NOS Program book; however, I would love to know the history of this including the name of the person who designed the original logo"

Anyone with insider info should leave a comment or email me at seearroh_AT_gmail. Let's put this chemistry "cold case" to bed!


A belated Merry Christmas to all, and hopes for a very Happy New Year
See Arr Oh