title: Chemistry with a thousand faces: new ways to play with clay.
abstract: Like a species that has moved into open niches, evolved, and diversified, chemistry can no longer be seen as a discrete scientific field. Its methods, concepts, and practitioners are penetrating virtually every nook and cranny of science and technology. That message came through clearly 2 weeks ago in New York City at the Fourth Chemical Congress of North America-a week-long conference organized by the American Chemical Society, the Chemical Institute of Canada, and the Chemical Society of Mexico and attended by some 10,000 scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs. In roughly 4200 papers, participants explored such topics as borrowing from nature to improve industrial processes and electronic devices, and controlling the molecular architecture of clays and polymers.