This commentary summarizes the authors' basic disagreements with the paper, "Rabbit-Ears, VSEPR Sterics, and Other Orbital Anachronisms," which criticizes the authors' usage of the hybrid orbitals for H[subscript 2]O in their book, "A Chemist's Guide to Valence Bond Theory" (Shaik and Hiberty, 2008). The current article shows…

The authors respond to a recent letter (Rossignol and Frye 2011) critical of their paper, "Proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy and MRI reveal no evidence for brain mitochondrial dysfunction in children with autism spectrum disorder" (Corrigan et al. 2011). Further considerations regarding the assessment of mitochondrial dysfunction in autism…

A study of the development of commercial electron spectroscopy of chemical analysis (ESCA) instrumentation over a span of three decades is presented. The field has also been extended significantly by use of synchrotron radiation as a bright X-ray source, which has opened new areas of research in solid-state physics, molecular biology, and many…

Highlights accomplishments in atomic physics over the past 50 years including books, conferences, and research. Includes prospects for the future. (JN)