Jon Katz hit the road last week for the Chemical Innovation Exchange to glimpse R&D's future. Dow, 3M and others have made dramatic breakthroughs, he reports—speakers detailed how automation and machine learning have slashed development cycles from years to months. On his way back, he stopped at Ye Olde Trail Tavern, Ohio's oldest tavern. All that future talk apparently needed some history to balance it out. — Traci Purdum, editor-in-chief
