You can’t get very far these days without catalysts. The tires on busses like the one I rode to work this morning are made with them. So are the molded plastic seats. Even the diesel busses run on is refined with a catalyst. Catalysts jumpstart chemical reactions that would otherwise never work or would work too slowly to be useful and they play a role in making in 90% of all commercially produced products. That includes fuels, plastics, and even medicines.

Catalysts are also helping to make our world more green. I got a reminder about the important but largely unappreciated role of these chemical wonders from watching a new video featuring Jeffrey Bricker, Ph.D. Chemists like Bricker are using catalysts to produce biodegradable products and to reduce the need for ingredients that are potentially toxic. Bricker was awarded the 2011 American Chemical Society Award for Creative Invention for his work with catalysts, which he has used to make detergents that break down in the environment, to refine fuel without creating undesirable chemical byproducts and much more.

I had a flu shot about five minutes ago and it was amazing. I didn’t even feel the touch of the needle. Sitting in my office afterwards, I had a flashback to a hot day in basic training in Texas many years ago. We had been walking in the 100-degree heat for about 20 minutes and finally approached the infirmary, where we were to get a series of inoculations. Sitting under a tree, bent over, was a man from another unit whom many of us knew.

“Whoa, are you O.K.?” I asked him. “What are they giving us today, that nasty plague shot?”

He looked up at me and smiled a little. “I don’t know, when I got one look at that needle, I fainted,” he said....