The past year has been an exciting one for Forensic Magazine as we’ve grown our resources and community. Our Website has seen an increase both in content and visits as we strive to give you more of the information you need and want. Our LinkedIn group has been a great success as many of you have joined us in sharing news, opinions, and solutions to members’ most pressing problems. We look to you, our dedicated readers, to continue to share with us your insights, comments, and challenges helping us continue to grow in 2012.

This issue contains our third annual Buyer’s Guide with more listings to help you find the products and services you need. Our online Buyer’s Guide offers additional features, allowing you to search companies and products and request more information from companies with our “Request a Quote” feature.

And now, before we move forward into the New Year, let’s take a moment to reflect on the most read articles of 2011. If you missed these the first time around, it may be worth logging on to our Website for a second look.

Columnist Dick Warrington’s Crime Scene 101: Locating and Documenting Evidence focused on the two basic questions at the heart of every crime scene: how do you find the evidence and how do you properly document it once you find it? “Working a crime scene is like working a puzzle,” Warrington tells us. “You build from the outside and work your way in until you solve the case—but if you aren’t careful, if you miss evidence, you’ll be left with just the perimeter of the puzzle instead of the solution.”

Digital forensics is increasingly important in every case, making any article on the topic a must read, but there’s none so popular as columnist John Barbara’s three-part series Understanding the World of Cellular Telephones. Cell phones can and do store data or information that the user may not be aware of. It should come as no surprise that this can provide a tremendous amount of potential probative information (evidence) to investigators, this series shows how.

Philip Mellinger’s unique approach to audio forensics in Cracking Watergate’s Infamous 18 1⁄2 Minute Gap provides a modern look at the buzzes and clicks on the Watergate tape, revealing new information on the perpetrators of the tape erasure and their motives.

Synthetic marijuana and designer drugs have been a hot topic in the past year, and Thomas Gluodenis’ Identification of Synthetic Cannabinoids in Herbal Incense Blends reveals an effective and easy-to-replicate approach to the identification of synthetic cannabinoids in herbal incense blends by Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry.

Frequent contributor, Douglas Page, always manages to get the dirt on forensic science, his article Mycology: Missing Weapon in Forensic Arsenals? is no exception. This article examines the crime-solving clues found in fungi and who to go to should you find them.

We hope you continue to learn and grow with us in the coming year, and wish you a Happy New Year.

-Rebecca Waters