Cover Picture: Mechanochromism and Mechanical‐Force‐Triggered Cross‐Linking from a Single Reactive Moiety Incorporated into Polymer Chains (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 9/2016)

Just as mechanical force applied to the strings of a violin produces beautiful sounds, mechanical stress acting on polymers leads to interesting chemical reactions. In their Communication on page 3040 ff., W. Weng et al. show that when mechanically loaded, a spirothiopyran‐containing polymer turns bright green and undergoes cross‐linking. Two distinct chemical responses to a mechanical load are combined in a single reactive site.