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New Scientist
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New Scientist is a liberal weekly international science magazine and website covering recent developments in science and technology for a general English-speaking audience. Founded in 1956, it is published by Reed Business Information Ltd, a subsidiary of Reed Elsevier. New Scientist has maintained a website since 1996, publishing daily news. As well as covering current events and news from the scientific community, the magazine often features speculative articles, ranging from the technical to the philosophical.
It is not a peer-reviewed scientific journal, but it is widely read by both scientists and non-scientists, as a way of keeping track of developments outside their own fields of study or areas of interest.
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New Scientist is a liberal weekly international science magazine and website covering recent developments in science and technology for a general English-speaking audience. Founded in 1956, it is published by Reed Business Information Ltd, a subsidiary of Reed Elsevier. New Scientist has maintained a website since 1996, publishing daily news. As well as covering current events and news from the scientific community, the magazine often features speculative articles, ranging from the technical to the philosophical.
It is not a peer-reviewed scientific journal, but it is widely read by both scientists and non-scientists, as a way of keeping track of developments outside their own fields of study or areas of interest. Many science articles in the general press are based on its contents. The magazine also regularly includes features, news and commentary on environmental issues, such as climate change.
Based in London, New Scientist has U.S. and Australian editions as well as a British edition.
Magazine layout
As of January, 2008, the magazine is laid out as follows:
News
- Editorial - often offering a perspective on scientific topics which are current political issues.
- Upfront - a summary of major news placed in a scientific perspective.
- This Week - short articles on reports or results presented this week.
- In Brief - a summary of research news and discovery.
Technology
- Recent advances and developments in technology.
- Trends - showing how new technology is altering the way we live our lives.
Regulars
- Comment and Analysis - Offering a personal commentary on a contemporary topic.
- Letters
- Essay or Interview - often with a pioneer of a scientific development or an influential political or business leader.
- Perspectives/Second Sight - An alternative point of view on a pertinent piece of information.
- Politics - Westminster or Washington diary, describing how science is done in the capital.
- The Word - A short article explaining an intriguing scientific term.
- Enigma - a mathematical puzzle.
- Histories - how our knowledge of a topic came to be.
- The Insider - careers/courses section for professional scientists.
- Bookends - reviews.
- Feedback - short commentaries on amusing topics; in the past this has featured "nominative determinism" (whereby someone has a name particularly appropriate for their job), product warning labels, and unusual units of measurements (such as the size of countries being measured in 'Frances', and iceberg sizes in 'Belgiums').
- Last Word - write-in questions and answers about scientific phenomena.
Features
- Commissioned in-depth articles on scientific topics. For example in the 2005-04-16 issue this section featured articles on Superatoms, the allergy epidemic, cloud seeding and oil exploration in Alaska.
- There are also occasionally special pull-out sections on an important topic - eg. in January 2006 there was a feature on avian influenza.
Website
Daily news articles are available on their official website as well as extracts from longer articles, with a subscription service required to view full content. There are also special reports on topics from nanotechnology to cancer. The magazine's weekly podcast, SciPod, was discontinued in October 2007.
In late 2004 NewScientist.com added a subdomain called "nomoresocks" (No More Socks) where visitors could search for, rate, and discuss innovative gifts. Usage of the site dropped considerably by June 2005, and the section has since been retired.
In mid-2006, New Scientist content was also made available to users of Newsvine, a community-driven social news web site.
According to Technorati, NewScientist.com is the 14th in the list of most-linked-to news organisations and the only science and technology specialist in the top 100.
Website layout
NewScientist.com is organized into several sub-sections. The includes a list of news stories and features, and below this reside the , and . The site also includes several blogs, on a range of topics from inventions to short sharp science.
Editorial staff
Roger Highfield, the current editor, read chemistry at Pembroke College, Oxford and holds a doctorate in physical chemistry, his thesis concerning the interaction of neutrons on soap bubbles. He was appointed to his current role in 2008, having previously been science editor of The Daily Telegraph. In the latter role, he won many awards for his science journalism, and authored or co-authored eight books, including the best-selling The Arrow of Time (1992) with Dr Peter Coveney, and The Private Lives of Albert Einstein with Paul Carter (1995), which prompted considerable controversy through its focus on the emerging documentary evidence of Einstein's private life, affairs and the fate of his first child, Liserl.
EmDrive article controversy
In September 2006, New Scientist was criticised by science fiction writer Greg Egan, who wrote that "a sensationalist bent and a lack of basic knowledge by its writers" was making the magazine's coverage sufficiently unreliable "to constitute a real threat to the public understanding of science". In particular, Egan found himself "gobsmacked by the level of scientific illiteracy" in the magazine's coverage of Roger Shawyer's "electromagnetic drive", where New Scientist allowed the publication of "meaningless double-talk" designed to bypass a fatal objection to Shawyer's proposed space drive, namely that it violates the conservation of momentum. Egan urged others to write to New Scientist and pressure the magazine to raise its standards, instead of "squandering the opportunity that the magazine's circulation and prestige provides"..
The New Scientist editor replied defending the article, saying that it is "an ideas magazine - that means writing about hypotheses as well as theories".
Spin-offs
New Scientist has compiled five books of selected questions and answers from the Last Word section of the magazine. In 1998 the book The Last Word (ISBN 978-0192861993) was published and was followed in 2000 by The Last Word 2 (ISBN 978-0192862044). In 2005 and 2006 respectively, the books Does Anything Eat Wasps? And 101 Other Questions (ISBN 978-1861979735) and Why Don't Penguins' Feet Freeze? And 114 Other Questions (ISBN 978-1861978769) were published. The latter was in part a repackaging of selected material from the first two books, following the unexpected mass-market success of Does Anything Eat Wasps?. In late 2007, the book How to Fossilise Your Hamster: And Other Amazing Experiments For The Armchair Scientist (ISBN 978-1846680441) was published. It was more interactive than previous "Last Word" books as it included instructions on how to carry out many of the experiments mentioned, often using everyday household items.
See also
External links
- - Website dealing specifically with news and discoveries relating to space
- - Website dealing specifically with news and discoveries in technology
- -
New Scientist weekly podcast and podcast archive
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