Science Digest was a monthly
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
magazine published by the
Hearst CorporationThe Hearst Corporation is an American media conglomerate based in the Hearst Tower, Manhattan in New York City, New York, United States. Founded by William Randolph Hearst as an owner of newspapers, the company's holdings now include a wide variety of media...
from 1937 through 1986. It initially had an 8 x 5 inch format with about 100 pages, and was targeted at persons with a high school education level. It contained short articles about general science often excerpted from other publications in the style of
Reader's DigestReader's Digest is a general interest family magazine, published ten times annually. Formerly based in Chappaqua, New York, its headquarters is now in New York City. It was founded in 1922, by DeWitt Wallace and Lila Bell Wallace...
.
In November 1980 the magazine was expanded to an 11 x 8 inch format with full-length articles and color pictures targeted at a college educated reader. It was issued bi-monthly with circulation of about 500,000 copies. At first it tended to favor breathless cover lines, and often turned to
pseudosciencePseudoscience is a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but which does not adhere to a valid scientific method, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status...
topics, including
spontaneous human combustionSpontaneous human combustion describes reported cases of the burning of a living human body without an apparent external source of ignition...
and UFOs. But in reaction to brisk competition from the similar
DiscoverDiscover is an American science magazine that publishes articles about science for a general audience. The monthly magazine was launched in October 1980 by Time Inc. It was sold to Family Media, the owners of Health, in 1987. Walt Disney Company bought the magazine when Family Media went out of...
and
OmniOMNI was a science and science fiction magazine published in the US and the UK. It contained articles on science fact and short works of science fiction...
magazines, it became a serious enough publication that it, and not the
New York Times, first broke the discovery of great voids in the universe discovered by
Margaret GellerMargaret Joan Geller is an American astronomer and professor. She is a Senior Astronomer at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, and has written numerous articles and produced several award-winning scientific short films....
and
John HuchraJohn Peter Huchra [pronounced HUCK-rah] was an American astronomer and professor. He was the Vice Provost for Research Policy at Harvard University and a Professor of Astronomy at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. He was also a former chair of the United States National Committee...
at Harvard's Center for Astrophysics. The change did not seem to help, however, given competition in the same subject areas by
DiscoverDiscover is an American science magazine that publishes articles about science for a general audience. The monthly magazine was launched in October 1980 by Time Inc. It was sold to Family Media, the owners of Health, in 1987. Walt Disney Company bought the magazine when Family Media went out of...
and
Science '80Science was a general science magazine published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science . It was intended to "bridge the distance between science and citizen", aimed at a technically literate audience who may not work professionally in the sciences...
, and the magazine ceased publication in 1986.
The magazine briefly re-appeared as a quarterly in 1987; returning to the original small "digest" format, with many short articles and snippets of science information. This final relaunch lasted only one year.
There was also an
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n edition with the title
Omega Science Digest. This magazine, unlike its American cousin, carried original fiction.
External links
- Description of 1980 relaunch from Current Contents
Current Contents is a rapid alerting service database from the Institute for Scientific Information, now part of Thomson Reuters, that is published online and in several different printed subject sections.-History:...
magazine. (PDF file accessed March 1, 2006)