New Scientist
New Scientist is a weekly international science magazine covering recent developments in science and technology for a general English-speaking audience. As well as covering current events and news from the scientific community, the magazine often features speculative articles, ranging from the philosophical to the technical.
It is not a peer-reviewed scientific journal, but it is widely read by both nonscientists and 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 tend to be based on articles from it.
Based in London, New Scientist has US and Australian editions as well as a British edition. Its associated Web site, NewScientist.com, runs daily news stories along with some of the articles that appear in the print edition.
The magazine was founded in 1956. It is published by Reed Business Information Ltd, a subsidary of Reed Elsevier.
Magazine Layout
As of April 2005 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.
- Politics – Westminster or Washington diary, describing how science is done in the capital.
- Enigma – a mathematical quiz
- Histories – how our knowledge of a topic came to be.
- Books – reviews.
- Feedback – short commentaries on amusing topics; in the past this has features 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 measures in 'Frances', and icebergs sizes in 'Belgiums').
- The last word – write-in questions and answers about scientific phenomena.
Features
- Commisioned 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.