 | |
 Cover of the 26 October 2024 issue | |
| Editor | Catherine de Lange |
|---|---|
| Categories | Science |
| Frequency | Weekly |
| Total circulation (2023) | 126,724 |
| Founder |
|
| First issue | 22 November 1956 (68 years ago) (1956-11-22) |
| Company | Daily Mail and General Trust |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Website | www |
| ISSN | 0262-4079 |
New Scientist is apopular sciencemagazine covering all aspects of science and technology. Based inLondon, it publishes weekly English-language editions in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. An editorially separate organisation publishes a monthlyDutch-language edition. First published on 22 November 1956,New Scientist has been available in online form since 1996.
Sold in retail outlets (paper edition) and on subscription (paper and/or online), the magazine covers news, features, reviews and commentary on science, technology and their implications.New Scientist also publishes speculative articles, ranging from the technical to the philosophical.
New Scientist was acquired byDaily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) in March 2021.[1]
The magazine was founded in 1956 byTom Margerison,Max Raison and Nicholas Harrison[2] asThe New Scientist, with Issue 1 on 22 November 1956, priced at oneshilling[3] (equivalent to £1.58 in 2023[4]). An article in the magazine's 10th anniversary issues provides anecdotes on the founding of the magazine.[2] The British monthly science magazineScience Journal, published from 1965 until 1971, was merged withNew Scientist to formNew Scientist and Science Journal.[5] In 1970, the Reed Group, which becameReed Elsevier, acquiredNew Scientist when it merged withIPC Magazines. Reed retained the magazine when it sold most of its consumer titles in amanagement buyout to what is nowTI Media. In April 2017New Scientist changed ownership whenRELX Group, formerly known as Reed Elsevier, sold the magazine to Kingston Acquisitions, a group established by SirBernard Gray, Louise Rogers and Matthew O'Sullivan to acquireNew Scientist.[6][7] Kingston Acquisitions then renamed itself New Scientist Ltd. TheNew Scientist was subsequently sold to theDaily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) for £70 million in March 2021; DMGT guaranteed the magazine's editorial independence, and ruled out staff cuts and the sharing of editorial content.[8]
In December 2021, DMGT announced that bothNew Scientist and the DMGT-owned dailyi newspaper would be moved to a new division of the company, to be called Harmsworth Media.[9][10]
Originally, the cover ofNew Scientist listed articles in plain text.[11] Initially, page numbering followed academic practice with sequential numbering for each quarterly volume. So, for example, the first page of an issue in March could be 649 instead of 1. Later issues numbered issues separately. From the beginning of 1961 "The" was dropped from the title. From 1965, the front cover was illustrated.[12] Until the 1970s, colour was not used except on the cover.
Since its first issue,New Scientist has written about the applications of science, through its coverage of technology. For example, the first issue included an article "Where next from Calder Hall?" on the future of nuclear power in the UK, a topic that it has covered throughout its history. In 1964, there was a regular "Science in British Industry" section with several items.[13]
Throughout most of its history,New Scientist has published cartoons as light relief and comment on the news, with contributions from regulars such asMike Peyton andDavid Austin. TheGrimbledon Down comic strip, by cartoonistBill Tidy, appeared from 1970 to 1994. The Ariadne pages inNew Scientist commented on the lighter side of science and technology and included contributions fromDavid E. H. Jones,Daedalus. The fictitious inventor devised plausible but impractical and humorous inventions, often developed by the (fictitious) DREADCO corporation.[14] Daedalus later moved toNature.
In the first half of 2013, the international circulation ofNew Scientist averaged 125,172. While this was a 4.3% reduction on the previous year's figure, it was a much smaller reduction in circulation than many mainstream magazines of similar or greater circulation.[15] UK circulation fell by 3.2% in 2014, but stronger international sales increased the circulation to 129,585.[16]
A monthly Dutch edition ofNew Scientist was launched in June 2015. It replaced the formerNatuurwetenschap & Techniek [nl] (NWT) magazine, adopting its staff and subscribers. The editorially independent magazine is published by Veen Media.[17][18] It contains mainly translations of articles in the English-language edition, but also its own articles. These are typically focused on research in the Netherlands and Belgium, the main countries where it is purchased.
In the 21st century, until May 2019,New Scientist contained the following sections: Leader, News (Upfront), Technology, Opinion (interviews, point-of-view articles and letters), Features (including cover article), CultureLab (book and event reviews), Feedback (humour), The Last Word (questions and answers) and Jobs & Careers. ATom Gauld cartoon appears on the Letters page.[19] A readers' letters section discusses recent articles and discussions also take place on the website. Readers contribute observations on examples ofpseudoscience to Feedback, and offer questions and answers on scientific and technical topics to Last Word.New Scientist has produced a series of books compiled from contributions to Last Word.
From issue 3228 of 4 May 2019,New Scientist introduced a "slightly updated design, with ... a fresher, brighter feel". A dedicated "Views" section was added between news reports and in-depth features, including readers' letters, comment, and reviews on science, culture and society. Regular columnists were introduced, and columns in the culture pages. The light-hearted "Back Pages" includes the long-standing Feedback and The Last Word, puzzles, and a Q&A section.[20][21]
Online readership takes various forms. Overall global views of an online database of over 100,000 articles are 10.8m by 7m unique users according toGoogle Analytics, as of January 2019[update]. Onsocial media there are 3.5m+Twitter followers, 3.5m+Facebook followers and 100,000+Instagram followers as of January 2019[update].[22]
Emily Wilson was appointed editor-in-chief in 2018.[23][24]
New Scientist has published books derived from its content, many of which are selected questions and answers from the "Last Word" section of the magazine and website:
Since 2016New Scientist has held an annual science festival in London. StyledNew Scientist Live, the event has attracted high-profile scientists and science presenters.[26]
In September 2006,New Scientist was criticised byscience fiction writerGreg 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[27] of Roger Shawyer's "electromagnetic drive", whereNew Scientist allowed the publication of "meaningless double-talk" designed to bypass a fatal objection to Shawyer's proposed space drive, namely that it violates thelaw of conservation of momentum. Egan urged others to write toNew Scientist and pressure the magazine to raise its standards, instead of "squandering the opportunity that the magazine's circulation and prestige provides".[28] The editor ofNew Scientist, then Jeremy Webb, replied defending the article, saying that it is "an ideas magazine—that means writing about hypotheses as well as theories".[29]
In January 2009,New Scientist ran a cover with the title "Darwin was wrong".[30][31] The actual story stated that specific details of Darwin's evolution theory had been shown incorrectly, mainly the shape ofphylogenetic trees of interrelated species, which should be represented as a web instead of a tree. Someevolutionary biologists who actively oppose theintelligent design movement thought the cover was both sensationalist and damaging to the scientific community.[31][32]