Discover (magazine)

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January 2005 issue

Discover is a science magazine that publishes articles about science for a general audience. The monthly magazine was launched in October 1980 by Time Inc. It was later sold to the Walt Disney Company in 1991, but in October 2005 was sold again to Bob Guccione Jr., founder of Spin and Gear magazines and son of Penthouse founder Bob Guccione.

Contents

[edit] History

Discover was originally launched into a burgeoning market for science magazines aimed at educated non-professionals, intended to be somewhat easier to read than Scientific American but more detailed and science-oriented than magazines like Popular Science. Shortly after Discover was launched, the AAAS launched a similar magazine, Science (not to be confused with their journal of the same name), and both Science News and Science Digest changed their formats to follow the new trend.

During this period, Discover was a fairly in-depth science news magazine. Stories tended to be on "hard science" topics, and avoided fringe topics such as UFOs. Most issues contained an in-depth essay by a well-known scientist, notables such as Steven Jay Gould. Another common article was a biography, often linked with mentions of other scientists working in the field. One column, "Skeptical Eye," attempted to uncover various scams and flim-flam in the popular science world, and was the medium for James Randi to release his Project Alpha results. It was the most-read section of the magazine when it was first launched, according to its editor[1]. Discover was one of the first popular magazines to mention (albeit in a sidebar) what was then known as gay-related immune deficiency (GRID), the disease that is today known as AIDS.

The introduction of so many new magazines aimed at the same readers led to a rapid commoditization of advertising dollars, forcing most of the magazines to attempt another format change in order to find a subscriber base. Science was later purchased by Discover, on the proviso that the format would not change significantly. Science News returned to a pure-news format. Science Digest turned to fringe topics, and was for a short period was "into" spontaneous human combustion, before attempting to return to a pure news format again, and then going bankrupt. Omni maintained a blend of fiction and gonzo journalism that remained fairly popular until the early 1990s, when it appears the blend of web-based information and magazines such as Wired led to its closure in 1995.

Discover was left largely alone in its market space by the mid-1980s, but nevertheless decided to appeal to a wider audience and introduced a new format around 1984/85. "Skeptical Eye" and other columns disappeared, and articles covered more controversial, speculative topics like "How the Universe Will End". This change in format appears to have been a great success, and the new format remained largely unchanged for the next two decades. The April 2006 issue saw the introduction of a new design and new monthly columns (see Content).

[edit] Trivia

Discover frequently runs one fake article in its April edition as an April Fool's joke. The articles are often so outrageous that they are hard to miss, yet the next month's issue frequently has angry letters from readers who feel misled or quote bad science. Examples have included the discovery of the "Bigon" [1] [2] (a subatomic particle the size of a bowling ball) and of the "Hotheaded Naked Ice Borer" (an Antarctic predator resembling a Naked Mole Rat that burrows through ice). See fictitious entry.

[edit] Content

Monthly departments include:

  • Data (science news)
  • Jaron's World (ruminations on technology, science, and society)
  • Vital Signs (real stories of health and medicine)
  • Natural Selections (ecology and environment)
  • Blinded by Science (humor column)
  • Reviews (books, films, museums, gizmos, TV)
  • The Discover Interview (an interview with a famous/influential person)
  • Mind Games (puzzles)
  • 20 Things You Didn't Know About...

Recent features have included articles on genetics, astronomy, energy, archaeology, physics, conservation, and psychology. The magazine's website includes additional content and science-oriented blogs.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Introducing Discover

[edit] External links

[edit] See also

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