An advertising colleague asked a potential client if he was familiar with The Scientist. "Yes, of course," the man responded. "It's the only real scientific magazine, a kind of Playboy for geeks."
I have to admit to being delighted with this description. While I do not consider our readers geeks, nor am I an avid fan of Hugh Hefner, the phrase has connotations of a "wanna read," and that's exactly our aim with The Scientist.
Plenty of science publications around have aspirations and pretensions of being "must reads." We won't be joining them. Our aim is to entertain, enlighten and occasionally surprise. And with the material that we work with--the biological sciences--that shouldn't be too hard. Starting with this issue, we're introducing numerous features to help keep you hooked, to make you "wanna read."
In the new UpFront section, you'll find some of the liveliest presentations of scientific material anywhere. ...