I am looking to subscribe to one or two magazines and would like to get some input on which ones to look at. I picked up Discover and Scientific American and they seem to have some pretty good stuff in them.

 

I'm looking for magazines that can explain things clearly and are respected for the authenticity of their articles. I would like to be able to quote from the magazine while talking to someone and not have to worry about misleading data, things taken out of context, and other issues that can be found in other types of magazines.

I personally do not trust general science magazines too much. They tend to exaggerate and publish unrealistic information. I like magazines that are dedicated to a specific field, for example; The Civil Engineering Magazine from ASCE. Those types of magazines publish scholarly articles and research papers from leading experts in the field. Many general science magazines tend to publish what sells.

 

Still, your choices seem reasonable.

I read Cell... but unless you really like cellular biology and your well practiced in the field, you won't want to read it. I have a lot of trouble reading it, but I like the challenge.

Scientific American and New Scientist (weekly) are my recommendations.

Scientific American and New Scientist (weekly) are my recommendations.

 

I have the second one and its wellworth the money, lots of interesting ideas and articles in them, they have given me a lot of stuff to think about since I had been reading them.

 

I believe their web page is here: http://www.newscientist.com/home.ns

 

Cheers,

 

Ryan Jones

I personally do not trust general science magazines too much. They tend to exaggerate and publish unrealistic information. I like magazines that are dedicated to a specific field' date=' for example; The Civil Engineering Magazine from ASCE. Those types of magazines publish scholarly articles and research papers from leading experts in the field. Many general science magazines tend to publish what sells.

 

Still, your choices seem reasonable.[/quote']

 

 

The exaggeration and unrealistic information is what I'm worried about. I don't really want to subscribe to the more field specific magazines though because I'm afraid it might be a little to technical for me right now. I'm an evolutionary biology major, but I just started and I haven't taken any major specific classes yet.

 

Plus, I'd like to learn about things that are happening in other branches of science which is why I wanted just a general science magazine.

I really like PNAS (proceedings of the national academy of sciences), great research. As for medical sciences, the lancet is pretty awesome too, except one issue only has about 3-4 articles so its not really worth the money but its a prestigious journal and the research is very good too.

http://www.sciencemag.org/

 

This is one of the best. They cover a wide range of topics and are sometimes difficult or even impossible to understand but it is an excellent place to start.

Personally I read new scientist, and physics world

Personally I would recommend New Scientist, it covers lots of different topics and ideas and is well written for the non expert to understand. Also these days it's quite easy to check the internet for the original story (NS often picks up lots of stories from Nature news and other academic journals).

On a side note, do any of you listen to any science podcasts?

 

I used to listen to the new scientist podcast but I recently discovered the 'naked scientist' which is a lot better. You can listen to it here..

 

http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/Shows/streaming_media.htm

I wonder how long it takes you to finish a copy of Scientific American?