New Scientist - History

History

An article published on their tenth anniversary provides some anecdotes on the founding of the magazine.

The British science magazine Science Journal, published 1965–71, was merged with the New Scientist to form New Scientist and Science Journal.

The general look and feel of New Scientist has changed over the years. In the early days, the cover had a text list of articles rather than a picture. Pages were numbered sequentially for an entire volume of many issues, as is the norm for academic journals (i.e., so that the first page of a March issue could be 651 instead of 1); later each issue's pages were numbered separately. Colour was not used except for blocks of colour on the cover. In 1964 there was a regular "Science in British Industry" section with several items. Price increased over the years from a shilling to several pounds.

Some regular features disappeared over the years: the Grimbledon Down comic strip about a research establishment run by the hapless Treem; Ariadne, later with Nature, commenting every week on the lighter side of science and technology and the plausible but impractical humorous inventions of (fictitious) inventor Daedalus, often developed by the (fictitious) DREADCO corporation.