I like Nature for the heavier science stuff and Discover for the “hey, cool! I can share that with my non-sciencey friends and they’ll enjoy it, too!” type stuff. I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I don’t think I’ve ever read Scientific American. I’ll have to check it out, though- it seems right up my alley.
I read Science and Nature pretty much every week electronically. I wouldn’t call them “magazines” though - they’re actual scientific journals with research articles, etc., not really in the same class as Scientific American, Discover and the like.
Yes, but the first chunk is very magazine-like. Not the sort of material that is in most research journals.
Scientific American used to be great, but started gradually going downhill some time in the 80s or so, and in the past decade I’ve seen enough things in it that are just plain wrong that I don’t bother any more.
Popular Science shouldn’t even be an option in this poll. It’s a car magazine, not a science magazine.
Personally, I picked “Other”, for Science News.
Aside from the cost of an annual subscription and the fact that the journal articles always made me feel stupid, I always felt guilty about “wasting” half of the magazine. I would think of the millions of people starving for knowledge and here I was just throwing it away. It didn’t seem right. :dubious:
Other - New Scientist.
Not exactly Science, but BrainWorld Magazine is a refreshing medical/science read.
You’re thinking of Popular Mechanics. PopSci is not mostly about cars. It’s great for an overview of what’s new & interesting, for those of us that aren’t looking for journal-type detail. And with one or two in-depth feature articles as well.
Not a magazine, but sciencedaily.com is my favorite source for science news headlines and vignettes.
I personally like popular science. Maybe it’s not strictly a publication for new developments in science but I think any time you have “popular” in the title you have to cut them some slack. One of the features I particularly like is the new products section (although I could be thinking of Pop. Mech.). I have seen some incredibly cool shit there. For example you can now get variable focus glasses. So if like me you have one prescription for normal use and have another for reading - which means wearing bifocals (or probably trifocals for me in the not too distant future) - you can get these puppies and just flip a switch on the frame to go from one to the other. Right now I can get away with just reading glasses since the primary prescription is pretty mild, but I’ll still look into them. Anyway, I wouldn’t have known about these otherwise.
Another publication I like that seems to be aimed at middle to secondary school students is Science Illustrated. Some of the photography is wonderful. Its coverage is definitely more superficial than one might hope for, but it’s still worth reading.
edit - oh, the brand name for the glasses i think is Trufocus, true focus, something like that.