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by ProstetnicJeltz 2454 days ago
My parent's have been a subscriber to Nature for a while. They accomplish this goal (communication to different audiances) very effectively.

In the early pages, there's a brief summary taking up about a quarter of the page.

Later, A 1-3 page article. Often the issue will contain multiple papers on the same subject, this article is a simple-english aggregation of those subjects.

The research papers themselves are published later on.

For example, Nature published two recent papers on the determination of the Thorium nucleus's excited state. The papers themselves would have meant very little without a physics degree or some serious determination, but the accompanying article explains all aspects of the papers well. It explains the context (why are these papers significant), how the two papers relate to each other and the broader implications.

Having read the article, it's then much easier to comprehend the contents of the paper. Not easy, but easier.

Nature's not cheap (£198 a year), and it comes weekly which may be faster than most people can read it, but as a means of communicating the absolute cutting edge of all sciences I commend it.

3 comments

Be aware though, Nature and Science both emphasize rapid publishing on "hot" topics and many of the papers are just wrong. The work is accessible, but misleading.
Nature papers are in general condensed and often imprecise, reflecting their wide audience. It's not uncommon for a more rigorous work to be published later or simultaneously in a less prestigous jornal alongside a Nature paper.
> Nature's not cheap (£198 a year), and it comes weekly which may be faster than most people can read it, but as a means of communicating the absolute cutting edge of all sciences I commend it.

You're saying that a bit under £4 a week isn't cheap? As a child my parents bought National Geographic monthly, which wasn't cheap where we lived, but it was well worth it. It threw me face fisrt into a lot of scientific knowledge and amazing photography which I wouldn't have accessed through any other means. I wouldn't call £4 a week expensive.