Discover Presents Origins
Amid a wash of online theorizing about how to save print, the producers of Discover magazine have stepped forward to demonstrate exactly how it's done. What they prove is that editing is everything, in print or otherwise. A reader could travel to the end of the Internet and back again without finding such a well-sorted, clearly written, up-to-the-minute and downright interesting package as this, with 15 full-length articles on subjects ranging from the latest theories suggested by the newest fossils to the awful truth about caveman sex. Especially provocative is Kathleen McAuliffe's description of new research suggesting that human evolution has sped up rather than halted in historic times, with variations running far deeper than skin colour alone: science as a political time bomb, handled with consummate professionalism. A total lack of advertising bodes ill for the future of such efforts, but does nothing to impair this one's readability.
Esquire August 2010
This month's Esquire includes a two-page house ad combining a coy nude of Lady Gaga with interesting factoids about why young people are buying more magazines than ever. But the best reason could be articles like "The Man Who Would Fall to Earth," Luke Dittrich's description of the Red Bull Stratos project, in which Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner will soon (it is said) jump to earth from the edge of space, becoming the first person to break the sound barrier in freefall. You certainly won't find it linked along with the rest of the multi-platform flummery at redbullstratos.com, if only because it fails to mention our stalwart hero for several thousand words, at which point it reveals him as a mannequin immune to his handlers' warnings about wearing hair gel in an oxygenated space suit. "Even the tiniest spark - the merest crackle of static electricity, say - could ignite it, setting his handsome head ablaze." But Felix doesn't get it. The handlers plan a demonstration with cotton balls and Vaseline to dramatize it for him.
Dittrich's real hero is Dr. Jonathan Clark, a former NASA medical officer who has joined the team in the hope of advancing research into escape systems of a sort that could have saved his wife, astronaut Laurel Clark, who died aboard the space shuttle Challenger in 2003. Behind the scenes of the stunt, he tells a sobering parable about the perils and opportunities of "new space."
explore July/August 2010
In the shorthand language of many enthusiast magazines, "Photography Special" is often used to mean "Editors' Vacation in Advertisers' Absence." But explore has made a real effort with this month's timely cover story, offering 63 practical, well-illustrated tips for making better use of all those megapixels currently scanning the great Canadian landscape for moose and memories. "Move closer" no longer cuts it in the digital age: The pros consulted by explore tell how to use iPhone apps to call birds closer and Google Earth to preview scenic potential. At the other end of the techno-spectrum, veteran shooter Janis Kraulis offers Tip No. 59, advising parents to "make sure your kid always carries a camera. You will learn something about photography, as they will see things you don't." Until they drop it in the lake.