Some of the best years of my youth were in high school…but not in high school. During those years, we lived in a nice old house in the center of town, my parents and six kids, which was going to change after I graduated, when I moved to another state, my brother joined the army, and my parents moved to another town, after the rental home we lived in was torn down by the Catholic church. There was a sharp division ahead of us.
Before all that changed, though, we lived in this nice older house that was only a few blocks away from the public library. Every day after school I would go to the library and hang out until my mother would send one of my younger siblings over to tell me to come home for dinner. I had a favorite spot in the library, a large table facing the periodicals section, and the first thing I’d do was scan the racks to see what new journals had come in. I liked Natural History, Smithsonian, and especially Scientific American. SciAm would engage me for several days as I would read it cover to cover. Every month throughout my high school years. That’s what made those years happy and memorable because I was a nerd, who missed out on all that socialization that normal kids experienced.
It’s the end of an era now, though. Scientific American is dying. Guess why.
Last year, a Breitbart article had criticized Springer Nature, Scientific American’s German owner, for attacking those “skeptical of the coronavirus vaccine” and spreading “gender insanity.” “No more taxpayer money for woke publishers!” declared Donald Trump Jr., retweeting the article. In June 2025, Axios reported that all federal subscriptions to Springer Nature publications had been canceled. Although Trump officials later walked back the bulk of the cuts, they had shocked the scientific community: Without access to Springer Nature’s thousands of journals, including the prestigious Nature publications, researchers at federal agencies—from the NIH to NASA—would struggle to stay abreast of scientific developments. The company itself, meanwhile, risked losing as much as $25 million in federal contracts.
So if Ewalt had asked people to keep Trump out of the headlines last summer, it was because corporate higher-ups were visiting the site all the time. “And if they saw the word ‘Trump,’” he said, according to the recording, “they were wetting their fucking lederhosen.” People had no idea how “lily-livered and weak-kneed and cowardly” Springer Nature was, he said. “They are so fucking afraid of the Trump administration.”
Springer Nature no longer owns it. SciAm has been bought by a company called LabX. This is not good news.
In the immediate aftermath of the sale, staffers were left scrambling to learn more about Scientific American’s new owner. Previously, LabX’s best-known publication had been Discover, a onetime dentist’s office stalwart that was hollowed out by private equity buyers in the aughts; according to multiple staffers, the ownership transition seemed rushed, chaotic, and disorganized. When one worker reached out to a former employee of one of LabX’s other publications, the stories they heard—including ones related to editorial independence—were part of why they turned down their job offer, they said. (LabX did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)
I remember Discover. It was not one I ever looked forward to reading — too shallow, never providing much to engage with.
At least one freelancer has already written publicly about their negative experience with the new Scientific American, and two more editorial staffers were laid off at the end of September, including Megha Satyanarayana, Vergano’s former colleague in the opinion department—who declined to comment for this piece—and a data reporter. Vergano remains worried that LabX seems more interested in “gee-whiz stuff” than critical, substantive reporting. From what he’s seen of their publications, he said, “they produce things that are schlockfests. And we were doing good work at Scientific American.”
The end is near. The schlockification has begun. I don’t think the new SciAm will be inspiring many high school students to pursue careers in science.
Well, that stinks. Sad news indeed altho’ the SciAm articles online have been paywalled a lot lately if memory serves. Got the occassional print issue sometimes.
I remmebr Discover fondly ~ish too back when the old Bad Astronomy blog could be found there. Tho’that had its accessibility issues as well at times memory serving.
I remember Discover being quite good. I also remember seeing Discover go to shit. It wasn’t long from one to the other, so you might have missed it.
I still read discover occasionally.
I get it at the library so it is free.
It is popular science so of course, it doesn’t go into depth. It is now also 4 times a year.
All the print publications are a shadow of what they once were.
I wish Springer Nature had spent a little time finding a responsible new owner for Scientific American. Maybe even a nonprofit foundation or something.
And fearing the Trump fascists is OK. Not finding a few vertebrae and standing up to them is not.
They are bullies and often back down if challenged.
A huge congratulations to the vertebrates of Hungary, Serbia, and Brazil who have recently shown where courage can take you.
OK, I should probably expect that Discover started out strong and later declined, like most things under capitalism.
You read SciAm articles all the way through? In high school? That’s pretty impressive — I rarely made it past the first page of any article.
We had Sci Am in the town library, so it was never a problem to read the latest issue. I often copied interesting articles.
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There is another journal with a similar-sounding name, American Scientist. I recall when they led with an article about the new carbon nanotubes. I promptly sent a copy to Arthur C. Clarke as he had used a space elevator in The Fountains Of Paradise.
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The weekly New Scientist from UK does not have whole chapters about any issues, the longest articles are 2-3 pages. London is outside the jurisdiction of American fascists do you can probably enjoy it for decades more.
For astronomy, you can check Sky And Telescope. Lots of ads, but lots of good articles, too.
You’d think Springer would know a thing or two about the importance of standing up to fascists.
I guess I was lucky: my high school library carried SciAm, and my GF and I would peruse it during spares. Such an appropriate beginning to a life-long nerd romance….
Subscribed in the early 80’s, but then dropped it after ~20 years. The quality of the articles was already declining until it started to be indistinguishable from Discover.
At my high school in the morning the various tribes hung out in their traditional territories: the slackers at the Tastee Freeze across the street, jocks in the quad throwing a ball around, and my People in the periodicals lounge in the library. There we discussed all sorts of important and weighty things but at the beginning of the month no subject dominated the conversation as the new issue of Scientific American. We each had our favorite column: 50 and 100 years ago, Martin Gardner’s Mathematical Games, the Amateur Scientist. Throughout the month we would have read and discussed all of the articles. Back in the day, 1965-69, the articles were thorough and detailed.
I subscribed to Scientific American in 1974 while in grad school and kept my subscription through about 2002, as I recall, when the format changed so much that it was painful to read. Also, I think the magazine got infected by Michael Shermer which was the last straw. I saved every issue and even bought those green cardboard slip cases to hold a year’s worth, hauling them around every time I moved. When the local municipal library told me they didn’t want my “collection,” I pitched the lot, but not after looking through the whole thing to pick out my favorites. And, that’s all folks!