The 1980s saw John Maddox back at the helm after a seven-year break. With Maddox back in charge, the magazine reached what essentially is its modern format. Discoveries continued to flow in the biological sciences, including the technique commonly known as DNA fingerprinting which was used not only to convict the killer of two girls in Leicestershire but to exonerate the chief suspect at the time. Papers were also published in 1980 and 1984 that significantly advanced knowledge of how genes affect development. In the physical sciences, 1983 and 1984 saw papers that described the large-scale structure of the universe and the formation of galaxies, and a supernova in 1987 afforded the opportunity to set an upper limit on the electron neutrino mass. Image shows archive volumes of Nature.
John Maddox returns as Editor
On 22 May 1980 John Maddox returned for a second stint as Editor. His return was not universally popular with employees of the more organized Dai Davies culture. On the other hand, Davies was considered too academic by some and the return of Maddox's journalistic zeal and love for print was welcomed. Maddox (pictured) did not share his thoughts with readers in a Nature leader upon his return. Instead, Back to Nature in an in-house article called in Macmillan News (p2), Maddox candidly explored what had changed in the seven years since he abruptly left the post: "Nature is now more highly organised than it used to be...it has to be...the field has become even more competitive." A nod, perhaps, to the accomplishments of Davies, who had turned out to be both his successor and predecessor. Nature, Maddox said, was not approaching one, "but half-a-dozen turning points." And it hadn't all changed, as Maddox wryly noted, because "one of the locks on the men's loos still doesn't work."
1983
Bio/Technology
The early 1980s saw the launch of Nature's first successful sister journal (a doomed attempt had been made in the 1970s). Bio/Technology (pictured) marked the beginning of a new era in publishing that later saw a string of journals created under the Nature brand. Page 11 of Macmillan News (July 1989) shows an early view of the Bio/Technology staff and page 13 of Macmillan News shows the Lab Animal and Diagnostics team. The Macmillan science-publishing stable was further bolstered in 1987 with the acquisition of two new journals, Lab Animal and Laboratory Management, from Media Horizons. This was the start of a period during which Macmillan gradually added to its stock of science publications by buying selected titles. Laboratory Management was relaunched as Diagnostics and Clinical Testing but eventually folded in the early 1990s.
1984
Big in Japan
Following a visit to Japan by John Maddox in 1983 for a special issue on Science in Japan the mid-to-late eighties saw Nature establish a foothold in the Far East. Alun Anderson who would later become editor-in-chief of New Scientist magazine, was Nature's first correspondent in Japan. The journal's niche in the Asian markets was then enhanced by a series of conferences. The first, Molecular Biology Becomes Biotechnology, was held in 1986 and was attended by His Imperial Highness Prince Hitachi (pictured opening the conference). The same year saw the founding of an office proper in Tokyo, Nature Japan KK, which led to the founding in 1987 of a Japanese print edition of Nature whose initial circulation was 2,400. In 1988 the second conference in Japan, Horizons in Molecular Biology, was attended by the Crown Prince and Princess of Japan.
1985
A hole in the sky
The discovery of the 'hole' in Earth's ozone layer (pictured) provided evidence to scientists, politicians and the public that human activity could modify the global environment within just a couple of generations. Published in Nature in 1974, work by Mario Molina and F. Sherwood Rowland established that chlorine originating from chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) was an agent of ozone destruction, for which they received a share of the 1995 Nobel Prize in chemistry. But this was just the start of the story. In May 1985, Joe Farman and colleagues at the British Antarctic Survey reported that seasonal ozone levels were 40% lower than expected. Farman et al. correctly predicted that CFCs were responsible, even though the chemical mechanism they proposed at the time was wrong. Satellite data published in 1986 confirmed the Antarctic group's findings, and a flurry of papers that followed by Susan Solomon, Paul Crutzen and Michael McElroy and their colleagues formalized the chemical basis of the phenomenon. Image courtesy of NASA. See A Century of Nature in this website for more on this discovery.
A new form of carbon
Carbon was only thought to exist in two pure forms diamond and graphite until C60 emerged (pictured), showing just how beautiful chemistry can be. Like many discoveries, C60 was created more by accident than design when Harry Kroto and his colleagues were vaporizing graphite in the hope of creating the molecules thought to inhabit interstellar space. Naturally occurring C60 has since been found in carbonaceous meteorites and the mineral shungite. The spherical structure of C60 is created by pentagons mixed into the hexagonal tessellation — this same mingling of five- and six-sided polygons is what makes footballs round. C60 also resembles the geodesic domes of American inventor and architect Buckminster Fuller and so was soon nicknamed 'buckminsterfullerene'. The fullerenes can take other forms, as in carbon nanotubes and can be made to superconduct. The arrival of the fullerene family (and an easy method of synthesis) revolutionized materials science and marked its maturation to a distinct and modern discipline. Image by Michael Ströck.
1986
1980s structure and content
By the 1980s Nature had essentially reached its modern form, but there was still room for new additions. Shortly into the second Maddox era, a new section — Matters Arising — appeared that tackled scientific correspondence regarding specific papers, rather than generic issues relating to science. Also new to the 1980s were New on the Market a summary of new commercial research products, and Employment a one-page essay that can be seen as a very early forerunner to the NatureJobs magazine 'Science career'. A supplement on Halley's comet unhelpfully coincided with the first paper on the fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear accident, ensuring a working week as close to the wire as any before. As in the 1970s, editorials continued to look closely and frequently at arms control and nuclear weapons (and the 'Star Wars' defences against them), and more attention was paid to economics. An editorial welcoming 1981 declared boldly: "Economic problems matter because they determine the resources available for...institutions and for innovation". A cover from the 1980s is pictured.
1988
Alliances and associations
An article by John Maddox in Macmillan News (p6) shows that 1988 was a busy year for Nature, but progress was being made on a number of fronts. In 1988 an agreement was reached with the Chinese Science and Technology Agency, which had previously supported the piracy of Nature in China, and a Chinese-language edition was launched (pictured). 1988 also saw a deal hatched with Yuri Kanin, then chief science commentator of the Russian Novosti Press Agency, which would see three soviet scientists contributing to one substantial article every two weeks (four were sent in the first week, much to Maddox's embarrassment). Closer to home, Nature was asked by The Times to relaunch the daily contribution Science Report, a column in the newspaper. The first proposal for Nature to provide science news columns for The Times dates back to around 1878 when Norman Lockyer was Editor.
Homeopathy: a controversy
The 1980s saw many fads and fashions come and go: the Rubik's cube, day-glo lycra, and Uri Geller's spoon-bending shenanigans, to name a few. Science resists faddism but is not immune to it, so when Nature received a paper 'proving' that homeopathy was a real phenomenon — specifically, that a diluted solution of antibodies could activate white blood cells because of 'water memory' — Editor John Maddox published the Benveniste paper with an 'editorial reservation' stating that "Readers of this article may share the incredulity of the many referees". As part of the publishing deal, Maddox, a professional magician and sceptic named James Randi (pictured, who once demonstrated in the Nature offices how Geller's spoon-bending was done) and Walter Stewart, an expert on science fraud, travelled as observers to Jacques Benveniste
's laboratory: the three refuted the experiments as flawed. An aggrieved Benveniste in his reply accused Maddox of trapping him, while acknowledging that "it may be that all of us are wrong in good faith".
1989
First we take Manhattan
The 1980s saw Nature expanding its global operations, opening a string of offices around the world. The 1980 opening of the New York office in the iconic Fuller or 'Flatiron Building' on Fifth Avenue (pictured) was accompanied by a marketing push that saw 50,000 free copies sent out to institutions across America, which gained an extra 3,988 subscriptions in just one year. This helped Nature's circulation in the United States and Canada breach the 10,000 mark by 1981, and by 1984 the New York office had 19 staff and the US circulation stood at 12,300. By the end of the decade, Nature had correspondents in Boston, San Francisco, New Delhi, Paris and Melbourne, in addition to its offices in London, Washington, New York and Tokyo — a global presence to match the worldwide perspective that Nature has always retained.
The 1980s saw John Maddox back at the helm after a seven-year break. With Maddox back in charge, the magazine reached what essentially is its modern format. Discoveries continued to flow in the biological sciences, including the technique commonly known as DNA fingerprinting which was used not only to convict the killer of two girls in Leicestershire but to exonerate the chief suspect at the time. Papers were also published in 1980 and 1984 that significantly advanced knowledge of how genes affect development. In the physical sciences, 1983 and 1984 saw papers that described the large-scale structure of the universe and the formation of galaxies, and a supernova in 1987 afforded the opportunity to set an upper limit on the electron neutrino mass. Image shows archive volumes of Nature. 
On 22 May 1980 John Maddox returned for a second stint as Editor. His return was not universally popular with employees of the more organized Dai Davies culture. On the other hand, Davies was considered too academic by some and the return of Maddox's journalistic zeal and love for print was welcomed. Maddox (pictured) did not share his thoughts with readers in a Nature leader upon his return. Instead, Back to Nature in an in-house article called in Macmillan News (p2), Maddox candidly explored what had changed in the seven years since he abruptly left the post: "Nature is now more highly organised than it used to be...it has to be...the field has become even more competitive." A nod, perhaps, to the accomplishments of Davies, who had turned out to be both his successor and predecessor. Nature, Maddox said, was not approaching one, "but half-a-dozen turning points." And it hadn't all changed, as Maddox wryly noted, because "one of the locks on the men's loos still doesn't work." 
The early 1980s saw the launch of Nature's first successful sister journal (a doomed attempt had been made in the 1970s). Bio/Technology (pictured) marked the beginning of a new era in publishing that later saw a string of journals created under the Nature brand. Page 11 of Macmillan News (July 1989) shows an early view of the Bio/Technology staff and page 13 of Macmillan News shows the Lab Animal and Diagnostics team. The Macmillan science-publishing stable was further bolstered in 1987 with the acquisition of two new journals, Lab Animal and Laboratory Management, from Media Horizons. This was the start of a period during which Macmillan gradually added to its stock of science publications by buying selected titles. Laboratory Management was relaunched as Diagnostics and Clinical Testing but eventually folded in the early 1990s. 
Following a visit to Japan by John Maddox in 1983 for a special issue on Science in Japan the mid-to-late eighties saw Nature establish a foothold in the Far East. Alun Anderson who would later become editor-in-chief of New Scientist magazine, was Nature's first correspondent in Japan. The journal's niche in the Asian markets was then enhanced by a series of conferences. The first, Molecular Biology Becomes Biotechnology, was held in 1986 and was attended by His Imperial Highness Prince Hitachi (pictured opening the conference). The same year saw the founding of an office proper in Tokyo, Nature Japan KK, which led to the founding in 1987 of a Japanese print edition of Nature whose initial circulation was 2,400. In 1988 the second conference in Japan, Horizons in Molecular Biology, was attended by the Crown Prince and Princess of Japan. 
The discovery of the 'hole' in Earth's ozone layer (pictured) provided evidence to scientists, politicians and the public that human activity could modify the global environment within just a couple of generations. Published in Nature in 1974, work by Mario Molina and F. Sherwood Rowland established that chlorine originating from chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) was an agent of ozone destruction, for which they received a share of the 1995 Nobel Prize in chemistry. But this was just the start of the story. In May 1985, Joe Farman and colleagues at the British Antarctic Survey reported that seasonal ozone levels were 40% lower than expected. Farman et al. correctly predicted that CFCs were responsible, even though the chemical mechanism they proposed at the time was wrong. Satellite data published in 1986 confirmed the Antarctic group's findings, and a flurry of papers that followed by Susan Solomon, Paul Crutzen and Michael McElroy and their colleagues formalized the chemical basis of the phenomenon. Image courtesy of NASA. See A Century of Nature in this website for more on this discovery.
Carbon was only thought to exist in two pure forms diamond and graphite until C60 emerged (pictured), showing just how beautiful chemistry can be. Like many discoveries, C60 was created more by accident than design when Harry Kroto and his colleagues were vaporizing graphite in the hope of creating the molecules thought to inhabit interstellar space. Naturally occurring C60 has since been found in carbonaceous meteorites and the mineral shungite. The spherical structure of C60 is created by pentagons mixed into the hexagonal tessellation — this same mingling of five- and six-sided polygons is what makes footballs round. C60 also resembles the geodesic domes of American inventor and architect Buckminster Fuller and so was soon nicknamed 'buckminsterfullerene'. The fullerenes can take other forms, as in carbon nanotubes and can be made to superconduct. The arrival of the fullerene family (and an easy method of synthesis) revolutionized materials science and marked its maturation to a distinct and modern discipline. Image by Michael Ströck.
By the 1980s Nature had essentially reached its modern form, but there was still room for new additions. Shortly into the second Maddox era, a new section — Matters Arising — appeared that tackled scientific correspondence regarding specific papers, rather than generic issues relating to science. Also new to the 1980s were New on the Market a summary of new commercial research products, and Employment a one-page essay that can be seen as a very early forerunner to the NatureJobs magazine 'Science career'. A supplement on Halley's comet unhelpfully coincided with the first paper on the fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear accident, ensuring a working week as close to the wire as any before. As in the 1970s, editorials continued to look closely and frequently at arms control and nuclear weapons (and the 'Star Wars' defences against them), and more attention was paid to economics. An editorial welcoming 1981 declared boldly: "Economic problems matter because they determine the resources available for...institutions and for innovation". A cover from the 1980s is pictured.
An article by John Maddox in Macmillan News (p6) shows that 1988 was a busy year for Nature, but progress was being made on a number of fronts. In 1988 an agreement was reached with the Chinese Science and Technology Agency, which had previously supported the piracy of Nature in China, and a Chinese-language edition was launched (pictured). 1988 also saw a deal hatched with Yuri Kanin, then chief science commentator of the Russian Novosti Press Agency, which would see three soviet scientists contributing to one substantial article every two weeks (four were sent in the first week, much to Maddox's embarrassment). Closer to home, Nature was asked by The Times to relaunch the daily contribution Science Report, a column in the newspaper. The first proposal for Nature to provide science news columns for The Times dates back to around 1878 when Norman Lockyer was Editor. 
The 1980s saw many fads and fashions come and go: the Rubik's cube, day-glo lycra, and Uri Geller's spoon-bending shenanigans, to name a few. Science resists faddism but is not immune to it, so when Nature received a paper 'proving' that homeopathy was a real phenomenon — specifically, that a diluted solution of antibodies could activate white blood cells because of 'water memory' — Editor John Maddox published the Benveniste paper with an 'editorial reservation' stating that "Readers of this article may share the incredulity of the many referees". As part of the publishing deal, Maddox, a professional magician and sceptic named James Randi (pictured, who once demonstrated in the Nature offices how Geller's spoon-bending was done) and Walter Stewart, an expert on science fraud, travelled as observers to Jacques Benveniste
's laboratory: the three refuted the experiments as flawed. An aggrieved Benveniste in his reply accused Maddox of trapping him, while acknowledging that "it may be that all of us are wrong in good faith". 
The 1980s saw Nature expanding its global operations, opening a string of offices around the world. The 1980 opening of the New York office in the iconic Fuller or 'Flatiron Building' on Fifth Avenue (pictured) was accompanied by a marketing push that saw 50,000 free copies sent out to institutions across America, which gained an extra 3,988 subscriptions in just one year. This helped Nature's circulation in the United States and Canada breach the 10,000 mark by 1981, and by 1984 the New York office had 19 staff and the US circulation stood at 12,300. By the end of the decade, Nature had correspondents in Boston, San Francisco, New Delhi, Paris and Melbourne, in addition to its offices in London, Washington, New York and Tokyo — a global presence to match the worldwide perspective that Nature has always retained. 
