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Science 22 May 2009:
Vol. 324. no. 5930, p. 1028
DOI: 10.1126/science.1175760
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Perspectives

Retrospective:

John Maddox (1925–2009)

Nicholas Wade

Scientific ideas are exciting, yet the scientific literature is far from lively. John Maddox's achievement was to sidestep the drabness of scientific writing by emphasizing the ideas that thrived beneath the leaden prose. In doing so he made Nature a compellingly interesting journal whose success forced others in the staid world of scientific publishing to adopt many of his ideas.

Nicholas Wade, now at the New York Times, was at Nature from 1968 to 1971.

E-mail: nwade{at}nytimes.com

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)