If the price is reasonable, post offices stop the monopoly over magazine subscriptions, which is the current system in China, by permitting direct subscription through publishing houses and more efficient issuance networks are built up on campuses, science magazines will sell well.

Huang Sheng from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said it's not difficult to stimulate people's interest in science if the country's scientific achievements are made known to the public not merely as trivial news, but as important events. Scientific American is even sold in supermarkets and drugstores in the United States.

The lack of initial and sustainable funds for publishing magazines is seen as another blockade to greater popularity.

Therefore, favorable policies are crucial for the development of science magazines. Wu Yishan from the China Society for Scientific and Technical Information said the way out for science magazines is for the government to provide more support to magazines with great potential, in terms of financial help and human resources, and give well-performing magazine publishers more encouragement. "Just do as much as we have done for the revitalization of Peking Opera," Wu said.

According to Li Jianchen from China's General Administration of Press and Publication, a baseline assessment was made about more than 400 kinds of science magazines at the end of June 2005, and a monitoring and assessment system for these magazines is soon to be set up to improve the quality of magazines and to help them to secure a foothold in the market.

After several years of effort, some Chinese science magazines have found relative success, such as Ordnance Knowledge, Naval & Merchant Ships and Chinese National Geography, with each having a circulation of about 200,000.

The first two are successful as they are properly tailored to their readers, while the third is growing in circulation thanks to strong support from advertisers, who are availing themselves of this magazine's interesting information and attractive design.

However, these magazines appear to be exceptions in China.

Magazine 'localization'

The Chinese Government recently announced its objectives for scientific and technological development in the next 15 years, at the core of which is making China an innovation-based country. This objective is expected to promote the development and popularity of science in China, and science magazines as well.

But many Chinese science magazines are dull. Bian Yulin, an editor at the Shanghai Scientific and Technological Education Press, argues that there is no boring science, only boring descriptions.

It is the outdated method of writing about science in China that has deprived popular science magazines of expected market share and readers' support, said Lu Changhong, a well-known publisher in China. "There is an overemphasis on the result of scientific research, but little is explained about how a particular achievement is made. Such incomplete descriptions tend to keep readers away," Lu added.

Foreign magazines offer good examples in terms of being interesting in both content and design. Many foreign magazines are written in an easy, genial and humorous way, with interesting stories to hook and keep readers, which is a striking contrast to their often dull Chinese counterparts. Furthermore, some overseas science magazines present scientific information related to art, archaeology and psychology, which broadens the outlook of readers.