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OBSERVANT readers will notice that this issue of New Scientist is somewhat
smaller than its predecessors. This is not a relativistic effect related
to the speed of the magazine’s progress that will culminate in a publication
so small that its cover has room for only that offensive bar code. No, it
is a consequence of the internationalisation of printing. Just as scientists
insist on using those prosaic SI units, so printers like to have their standard
sizes for paper and presses. As we now print New Scientist in Australia,
and aspire to ink paper elsewhere, the time has come for us to fall in line.
Fortunately, some subtle design work leaves us with a negligible loss in
the number of words that we can fit on to each page.