The magazine was established in
Sydney in November 2004 by the
Sydney magazine publishing executive Kylie Ahern and science journalist
Wilson da Silva. with the first issue published in July 2005. In June 2006, the magazine launched a daily Internet news and features service. The magazine was the originator of
Hello from Earth, a web-based initiative to send messages from the public, each just 160 characters in length, to
Gliese 581d, the (then) nearest Earth-like planet outside the
Solar System. Created as a science communication exercise for 2009
National Science Week in Australia, it collected nearly 26,000 messages that were beamed by
NASA's
Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex on 28 August 2009. In June 2013 the company, then owned by Luna Media, moved to
Melbourne following its acquisition in February 2013 by Australia's
Chief Scientist,
Alan Finkel, and his wife
Elizabeth Finkel, a science journalist, who became editor-in-chief. The Finkels were already part-owners, and acquired the remainder from Ahern and Da Silva, who remained on the editorial staff. On 1 September 2018, custodianship of the magazine was transferred to
Royal Institution of Australia, a not-for-profit science media organisation based in
Adelaide. During the following month, 6 AI generated articles made using
GPT-4 were published to its website, garnering criticism from its contributors, who said they had not been informed of the decision, as well as its cofounders. Writers whose work have featured include
Margaret Wertheim,
Jared Diamond,
Tim Flannery,
Richard Dawkins,
Edward O. Wilson,
Michio Kaku,
Susan Greenfield,
Steven Pinker,
Paul Davies,
Simon Singh and
Oliver Sacks. ==Description==