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Seed (magazine)

online science magazine

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 11, 2026
Entity authorityQ7445618
Source-derived summary

Seed (subtitled Science Is Culture; originally Beneath the Surface) is a defunct online science magazine published by Seed Media Group. The magazine looked at big ideas in science, important issues at the intersection of science and society, and the people driving global science culture. Seed was founded in Montreal by Adam Bly and the magazine was then headquartered in New York with bureaus around the world. May/June 2009 (Issue No. 22) was the last print issue. Content continued to be published on the website until its demise in 2012.

Seed was a finalist for two National Magazine Awards in 2007 in the categories of Design and General Excellence (100,000 to 250,000), was the recipient of the Utne Independent Press Award, and was included in the 2006 Best American Science and Nature Writing anthology published by Houghton Mifflin and edited by Brian Greene.

The magazine published original writing from scientists and science journalists. Scientists who contributed to the magazine include: James D. Watson, Freeman Dyson, Lisa Randall, Martin Rees, Steven Pinker, E.O. Wilson, and Daniel Dennett. Seed's design direction was created by Stefan Sagmeister.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Seed (magazine)” is online science magazine. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Seed, magazine and online, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2009, 2012, 2007, 2006—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—2001-01-01, 2001-11—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. For this dossier, Seed, magazine and online is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “online science magazine” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7445618. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2009, 2012, 2007 and 2006.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Seed (magazine)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Seed (magazine) primary sources, Seed (magazine) archive and Seed research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Seed (magazine)”?
  2. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
  3. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Seed (magazine)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.