NERD Magazine

NERD Magazine or Notes on Engineering Research and Development is a quarterly science and technology magazine published by the Office of Dean of Research and Development of Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. The magazine publishes scientific and technical content created by the students. The magazine has received some attention in online media
History
Magazine started publication in June 2008 with a small newsletter that was sent to freshmen at their homes. The first complete issue (Volume 1 Number 1) was released on September 5 2008 (Teachers' Day in India). There have been two more issues after this. The second one released on December 15 2008 and a third special issue on Environment and Energy Engineering on February 12, 2009 during Techkriti, IIT Kanpur's annual science and technology festival.
Although the magazine claims to be quarterly, the fourth issue for first year of operation is still awaited.
Magazines run by Universities with student created content in the domain of science and technology are not unheard of.
1. Cornell used to publish the Scitech magazine
2. Oxford university students published the Bang! Magazine for some time before the magazine folded operation
3. Cambridge's BlueSci is by far the most regular and professionally published science and technology magazine which gets content from students
4. A more formal publication is MIT's MURJ (MIT Undergraduate Research Journal).
There are several other independent journals and magazines which publish student created content or original work done by students. A simple google search with search terms journal young scientists will yield a lot of relevant results.
Philosophy
The magazine is very similar to a Journal in the sense that most of its content is original work done by students. However the articles are not Papers. These are pieces which are written in order to appeal to experts and non expert audience alike in order to publicize science and technology. However whether all these articles are comprehensible to general public is questionable.
The philosophy is to publicize work done by students in order to inspire more students to undertake research. Also, publicizing original work serves as an incentive to the people who did the research. The idea has caught on and the magazine is slated for an all India release in 2009. A lot of other institutes have started similar publications. A few of them are listed in Developments below.
Columns
The Magazine starts with the traditional Editorial. Since only three issues are out, it is difficult to refer to columns but there are some common features.
1. The cover story features under the title Atlas Shrugged named thus in order to imply that the work was so good it caused the earth to move as shrugged.
2. The magazine also carries a profile of a famous women scientist in the issue although this column has appeared only in two out of the three issues. Renowned Computer Scientist Dr. Frances Allen and famous astronomer Vera Rubin have featured in this column called She.
3. Book Reviews are published under the column Dog-Eared
4. Puzzles, interesting questions on science and technology in everyday life appear under Zonked!
5. Each issue begins with an interview with a faculty member of IIT Kanpur. These interviews are essentially pedagogical in nature but often digress from pure science and technology.
6. Every issue features an interview with a well known scientist or researcher. Dr. Fran Allen of IBM, Dr. Leslie Valiant of Harvard University, Dr. S. Raychaudhuri of TIFR and Dr. David Morrison of NASA have been interviewed.
Developments
After the release of NERD Magazine several other institutes in India started their own publications. Notable are:
1. Cornucopia of Indian Institute of Technology Delhi
2. Anveshan of NIT Durgapur

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