Now that the site has gone live, I can give my review of news@nature.com. As promised, the site gives not only the news that was at Nature Science Update but also the news articles found in all of the Nature publications. I can confirm that the articles are exactly the same as what is found in the journals. There is also an archive that is available.
There are three levels of access: free, premium, and premium plus. Free access is the same as what was the case for Nature Science Update. Premium allows you to see the news articles in the Nature publications for the previous five weeks and also to customize what kind of news (e.g. physical sciences) you want to see. Premium plus allows you to access the archives back to 1998. Subscription to a Nature publication gives you premium plus access to the site. Premium access is $7.99 per month and Premium Plus is $15.99 per month. Premium Plus is a waste because you can get an individual subscription to Nature cheaper. Having a Nature subscription allows you to get their News and Views review articles (not included in the above subscriptions). You get both a paper copy and full online access to the journal. What this new service provides that is new to the Natures ubscriber is the news articles from other Nature publications. Nature is also testing a Newstand version of their journal. This is the paper version optimized for online reading.
In short, Nature is providing you the same resources that the science journalists have. The next time you see a wire story that references Nature, go to news@nature.com and you will find except for maybe a couple quotes the exact same article. Furthermore, it will come out before you see the wire story. Check Thursday mornings midnight GMT which is when the electronic version of Nature comes out.
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