I just finished leading a small discussion session on Why aren't there more scientists on the covers of science magazines? Magazine covers, I should note, are merely being used as a metric here to measure the visual space that media outlets are willing to devote to the faces of scientists. Why should we care? My concern grew out of discussions with non-scientists and their stereotyped views of scientists as isolated, possiby nutty geeks with wild hair. Thus, my thought is that if more modern, active research scientists were featured in the media, the public would begin to get a better idea of what a modern scientist is like. Just as we were looking at a slide of Wired magazine covers as a good example of a magazine that frequently features scientists and techies on the cover, Wired Editor-in-Chief Chris Anderson joined us. Chris pointed out that while Wired has a significant number of pages devoted to science content, "objects [such as a molecule] sell better than non-recognizable people." Moreover, Chris said that "magazines would go out of business" if science magazines put only scientists on their covers. If the crux of the issue is having "recognizable" scientists, then perhaps the burden is on scientists, or perhaps university outreach and PR departments, to promote themselves and their research. At the end of the session Chris Anderson asked if we could recommend scientists for the cover of Wired magazine. How about it Element Listers? Who would you recommend? Chris is listening. - Jackie