Scientist's recent quality falling short (6)
I believe the answer is:
newton
'scientist's' is the definition.
(Newton is an example)
'recent quality falling short' is the wordplay.
'recent' becomes 'new' ('new' can be similar in meaning to 'recent').
'quality' becomes 'tone' ('tone' can be a synonym of 'quality').
'falling short' means to remove the last letter.
'tone' with its last letter taken away is 'ton'.
'new'+'ton'='NEWTON'
(Other definitions for newton that I've seen before include "inclined to apply discovery?" , "Sir Isaac -, seventeen to eighteenth century English scientist" , "Gravity theorist" , "Scientist - unit of force" , "Great English mathematician who discovered gravity" .)