Seeing science: The year’s best visualizations

The National Science Foundation and Science name 2013’s best.

"Cortex in Metallic Pastels," the winner in the illustration category, depicts stylized dendrites and axons in the cerebral cortex. Credit: Greg Dunn, Brian Edwards (Greg Dunn Design); Marty Saggese (SfN); Tracy Bale (UPenn); Rick Huganir (Johns Hopkins University)

Let’s face it: science can be complicated. Many people don’t fully understand how viruses ravage the body, how scientists quantify climate change, or even how their own tablets and smartphones work.

To help foster scientific literacy and explain complex ideas, techniques, and processes to the public, Science and the National Science Foundation have collaborated to create the International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge. Now in its 11th year, the contest rewards entries that celebrate science visualization and “communicate the complexities of science, engineering, and technology to students and the public.”

Entries in five categories—illustration, posters and graphics, photography, games and apps, and video—are judged on their originality and visual impact, as well as how effectively they communicate their message. There is also a People’s Choice award, voted on by visitors to the NSF website. This year, there were 227 submissions from a dozen countries, including 17 states and Canadian territories.

Some of the most striking entries make the invisible visible, illustrating the processes and phenomena that are ordinarily hidden from our view. The first place winner in the photography category, called “Invisible Coral Flow,” shows the tiny whirling vortex created by the cilia of a cauliflower coral. “Security Blanket,” the honorable mention in the illustration category, artistically depicts the frequency of the 1000 most common passwords from the massive RockYou hack in 2009—the larger the text, the more common the password.

This year’s first place winner in the Interactive Games category is EyeWire, a game that lets you map neurons in 3D space. Not only is EyeWire surprisingly addictive and fun (in an obsessive-compulsive sort of way), it’s also a citizen science project from MIT that trains artificial intelligence algorithms to map out neural pathways in the brain. Just think: by whiling away the hours coloring in tiny spaces, you’re also contributing to our knowledge of the inner workings of the brain.

“Dynamic Earth,” produced by NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio, won the video category. It shows the intricate and ever-changing relationship between the Sun and the Earth, from the fallout of coronal mass ejections to how the Sun powers our climate. To produce the video, NASA used a combination of real satellite data and a variety of state-of-the-art computer models. With stunning visuals and a dramatic narrative, it’s by far the best of the videos. This four-and-a-half minute clip is part of a longer movie, called “Dynamic Earth: Exploring Earth’s Climate Engine,” which currently plays at more than 60 planetariums globally.

“Dynamic Earth”

Another great video was StemCellShorts, which received an honorable mention. Although the three different segments in the video are a bit repetitive, its fun graphics and approachable language are appealing even to those who know nothing about the properties or applications of stem cells. One of the best things about this video is that each segment is narrated by a well-known Canadian stem cell researcher; bringing these prominent scientists on board not only ensures that the information is accurate, it also helps bridge the gap between scientists and the public.

“StemCellShorts”

Some of the other winners in the video category were less compelling; an entry on spherical nucleic acids was riddled with jargon like “linear duplex” and “ancillary transfection agents,” and videos about immunology and plant structure included some nice imagery but weren’t particularly engaging.

The standout in the posters and graphics category, a piece called “Wearable Power,” swept first place and the People’s Choice award. The entry illustrates how researchers like Drexel’s Kristy Jost are creating fabric batteries and using computerized 3D knitting systems to weave them into garments. It’s an info-packed poster showcasing some very cool technology.

Check out the slide show of all this year’s winners here, and weigh in about your favorites in the comment section.

Science, 2014. DOI: 10.1126/science.343.6171.600 (About DOIs).