Science can be complicated and at times difficult to explain. That’s why, in 2003, the US National Science Foundation and Science magazine launched the International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge.

“What we are trying to do in this competition is to encourage people to think broadly about how you can bring data to life,” according to Science’s news editor Colin Norman.

In the following video, the 2010 awardees describe their winning entries — announced last week in Science — from the 2010 competition, including an intricately detailed model of HIV and a virtual tour of the mouse brain.