A picture is worth a thousand words

Posted on 06 Nov 2017 by Rebecca Wild

Karin Bodewits and Philipp Gramlich share their thoughts on how an infographic CV could set you apart from the crowd.

By Karin Bodewits & Philipp Gramlich

In most western countries, the number of PhD graduates in the life sciences has increased by around 50% over the last ten years. As the job market, in both academia and industry, has been largely flat in most countries, this PhD glut is creating undesirable patterns of employment — and unemployment. Some academics are calling for ‘academic birth control’, but the academic system itself profits from the resulting endless supply of cheap labour. Continue reading →

Science communication: Engaging data to engage people

Posted on 29 Sep 2015 by Julie Gould

Digital storytelling can offer unprecedented insights into scientific data for both the lay public and scientific researchers, says Samuel Van Ransbeek.

Guest contributor Samuel Van Ransbeek

Data can be made much more engaging when using visualisation techniques.{credit}Image credit: Design Pics/Thinkstock{/credit}

In the century of information, it has become fashionable to make data publicly available. Governments, NGO’s, private companies and others seem to be in a race to make the most data available as soon as possible. However, with petabytes of data being published every day, we have to ask ourselves: What are we going to do with all the data? Publishing them online is only one part of the job. We need to harness the data so that people can understand and interact with them.

Furthermore, in an era of scientific complexity and with the deluge of data currently being produced by research, it becomes paramount to engage the general public so they do not become distanced from science and important societal issues.

There are various possibilities in making data accessible. Here I’ll give just a few examples of what others are doing to engage the public with scientific data.

Infographics

Infographics are more than just some stacked columns and graphs. They are a visual way of storytelling through data. Infographics reveal the often abstract, statistical data and present them in a format which is easy to absorb. It has become a mainstream phenomenon in contemporary journalism and in mass communication in general. Continue reading →

Beautiful Science: Picturing Data, Inspiring Insight at the British Library

Posted on 20 Feb 2014 by Alex Jackson

From an early visual representation of a hierarchically ordered universe in Robert Fludd’s ‘Great Chain of Being’ (1617), to a contemporary moving infographic of ocean currents from NASA, a free new exhibition in London shows how visualising data has changed the way we see, interpret and understand the world around us.

‘Beautiful Science’, which opens at the British Library today, is a fascinating journey from 17^th century illustrated diagrams to interactive visualisations in science.

Exploring how advances in science alongside changes in technology have allowed us to visually interpret masses of information, the exhibition focuses on three areas; public health, weather and climate, and the tree of life.

Perpetual Ocean (c) NASA, Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio, 2011. The striking animation by NASA visualises the flow of ocean surface currents from June 2005 to December 2007.

Continue reading →

The Power of using Infographics to Communicate Science

Posted on 20 Jan 2014 by Alex Jackson

Gareth Cook's selection of the best infographics.

The best American infographics of 2013

“We find ourselves in the era of big data, a time when information moves faster than ever, and infographics provide us with quick, often influential bursts of insight and knowledge. They are a mesmerizing new way of seeing and understanding our world”, says Gareth Cook, Pulitzer Prize-winning science journalist and series editor of the Best American Infographics.

In Cook’s latest book, Best American Infographics 2013, a melange of examples show the different ways infographics can be used to portray data, statistics, facts, information and reports effectively. Those featured range from mapping ocean noise and New York’s carbon emissions, to gun ownership rates by country and the anatomy of speed.

Increasingly in science, infographics are being used to break down and simplify complex messages. “Science is a field where infographics are particularly useful and powerful, because there is so much drama, but it’s often hidden from human eyes or difficult to comprehend, says Cook. “Our quest to understand space is a great example of this – with distances and forces so large it’s hard for the average person to make sense of what has been discovered. What is it like to land on Mars? How alone are we in the Milky Way, truly? These are questions that demand visual answers.”