{"id":10125,"date":"2014-03-14T17:16:28","date_gmt":"2014-03-14T17:16:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/ofschemesandmemes\/?p=10125"},"modified":"2014-03-14T17:20:08","modified_gmt":"2014-03-14T17:20:08","slug":"under-the-covers-nature-revealed-14-march-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/ofschemesandmemes\/2014\/03\/14\/under-the-covers-nature-revealed-14-march-2014","title":{"rendered":"Under the covers (Nature revealed) – 14 March 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this week’s Under the covers (Nature revealed) blog,\u00a0which features weekly interviews with the art team at\u00a0Nature<\/a>,\u00a0<\/i>Art Director Kelly Krause explains the thinking behind this week\u2019s creative front cover choice on microfluids.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Caption:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Microfluidics exploits the properties of fluids trapped in submillimetre-scale spaces \u2014 the physics behind inkjet printing, DNA microarrays, lab-on-a-chip chemistry and much else \u2014 to useful practical effect. In the past decade microfluidic devices have shown considerable promise in diagnostics and primary research in the biological sciences.<\/p>\n

In a Review\u00a0t<\/span>his week<\/a>, Eric Sackmann, Anna Fulton and David Beebe analyse the progress seen in lab-on-a-chip microtechnologies in recent years and discuss the clinical and research areas in which they have made \u2014 and may make \u2014 the greatest impact. Cover: Jasiek Krzysztofiak\/Nature.<\/p>\n

\"Lab-on-a-chip<\/a>

Lab-on-a-chip technologies in biomedical research and diagnostics.<\/p><\/div>\n

From the Art Desk:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Art Director, Kelly Krause, explains:<\/p>\n

“When we decided to feature the microfluidics Review on the cover, the question facing us was: photography or illustration? There are some fascinating devices out there, so photography could have worked. We reached out to one of the authors, David Beebe, for image suggestions, and he pointed out that it might be more appropriate to do an illustration rather than showing one specific technology in a photograph.”<\/p>\n

Beebe says: “Impact will likely come in many areas\/fields of research or conversely there is unlikely to be a single ‘killer application’ . . . And we don’t want to convey a bunch of gee whiz cool widgets, rather that the field is moving now towards practical implementation and real impact.”<\/p>\n

Beebe sent over a quick sketch of how we might take a more conceptual, illustrative approach below.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Krause: “We took Beebe’s advice and concentrated on doing an illustrated concept cover, to convey\u00a0the idea of a field of science that is moving towards a more practical phase, with many solutions. \u00a0I gave the brief to one of the designers in Nature’s art team, Jasiek Krzysztofiak, who\u00a0\u00a0came up with the brilliant idea of using a Swiss army knife as a metaphor.<\/p>\n

“This final art shows a generic microfluid chip design, as the base of the ‘knife’ (in red), with the familiar tools of the Swiss army knife completing the visual. The blue wavy background is a clever nod to the presence of fluids.”<\/p>\n

For additional behind the scenes commentary each week, check out\u00a0Nature Graphics Tumblr<\/a>\u00a0and last week\u2019s\u00a0Under the Covers<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0CRISPR\/Cas9-based DNA targeting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this week\u2019s Under the covers (Nature revealed) blog,\u00a0which features weekly interviews with the art team at\u00a0Nature,\u00a0Art Director Kelly Krause explains the thinking behind this week\u2019s creative front cover choice on microfluids.  Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39023,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,27,161,167,19,1],"tags":[165,171,163],"class_list":["post-10125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-communities-happenings","category-featured","category-nature-covers","category-nature-graphics","category-science-communication-and-outreach","category-uncategorized","tag-art","tag-graphics","tag-nature-covers-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/ofschemesandmemes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/ofschemesandmemes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/ofschemesandmemes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/ofschemesandmemes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39023"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/ofschemesandmemes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/ofschemesandmemes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10125\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/ofschemesandmemes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/ofschemesandmemes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/ofschemesandmemes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}