Science Visualization Winners

Science Magazine recently announced the award winners of their International Science and Engineering 2011 Visualization Challenge, recognizing art that portrays phenomena that can't be seen by the naked eye.


One of the finalists in the illustration category was "Tumor Death — Cell Receptors on Breast Cancer Cell" by Emiko Paul. Science magazine says that Paul deliberately designed the image to look like something from a Lovecraft novel or a horror movie:

"This image, modeled using 3D software then painted in Adobe Photoshop, depicts the war on cancer in a manner that makes clear who the bad guys are. Paul drew on microscopic images of breast cancer cells—seen here looking like creatures with long tentacles—for inspiration. But her illustration also depicts a possible weapon against these malignant tissues: an antibody developed by researchers at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, called TRA-8 (the green, globular structures)."

Another finalist was Joel Brehm's "Variable-Diameter Carbon Nanotubes." These tiny structures are far too small to see with the naked eye or even to photograph under a microscope, so the image is entirely constructed. Science reports:

"The tricky part, Brehm says, was making the nanotubes look small even though they'd been blown up to poster size. To do that, he added a granular texture to the honeycombed stalks and also brightened their edges. Those small touches, he says, made the tubes look more like objects viewed through an electron microscope."

--------
Science Magazine's Illustration winners
More on Joel Brehm