科研绘图 || NATURE说：完美的图给完美的你，让你的文章越看越有趣。
"If you've got a good story you want to get out there，
and you've got a really good image,
it will fly a lot farther than just words."
完美的图给完美的你，
你的文章越看越有趣。
也没有什么深刻的道理，
你的图胜过千言和万语。
下面，小编尝试着用古诗体来翻译一下这篇NATURE文章。
水平有限，不合之处，敬请见谅！
原文：
On canvas, a 390-million-year-old forest springs to life. Massive tree trunks jut into a sunlit clearing from a crowded forest floor. Stubby green branches battle with frilly leaf-like filaments to touch the pink-tinged sky. Palaeobotanist Chris Berry had worked for years with samples from the Gilboa Fossil Forest in New York, but had never before seen what the living forest might have looked like so many millennia ago.
Dubbed 'Lost Worlds', the digital oil painting was created by Victor Leshyk to accompany a 2012 research paper in Nature by Berry and his colleagues (W. E. Stein et al. Nature 483, 78–81; 2012). It was commissioned to appear on the cover of the journal and Berry features it in his talks today, especially those for lay audiences.
译文：
一晃已近四亿年，深埋地底不见天。
今朝画家泼颜色，昨日重现深林间。
巨树千均拔地起，长藤百褶绕枝缠。
头耀粉色艳日彩，身随绿浪着斑斓。
贝里依依别时梦，莱西历历出笔端。
洛阳纸贵传名画，自然擢引作封面。
化石满地曾经树，基利波森再不眠。
根据克里斯·贝里(Chris Berry)博士的素描手稿（左），科学插画家维克托·莱西(Victor Leshyk)创作的Gilboa化石森林的还原图（Nature封面，右）。Nature 2016, 534, 285-287。
原文：
It was Berry's first experience in teaming up with a scientific illustrator, and Leshyk's work exceeded his expectations. “It was very prestigious for us to have it on the cover, and the image proved very good for engagement and outreach,” he says. Berry, who is based at the University of Cardiff, UK, has collaborated with artists twice since then, for press releases and museum exhibitions that involve his research, and he is discussing a second project with Leshyk. “If you've got a story you want to get out there and you've got a really good image,” he says, “it will fly a lot farther than just words.”
The use of striking images to accompany manuscripts and outreach efforts is growing as more journal publishers are requiring graphical abstracts — depictions of a paper's main thrust or concept — to accompany studies. These commissioned illustrations differ from the everyday photograph, sketch or overview figure that usually accompanies research manuscripts or talks. They get to the core of concepts; they may also depict unobservable phenomena, ranging from subatomic particles to what extinct life forms might have looked like. Although working on such images with an illustrator might seem like a lot of extra toil, and paying for their services extravagant, the benefits of skilled artistic presentation can be manifold.
Visually stunning representations that result from collaborations between scientists and artists can grab millions of online views, and attract a much wider audience than a non-illustrated paper, both of which are particularly useful for researchers whose grant applications or funding proposals require them to show a public-outreach component. They are also more likely to be written about and shared digitally, helping to raise the visibility of a scientist's work, attract more students to a lab, boost career standing and improve chances of garnering funding. They can even inspire new experiments — or reveal gaps in knowledge.
译文：
人如贝里颇普遍，只因未见画如幻。
自此贝里渐疯癫，但求好画不吝钱。
旦有文章待发表，顷刻必将莱西延。
杂志竞相争明艳，不限图摘与封面，
巨若恐龙罹灾变，微至原子湮没间。
咬牙一掷竟三千，惟妙惟肖如亲见。
科学插上艺术翅，便化凤凰绕人间。
千门曈曈尽举目，万户嚷嚷来点赞。
方才一掷小三千，回头经费数百万。
完美插图实难得，名利双收尽欢颜。
恐龙（非本文图）
原文：
Even when photographs or images already exist, hand-rendered or digital illustrations and 3D animations can clarify and enhance the technical details of a key data point or finding — exactly how proteins latch onto the surface of DNA, for example, or the shape of butterfly larvae that are usually hidden in leaf litter. Scientists who want to examine their research question or findings more fully, to 'see' their data or to provide a pictorial boost to their manuscript should consider teaming up with an illustrator. Scientific artists can also help to create artwork for a project's website, or explain hard-to-grasp concepts with short videos.
Most such collaborations begin when researchers are writing a paper, but it can be helpful to start even earlier (see 'Turn science into art'). Discussing with an artist how best to depict a mechanism or process — what to include and exclude, how molecules, stars or fossils should be positioned relative to one another — can help researchers to hone their hypothesis, reveal points of disagreement between authors and even identify holes in understanding.
数码照片如亲临，电镜可把原子现。
皆不能道我所思，亦不能尽我所念。
蛋白精确附核酸，蝴蝶隐约碎叶间？
星空苍茫灯万盏，如何能见银河盘？
学者若能思长远，还应多与画家暄。
科学深奥人难懂，艺术传达幼儿谈。
莫等文章莫等闲，趁早来与画家攀。
分子机制难描诉，云遮心思雾绕眼。
画家一问一答间，星星坠落化石现。
胸中丘壑透水出，灵感穿雾忽如电。
原文：
Scientific illustration can encapsulate information that is not easily or often conveyed by text, line drawings or simple graphics. But it can also be used when direct imagery such as photographs are impractical or even impossible. Biologist Jessica Linton, who works with the Canadian consulting firm Natural Resource Solutions in Waterloo, was working on a recovery strategy for the endangered mottled duskywing butterfly (Erynnis martialis) when she realized that there were no available images of the creature's microscopic eggs and pupae, which tend to be buried in soil under leaf litter, and are extremely difficult to photograph.
Armed with scientific descriptions, she turned to illustrator Emily Damstra, whom she had met through a local butterfly enthusiasts' group. Damstra's illustrations — which are now included in the Ontario government's policy document outlining the recovery strategy — received enthusiastic appreciation from butterfly researchers and ecologists.
“Making data into art takes skill,” Berry says. “If I had the resources, I would always hire an illustrator.”
译文：
文字枯燥表格板，数据照片也为难。
科学插图何所用，杰西很有发言权。
一心挽救濒危蝶，卵蛹却在泥土间。
又有落叶三千层，报告数据愁难展。
幸有画家艾米莉，寥寥数笔插图现。
杰西欢欣受鼓舞，插图飞速入文件。
数据需要艺术化，科学需要插画家。
贝里曾经放衷言，好文还须配好画。
HIV分子结构图示意图可以让科学家更清晰地认识HIV
END
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