he issue’s front cover:
This is a very artistic cover, which resembles the impressionist art style from the 19th century. Basically, the artist has marked the areas of brain that correspond to the different functions of the brain with the dots with different colors. The pallet, the black background and the white font are a trademark of the Science magazine. However, if one can be a bit picky, they would add that the total form of the supposed brain does not resemble a brain at all. The artist could have been more careful with the lines, so that the audience would feel no need to check the caption to make sure of their interpretation of the cover.
Now, our selected paper
For this week, we have selected the paper:
Nanofiber embedded bioinspired strong wet friction surface
The paper focuses on developing hierarchical fibrous pillars covered with thin films. The result is a drop in interfacial separation stress and more stable and larger nano-liquid bridges. They used the result architecture to hypothesize about a versatile wearable!
Analyzing graphics
This science paper is a good example of effective communication through pictures. Take the following figure as an example. You can easily understand what the authors are trying to say without actually having the caption. Here, you can see the interface stabilizing the frog and the cricket, and the surface where the friction resides. The colors used for the final section have a distinguished contrast.
The same effective trend of visualization goes throughout the paper. Look at the figure below; you can see the rectangular borders dividing the relevant diagrams from the others. However, the segment (A) could have used a better-quality picture for the Science Advances journal.
Verdict
The Nanofiber embedded bioinspired strong wet friction surface by Guo et al. is a prime example of effective use of graphics in science journals. Their figures are not the highest quality, or an artwork by a professional artist. However, this should not be understood as an insult. It is a complement! They managed to be effective with a simple, all-round use of space and color palette for which they should be commended!
You can read their paper here