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Information Science Bounds and Vision Atlas of Science Visualizing What We Know by Katy Börner MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2010. 266 pp. $$29.95, £22.95. ISBN 9780262014458. 1. Mason A. Porter + Author Affiliations 1. The reviewer is at the Oxford Centre for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3LB, UK, and at the CABDyN Complexity Centre and Somerville College, University of Oxford. 1. E-mail: porterm@maths.ox.ac.uk Visualization is a crucial but underappreciated part of science. As venues like the American Physical Society's Gallery of Fluid Motion and Gallery of Nonlinear Images illustrate every year, good visuals can make science more beautiful, more artistic, more tangible, and often more discernible. Katy Börner's continuing exhibition Places & Spaces: Mapping Science (1) and her book Atlas of Science: Visualizing What We Know arise from a similar spirit but are much more ambitious. Visualization is one of the most compelling aspects of science. Breathtaking visuals from sources like fractals and Disneyland's long-dead "Adventure Thru Inner Space" ride are what originally inspired me toward my personal scientific path, so I welcome any resource that promises to bring the visual joys of discovery to a wide audience. Importantly, Börner's exhibition and book are not mere artistic manifestations, although they would be impressive accomplishments even if that were her only goal. Some scientists have occasionally had great success in the visual arts; for example, physicist Eric Heller has long exhibited the gorgeous fruits of his research on quantum chaos and other topics (2). To fully appreciate Börner's efforts, however, one must be conscious that she is deeply concerned not just with visualization itself but with the science of visualization. Accordingly, her book discusses the history of the science of visualization, where it is now, and where she thinks it can go. Atlas of Scie

Science 8 July 2011: Vol. 333 no. 6039 pp. 173-175 Galaxy Zoo Volunteers Share Pain and Glory of Research 1. Daniel Clery A project to "crowdsource" galactic classifications has paid off in ways the astronomers who started it never expected. Figure View larger version: * In this page * In a new window Space oddity. Greenish "voorwerp" spotted by a Dutch volunteer still intrigues scientists. "CREDIT: NASA, ESA, W. KEEL (UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA), AND THE GALAXY ZOO TEAM" The automated surveys that are becoming increasingly common in astronomy are producing an embarrassment of riches for researchers. Projects such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) are generating so much data that, in some cases, astronomers don't know what to do with them all. SDSS has compiled a list of more than 1 million galaxies. To glean information about galaxy evolution, however, astronomers need to know what type of galaxy each one is: spiral, barred spiral, elliptical, or something else. At present, the only reliable way to classify galaxies is to look at each one. But the SDSS list is so long that all the world's astronomers working together couldn't muster enough eyeballs for the task. Enter the "wisdom of crowds." An online effort called Galaxy Zoo, launched in 2007, set a standard for citizen-scientist participation projects. Zealous volunteers astonished the project's organizers by classifying the entire catalog years ahead of schedule. The results have brought real statistical rigor to a field used to samples too small to support firm conclusions. But that's not all. Buoyed by the curiosity and dedication of the volunteers, the Galaxy Zoo team went on to ask more-complicated classification questions that led to studies they hadn't thought possible. And in an online discussion forum on the Galaxy Zoo Web site, volunteers have pointed to anomalies that on closer inspection have turned out to be genuinely new astronomical objects. "I'm incredibly impres

December 18, 2012 The Ten Best Ocean Stories of 2012 | | | Share on redditReddit | Share on diggDigg | Share on stumbleuponStumble | Share on emailEmail | More Sharing ServicesMore Two market squids mating 2012 was a big year for squid science. Photo Credit: © Brian Skerry, www.brianskerry.com Despite covering 70 percent of the earth's surface, the ocean doesn't often make it into the news. But when it does, it makes quite a splash (so to speak). Here are the top ten ocean stories we couldn't stop talking about this year, in no particular order. Add your own in the comments! 2012: The Year of the Squid From the giant squid's giant eyes (the better to see predatory sperm whales, my dear), to the vampire squid's eerie diet of remains and feces, the strange adaptations and behavior of these cephalopods amazed us all year. Scientists found a deep-sea squid that dismembers its own glowing arm to distract predators and make a daring escape. But fascinating findings weren't relegated to the deep: at the surface, some squids will rocket themselves above the waves to fly long distances at top speeds. James Cameron Explores the Deep Sea Filmmaker James Cameron has never shied away from marine movie plots (See: Titanic, The Abyss), but this year he showed he was truly fearless, becoming the first person to hit the deepest point on the seafloor (35,804 feet) in a solo submarine. While he only managed to bring up a single mud sample from the deepest region, he found thriving biodiversity in the other deep-sea areas his expedition explored, including giant versions of organisms found in shallow water. Schooling sardines form a "bait ball." Small fish, such as these schooling sardines, received well-deserved attention for being an important part of the food chain in 2012. Photo Credit: © Erwin Poliakoff, Flickr Small Fish Make a Big Impact Forage fish-small, schooling fish that are gulped down by predators-should be left in the ocean for larger fish, marin

"Time lapse footage taken by Oregon State University alum Don Pettit during his time on the International Space Station. This one shows Earth from day to night. Watch the other eight time lapse videos from space http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list... science"

We know climate change can affect us, but does climate change alter something as vast, deep and mysterious as our oceans? For years, scientists have studied the world's oceans by sending out ships and divers, deploying data-gathering buoys, and by taking aerial measurements from planes. But one of the better ways to understand oceans is to gain an even broader perspective - the view from space. NASA's Earth observing satellites do more than just take pictures of our planet. High-tech sensors gather data, including ocean surface temperature, surface winds, sea level, circulation, and even marine life. Information the satellites obtain help us understand the complex interactions driving the world's oceans today - and gain valuable insight into how the impacts of climate change on oceans might affect us on dry land.

Measuring a Moving Glacier, from "Earth in Space"