Infographic Competition: Visualizing the Scale of the Brain

President Obama’s BRAIN Initiative has brought brain mapping to the forefront of popular science. But what does it mean to map the brain?

One human brain contains seven orders of magnitude of spatial complexity and at least 10 orders of temporal magnitude. These numbers are hard to fathom so MIT’s EyeWire has teamed up with FEI and Visually to launch a “Scale of the Brain” Infographic Competition. Entries should visualize spatial scales in the brain.

Judges

• Elise Andrew (I F*ing Love Science)
• Jen Christiansen (Scientific American)
• Christopher Jobson (Colossal)
• Derek Muller (Veritasium)
• Maria Popova (Brainpickings)
• Sebastian Seung (Neuroscientist, EyeWire, MIT)
• Logan Smalley (TED-Ed)
• Mackenzie Thomas (Google+)
• Bradley Voytek (Neuroscientist, UCSD)

Prizes

1st:

• Trip to MIT (Spring/Summer 2014) hotel+flight up to $1,400 – Sponsored by FEI
• Dinner with EyeWire HQ
• Tour of MIT Brain and Cognitive Science Department + MIT Media Lab
• Signed copy of Connectome
• Emotiv EPOC Headset
• $500 cash – Sponsored by FEI

2nd: $200 – Sponsored by FEI

3rd: $100 – Sponsored by FEI

Criteria

Judges will grade entries on the following criteria:

Information is represented accurately and communicated clearly. Sources for additional information not in the creative brief should be included according to best practices (use original sources whenever possible).

Story/layout is engaging and insightful, helping to pull the viewer through the graphic.

The infographic’s design should be attractive and captivating without detracting from the communication of the information. Illustrations, layout, font, and color choices are all important.

Each judge gets 10 points per category. All categories are totaled for each group. Totals from each judge are averaged together. Highest average wins.

Licensing

All entries to the competition should be licensed under creative commons so that the entries may be used in whole or part as educational materials anywhere. The creative commons attribution 4.0 sign should be included somewhere on the design.

Logos

The winning entries will be asked to add the logos of FEI, EyeWire and Visually, along with their own logo or name.

Submissions

Send all submissions as links or attachments to contest@visual.ly before April 30th at Midnight, PDT.

Questions about the contest can also be directed to that email address.

Schedule

• Submission Deadline: April 30
• Judging: May 9
• Winner Announced: May 15

Creative Brief

The spatial scale of the brain ranges from meters to nanometers, with plenty of gradations in between. This quick summary will get you started, and these images are a great visual reference.

ORIGINAL: Visually

by Visually

Under the covers (Nature revealed) – Week 8

In week eight of the Of Schemes and Memes blog series, which features weekly interviews with the art team at Nature, Art Director Kelly Krause explains this week’s front cover choice.


Caption:
CRISPR/Cas9-based DNA targeting has quickly become a leading tool in the fields of synthetic biology and genome engineering. It exploits the ability of a bacterial endonuclease, Cas9, guided by an RNA molecule, to target virtually any matching DNA sequence of interest for binding and/or cleavage. A study published in this issue of Nature reports the use of single-molecule and bulk biochemical experiments to reveal the mechanism by which RNA-guided Cas9 locates unique 20-base-pair sequences within DNA genomes, which can be billions of base pairs long.

The results highlight the role of a trinucleotide protospacer adjacent motif (PAM; yellow in the cover image) in recruiting Cas9–RNA complexes to potential DNA target sites, and in catalytically activating the nuclease (outlined in brown). Target DNA sequences are recognized via a ‘zip-up‘ mechanism, where the sequential formation of RNA–DNA base pairs (red) offsets the energetic cost of unwinding the DNA double helix (purple and blue). In addition to its relevance for gene manipulation, this work reveals how DNA is interrogated by Cas9–RNA in its role as an effector of adaptive immunity in bacteria. Cover: K.C. Roeyer.

PAM sequences recruit and activate Cas9 endonuclease in CRISPR/Cas9 genome-editing tool.

From the Art Desk:

Art Director, Kelly Krause, explains:

“This cover is a fantastic example of visual storytelling. We can see the CRISPR process going on in the centre, with a real sense of action and movement, as well as the manipulated genes in the background, giving a sense of time and context.

“The artist has done a wonderful job of conveying a complex process simply and beautifully, using colour and composition to convey key information.”

For additional behind the scenes commentary each week, check out Nature Graphics Tumblr and last week’s Under the Covers on Quantum droplets.

ORIGINAL: Nature
by Alex Jackson
07 Mar 2014