ON TOPIC
The Color of
Science
Graphic courtesy of Kenneth Moreland.
By Julia Buntaine
Editor-in-Chief
Color is something that cannot be ignored.
It may be overlooked, it may be non-essential,
it may be happenstance to a given image or
object, and the difference between wearing
a blue versus a purple dress to your prom
probably did not make or break your night;
however, color always has an effect. Everything
from food choice to purchasing behavior to
mood is invariably affected by color—it is
indeed everywhere. People dress in the colors
they like, paint their walls colors they find
pleasing, change their Gmail backgrounds
to colors they enjoy; colors are such an
inherent part of our existence, and so easily
customizable, that it is easy to take them for
granted. What is interesting is when color
is forced upon people without any specific
aesthetic consideration, and if you take a
moment you will think of many instances
where this occurs (the sickly yellow color of
your office walls, your ski jacket which is warm
but eye-blinding orange). This point is most
felt by artists, whose worlds revolve around
aesthetic considerations. So what happens when
aesthetics are not a priority in the visual realm,
as with the case of scientific visualizations?
Scientists use color as a tool in the same way
that artists do; scientific visualizations serve to
graphically represent data in order to enable
SciArt in America February 2014
scientists to examine, interact with, and gain
insight into their research. Visualizations can
also illuminate things that scientists wouldn’t
otherwise be able to find in their data, as is
evidenced by the work of molecular biologist
Jeremy Nathans of Johns Hopkins University,
who is able to investigate the X chromosomes'
parental origin and pattern of inactivation
by marking active X chromosomes with
fluorescent proteins. In the retinal sample, the
left and right retinas of a mouse light up red
and green, and I have to ask myself: how much
of my personal context of having grown up
celebrating Christmas, and being indoctrinated
on a yearly basis via advertising that red and
green equals Christmas equals presents, is
part of my enjoyment of this image? To the
point—are artfully minded visualizations the
ones that tell us the most, because we want to
pay more attention to them? And if this is true,
should scientific visualization make aesthetics a
priority?
To get at this question, we first have to
talk about our relationship with color. While
there is a robust amount of research in color
physiology, color physics, and many speculations
about color in the realm of evolutionary biology
(is green a “nice” color because it is the color of
vegetation, which can feed and sustain my
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