The National Science Foundation announced the winners of its 2009 Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge, which are quite stunning. I’m always fascinated by the means of representation used to communicate incredibly complex ideas, especially when those representations are as successful and intriguing as these.

Among the winners, an 3.5 meter tall installation using over 75,000 zipties, created by the University of Pennsylvania’s Sabin + Jones LabStudio, to illustrate “…the unseen beauty and dynamic relationships that exist between endothelial cells and their surrounding extracellular microenvironment,”.

As well, the NSF is announcing this year’s International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge and imploring scientists, researchers, engineers and the like to continue the tradition of using images and visual displays to communicate the ever-growing understanding of our world.

Some of science’s most powerful statements are not made in words. From the diagrams of DaVinci to Rosalind Franklin’s x-rays, visualization of research has a long and literally illustrious history. To illustrate is to enlighten.

How many people would have heard of fractal geometry or the double helix or solar flares if they had been described solely in words? In a world where science literacy is dismayingly rare, illustrations provide the most immediate and influential connection between scientists and other citizens, and the best hope for nurturing popular interest. Indeed, they are now a necessity for public understanding of research developments.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) and Science created the International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge to celebrate that grand tradition–and to encourage its continued growth. The spirit of the competition is for communicating science, engineering and technology for education and journalistic purposes.