Graphic details : a scientific study of the importance of diagrams to science (2016)
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- Dr Howe and his colleagues do, however, believe that the study of diagrams can result in new insights. A figure showing new metabolic pathways in a cell, for example, may summarise hundreds of experiments. Since illustrations can convey important scientific concepts in this way, they think that browsing through related figures from different papers may help researchers come up with new theories. As Dr Howe puts it, "the unit of scientific currency is closer to the figure than to the paper." With this thought in mind, the team have created a website (viziometrics.org (http://viziometrics.org/) ) where the millions of images sorted by their program can be searched using key words. Their next plan is to extract the information from particular types of scientific figure, to create comprehensive "super" figures: a giant network of all the known chemical processes in a cell for example, or the best-available tree of life. At just one such superfigure per paper, though, the citation records of articles containing such all-embracing diagrams may very well undermine the correlation that prompted their creation in the first place. Call it the ultimate marriage of chart and science.
