Stories by Jen Christiansen

Connected scatter plots highlight differences between disease-resilient and high-risk patients

Learning from Scientific American’s 171 years of covering advances in printing technology

From hallucinogenic-like DeepDream composites to mesmerizing style-transfer videos, visuals provide an engaging entry point to the world of machine learning

Graphics from the Scientific American archive provide a glimpse of the history and science of pyrotechnics

What are epigenetic modifications, and how might they play out across generations?

Animation shows how a moon jelly propels itself using spinning wheels of water

Do you think it was the issue with the article on “Marihuana”? Mysteries from the inside cover of Hooteroll?

Efforts to learn more about the mosquito that transmits Zika have resulted in a new visualization, but what does it show?

An Article on Graphics in the Time of Cholera Prompts a Review of the Scientific American Archive

Early schematics by Jane Richardson lay the foundation for her ubiquitous ribbon diagrams

A visit to the Rufus Porter Museum reveals the restless creativity of Scientific American’s founder—from hand-painted murals to DIY science experiments and self-published treatises

A graph that plots rising CO₂ over the decades has always been a lesser known icon in demonstrating the reality of global warming.

News graphics professionals converged in Pamplona, Spain for the 23rd annual Malofiej Information Graphics World Summit for one week last month.

In the May issue of Scientific American, a familiar friend makes an appearance: a chart of fundamental particles. These particles—fermions (which include constituents of matter such as electrons and quarks) and bosons (usually carriers of force)—are at the very heart of the Standard Model of particle physics.

When it comes to developing an illustrated information graphic, sometimes you don’t really know what sorts of details you’re going to need until you dive in and start drawing.

Sure, I was familiar with the graphic—and I’m not alone. Drop this image (right) on someone’s desk and chances are they’ll reflexively blurt, “Joy Division.” The band’s 1979 Unknown Pleasures album cover leaned entirely on a small mysterious data display, printed in white on black.

As a graphics designer, I have a love/hate relationship with circles. The humble form provides a relief from rigid rectangular chart structures that are pinned to x- and y-axes.

Every so often, beauty comes up as a topic of conversation in editorial meetings at Scientific American. Surely there’s an article, or series of articles that we can develop on the topic?

Perhaps the tweet below from editor-in-chief Mariette DiChristina last weekend shouldn’t have been a surprise. After all, I knew that Rufus Porter, founding editor and publisher of Scientific American, was a well-rounded fellow.

Every graphic is a new adventure. Some of our magazine articles involve abstract concepts that require lots of time and energy at the front-end, making decisions about what, exactly should be illustrated.

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the launch of NASA’s Mariner IV spacecraft (November 28, 1964). In total, the mission gave us 21 complete images of Mars, including this, our first close view of the planet—courtesy of data transmitted by the interplanetary probe and earth-bound scientists wielding pastels (below).

We've come a long way since NASA's Mariner 4