Happy New Year!

This year I resolve to get better at, and do more, 3D animations like the one below, which just came out as a supplement to a paper published in the January issue of the Journal of General Physiology. 

What I love most about animation is when a question arises in the making of one that gives the researchers pause, requiring them to think about the data in a way they hadn't before, or to take a deeper look at some aspect of their model. When you have to know not only how, but also when and where and in what order things happen, this can open up new questions and perhaps even spur future experiments. This functionality of illustration and animation doesn't get talked about as much as their important role in the communication of science, but perhaps it should. Many animators of science before me have figured this out, and are doing amazing things to pursue such avenues, including Janet Iwasa, Gaël McGill, and Graham Johnson, just to name a few.