![]() In some ways, the role of images in science publishing hasn’t changed much over the past 150 years. For instance, in 1896, Nature published physicist Wilhelm Röntgen’s first X-ray plates 1 in the 1920s, maps to debate Alfred Wegener’s theory of continental drift 2 and in 1968, the graphs that described astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell Burnell’s discovery of pulsars 3. Over the years, Nature adapted through its succession of editors, with, in recent decades, ‘sister’ journals carving out their own space in increasingly specialized scientific disciplines. The banner, if not the subtitle, remained on Nature’s front page until just after the Second World War. ![]() (The artist might have been engraver James Davis Cooper, who illustrated Charles Darwin’s 1872 book Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals.) Under the masthead were the words ‘A Weekly Illustrated Journal of Science’. When it came on the market in November 1869, Nature stated its commitment to the visual with a beautifully drawn masthead showing Earth emerging from clouds. Thus, communicating research has always been predicated on combining image and text to share discoveries, ideas and observations. It pivots on the material - whether that is an atom, a gene, a crystal, a whale or a distant galaxy. Science is a fundamentally visual endeavour. ![]() ![]() Norman Lockyer’s figure of a solar spectrum, published in the first issue of Nature. ![]()
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