Beautiful Seaweed

Seaweed never looked so good. The slimy hunks of seaweed that wash up on beaches may seem light-years distant from this feathery image of Irish moss (Chondrus crispus), but they're one and the same.

"If you pull Chondrus out of the ocean, it's folded on itself—really curled up," said Andrea Ottesen, a botanist and molecular ecologist at the University of Maryland in College Park. It wasn't until after she had "pressed every one of those little ends down with sea stones" and left it to dry for 2 days that the seaweed's simple shape was revealed.

Ottesen created the image and won a tie for first place in the National Science Foundation's fifth annual International Science and Technology Visualization Challenge. Illustrators, photographers, computer programmers and graphics specialists from around the world were invited to submit visualizations that would intrigue, explain and educate.

"Breakthroughs in science and engineering are often portrayed in movies and literature as 'ah-ha!' moments. What these artists and communicators have given us are similar experiences, showing us how bats fly or how nicotine becomes physically addictive," said Jeff Nesbit, director of NSF's Office of Legislative and Public Affairs. "We look at their visualizations, and we understand."

—LiveScience Staff

Credit: Andrea Ottesen, University of Maryland

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