Science is always seen as hard- core andhard to understand. But could you imagine hun-dreds of people being captivated by the coverof a science magazine？ The achievement wascompleted after Wang Yixi and his team madethe cover of an October issue of Structure. aUS-based Cell Press journal.

The cover shows a Chinese ink painting ofa farmer leading an ox across a bridge， fol-lowed by a boy with a bamboo basket on hisback. In addition to the jelly fish and lotusflowers in the river under the bridge， chemicalcompounds and elemental structures were high-lighted and weaved into the picture.

It vividly depicts the process in which aspecial enzyme involved in the biosynthesis ofan important organic compound is activatedthe latest breakthrough by a Chinese scientificresearch team.

The drawing was one of many works byWang and his team. Over the past four years，they have come up with more than 10.000 visu-al works for academic papers across a varieof fields.

While studying chemistry at university，Wang said that he often came across an experi-mental preparation process that he had to ex-plain， but the amount of text was too large andabstract. That' s why he later ran Xixizhiyancompany to turn graphics into fine art.

\"What we do is to visualize abstract con-cepts and help scientific researchers demon-strate their findings in a straightforward and dis-tinctive way\"， said Wang， now in his 30s.

Wang said that many science journalshave allowed. and even encouraged， paper au-thors to come up with such illustrations. Therapidly rising number of Chinese scientific pa-pers has resulted in increased demand fromChinese scientists who want illustrations fortheir work to carry distinctive Chinese elements.

\"The most popular cultural elements in-clude tai chi and peony flowers . as well as theMonkey King and other figures from classicChinese literature works\"， Wang said.

Since many Western editors or paper re-viewers might not be familiar with someChinese elements， Wang recommends that hisclients submit certain introductory words ex-plaining the drawings， such as how they are as-sociated with the science.

\"It' s fulfilling whenever we produce aspecial piece of work that combines cutting-edge scientific findings and traditional Chineseculture that meets the expectations of theclient.\" Wang said.

科學(xué)總是被認(rèn)為是硬核且難以理解的。但你能想象成百上千的人被一本科學(xué)雜志的封面迷住嗎？這一成果是在王義西及其團(tuán)隊(duì)制作完10月份美國科技期刊《細(xì)胞·結(jié)構(gòu)》封面后達(dá)成的。

封面展示了一幅中國水墨畫。畫中一位農(nóng)夫牽著一頭牛過橋，后面還跟著一個(gè)背著竹籃的男孩。除了橋下河里的水母和蓮花以外，化合物和元素結(jié)構(gòu)也被加以強(qiáng)調(diào)并加入到畫面中。

它生動(dòng)地描繪了一個(gè)重要的有機(jī)化合物的生物合成過程，在這一過程中一種特殊的酶會(huì)起到重要作用——這是一個(gè)中國科研團(tuán)隊(duì)的最新突破。

這幅畫是王義西及其團(tuán)隊(duì)的眾多作品之一。在過去的四年里，他們?yōu)楦鱾€(gè)領(lǐng)域的學(xué)術(shù)論文創(chuàng)作了超過10，000個(gè)視覺作品。

王先生說，在大學(xué)學(xué)化學(xué)時(shí)，他經(jīng)常遇到需要解釋的實(shí)驗(yàn)準(zhǔn)備過程，但文字量太大且抽象。這就是他后來選擇經(jīng)營西西智研公司的原因，將圖表轉(zhuǎn)化為美術(shù)。

“我們所做的就是將抽象概念可視化，幫助科研人員以一種簡單而獨(dú)特的方式展示他們的發(fā)現(xiàn)”，現(xiàn)年30多歲的王義西說。

王先生表示，許多科學(xué)期刊都允許甚至鼓勵(lì)論文作者創(chuàng)作出這樣的插圖。中國科學(xué)論文數(shù)量的迅速增長使得中國科學(xué)家的需求不斷增加，他們希望自己的作品插圖帶有獨(dú)特的中國元素。

“最受歡迎的文化元素包括太極和牡丹花，以及孫悟空和其他中國古典文學(xué)作品中的人物”，王先生說。

由于許多西方編輯或論文審稿人可能不熟悉某些中國元素，王義西建議他的客戶提交一些解釋插圖的介紹性文字，比如它們是如何與科學(xué)相聯(lián)系的。

“每當(dāng)我們創(chuàng)作出一件尖端科學(xué)發(fā)現(xiàn)和中國傳統(tǒng)文化相結(jié)合的獨(dú)特作品，滿足客戶的期望時(shí)，我們都會(huì)很有成就感?！蓖跸壬f。

選自《21世紀(jì)英文報(bào)》