Maayan Harel 🟣 Visual storytelling for science

I help scientists use visuals to communicate their work. Figure design workshop. #denisovans #sciart #coverart
@maayanvisuals.bsky.social

[Maayan Harel 🟣 Visual storytelling for science @maayanvisuals]

Here are a few of the graphics that scientists are regularly asked to make:

Visual Abstracts
Posters
Experiment setups
Schematics
Presentation slides

Did your university ever provide you with any design training? @AcademicChatter #AcademicTwitter #phd

[Elara Grace @ElaraGrace_AI]

🚨Just IN: If you've used ChatGPT for writing or brainstorming in the last 6 months, your creative ability may already be permanently damaged.

A controlled experiment just proved the effect doesn't reverse when you stop using it.

3,302 creative ideas. 61 people. 30 days of tracking.

Researchers split students into two groups. Half used ChatGPT for creative tasks. Half worked alone. For five days, the ChatGPT group outperformed on every metric. Higher scores. More ideas. Better output. AI was making them better.

Then day 7. ChatGPT removed. Every creativity gain vanished overnight. Crashed to baseline. Zero lasting improvement.

But that's not the bad part.

ChatGPT users' ideas became increasingly identical to each other over time. Same content. Same structure. Same phrasing. The researchers called it homogenization. Everyone using ChatGPT started producing the same ideas wearing different clothes.

When ChatGPT was removed, the creativity boost disappeared -- but the homogenization stayed. 30 days later, same result. Their creative range had been permanently compressed.

Five days of use. Permanent damage 30 days later.

A separate trial confirmed it. 120 students. 45-day surprise test. ChatGPT users scored 57.5%. Traditional learners scored 68.5%. AI reduces cognitive effort. Less effort means weaker encoding. Weaker encoding means less creative raw material.

You're not renting a productivity boost. You're financing it with your originality.

The interest rate is permanent.

[Oded Rechavi @OdedRechavi]

Academia feels increasingly like playing Monkey Island, if you miss something as absurd as picking up a rubber chicken with a pulley in the first scene, you only realize much later that you’re stuck and can’t pass to the next stage.
I was interviewed today by @ScienceMagazine about the funding crisis following the ERC announcement. I argued that when a grant rejection can hinge on something small, and you then have to wait years to resubmit, the cost becomes so high that instead of suggesting “high-risk high-gain” plans scientists will prepare more cautious, less ambitious proposals. It turns into a perverse game of simplifying your ideas and trying (unsuccessfully) to predict what an overstretched reviewer pool will find easiest to digest.

"Abrupt change to European funder’s rules leaves researchers shut out | Science | AAAS" https://t.co/MNjHuqzd7Z

[Maayan Harel 🟣 Visual storytelling for science @maayanvisuals]

בשבוע הבא אני משתתפת בסדרת הרצאות על אבולוציה של האדם במוזיאון הטבע ע״ש שטיינהרדט! Steinhardt Museum of Natural History
27/4/26

18:30 נקודת מפגש: ישראל כמקום אסטרטגי באבולוציה של האדם. מרצה: פרופ' הילה מאי.

19:15 דיוקן של נערה דניסובית: שחזור אנטומי ללא שלד. מרצה: מעין הראל.

תגללו לראות סרטונים מהתהליך!

פרטים וכרטיסים בקישור :)
https://t.co/JxAyeI0mSD

[Maayan Harel 🟣 Visual storytelling for science @maayanvisuals]

ההרצאות בחינם בהזמנת כרטיסים :)

[Maayan Harel 🟣 Visual storytelling for science @maayanvisuals]

בשבוע הבא אני משתתפת בסדרת הרצאות על אבולוציה של האדם במוזיאון הטבע ע״ש שטיינהרדט! Steinhardt Museum of Natural History
27/4/26

18:30 נקודת מפגש: ישראל כמקום אסטרטגי באבולוציה של האדם. מרצה: פרופ' הילה מאי.

19:15 דיוקן של נערה דניסובית: שחזור אנטומי ללא שלד. מרצה: מעין הראל.

תגללו לראות סרטונים מהתהליך!

פרטים וכרטיסים בקישור :)
https://t.co/JxAyeI0mSD

[Jonathan Haidt @JonHaidt]

Karma is finally coming for Meta, through the legal system.

As we await a verdict in Los Angeles on whether social media platforms were designed to addict young people, it's important to note that TWO courts have already ruled against Meta in the past month.

1) Yesterday, a jury in New Mexico established that Meta's platforms are not safe for kids, and that their design enabled the exploitation of children. This is a watershed moment: This is the FIRST time a jury has evaluated the evidence. The evidence was so compelling that the jury said Meta should pay $375 million dollars in civil penalties for the harms it has caused to New Mexico and its citizens.
See here:
https://t.co/llbeDLgkVS

2. But it gets worse for Meta: a few weeks ago, in Delaware, a court ruled that Meta's insurance companies do not have a duty to defend Meta or cover its costs in the thousands of lawsuits playing out in California because, under California law, if a company caused harm through "intentional acts" rather than accidentally, the insurers have no obligation to defend that company. Because the documents brought out in the NM and LA trials show intentional actions, Meta loses insurance coverage. That's what the insurance companies asserted, and the judge agreed with them.

See here:
https://t.co/imEjGqy3TM

Because of these two rulings, the legal and political landscape has changed dramatically. Going forward, social media companies will be judged like any other company whose product design decisions harm children.

These two rulings mark a profound shift toward accountability. The legal system is beginning to catch up to what parents have known all along. Many parents are now more likely to get justice for what these platforms have been doing to children for many years.

[Maayan Harel 🟣 Visual storytelling for science @maayanvisuals]

First cover of 2026 is out!

How do symbiotic organisms like corals and cnidarians identify their symbionts as such, rather than as debris/food/ etc?

Appropriate symbiont selection is required for sufficient host nutrient acquisition and could even be tailored to increase cnidarian stress tolerance. The research here reveals integrins as important receptors for symbiosis establishment and sheds light on the evolutionary functions of integrins during phagocytosis. Read more at @emboreports

Congratulations to Victor A. S. Jones, Megan Ferguson and Annika Guse and co-authors @LMU_Muenchen

This was a very fun piece to work on, and a fascinating topic.

[Oded Rechavi @OdedRechavi]

this is incredible

[Maayan Harel 🟣 Visual storytelling for science @maayanvisuals]

A couple of weeks ago I got the chance to speak to graduate students, post-docs and PIs at the @WeizmannScience about how to use visual tools to communicate their science more effectively. This was part of a course in Adobe Illustrator given at the department of Life Sciences. It's really exciting to me to see how the institute is giving better tools to its trainees to achieve publication-level graphics and beyond. I'm hoping to have lots more of these types of sessions!

Thanks to everyone who participated and I have a blog post here with lots of resources that can help with scientific figure design, posters, grant figures, and data visualization!

https://t.co/QmvU3sWhrm

[Oded Rechavi @OdedRechavi]

Amen

[Maayan Harel 🟣 Visual storytelling for science @maayanvisuals]

@OdedRechavi @X @grok Agreed. X penalizes posts that share outside links like sharing academic papers. Twitter was once a great avenue for me to find work and make connections with scientists from different fields. Currently I find it pretty useless.

[Dr Kareem Carr @kareem_carr]

I don't understand how people can be anti-expert. I love people who've been doing their thing for years.

I had to buy a suit and the woman who helped me could eyeball me and pick the perfect dress shirt. Everything fit perfectly on the first try.

I recently had a pipe burst in my apartment. The plumber was efficient and professional. The investigator from the insurance company was knowledgeable.

My default attitude to people, whether it's a university professor or a roofer, is "This is your domain, please educate me."

[Oded Rechavi @OdedRechavi]

This is fine.

[Yaniv Elkouby @YanivElkouby]

🥁We are recruiting PhD students/Postdocs with strong proven background in developmental/molecular/cell biology & related areas, for various projects- check out our lab website👇🏼

We offer: competitive stipends, super equipped lab, fun international team!

https://t.co/Jdiz9zKsZN

[Maayan Harel 🟣 Visual storytelling for science @maayanvisuals]

This has been an interesting year, one with lots of opportunities to create!
I am so grateful for all of my clients and collaborators.
Let's bring on a new year of creativity, peace, love and family
#sciart #coverart #academia

[Maayan Harel 🟣 Visual storytelling for science @maayanvisuals]

This has been an interesting year, one with lots of opportunities to create!
I am so grateful for all of my clients and collaborators.
Let's bring on a new year of creativity, peace, love and family
#sciart #coverart #academia

[Oded Rechavi @OdedRechavi]

Here's the link to the system, try it! https://t.co/XS5o6Wsf9F @qedScience

[Maayan Harel 🟣 Visual storytelling for science @maayanvisuals]

So grateful I got to work on last month's cover showing CD8+ T Cells making CRATERs in melanoma tumors. Awesome working with @aya_ludin + Zon lab @HHMINEWS @BostonChildrens @Harvard. The art is a collaboration with @marco_garbelli and myself. Yay mashups!

[Cell @CellCellPress]

The new issue is out 👉 https://t.co/ye9kiMN3jk

On the cover: Ludin et al. identify antigen-rich tumor niches, CRATERs, on the solid tumor surface, which facilitate CD8+ T cell-tumor interactions and tumor killing.

[Maayan Harel 🟣 Visual storytelling for science @maayanvisuals]

In the spirit of giving thanks, here are a few things I am grateful for today:
1. A new cover- just in time for Thanksgiving :)
but more importantly...