Of the many ways in which humans perceive the world around them, colors are one of the first noticeable aspects. For us, color can give meaning to things, elicit sentiments, kindle memories, and bring joyous beauty to mundane objects. The natural world is also full of colorful splendor. Through their book ‘Actually, Colors Speak’, Minhaj Sirajuddin and Ipsa Jain take the readers on a fascinating exploration of the meaning of colors in the animal world. From the exterior features to diving deep into the cellular and molecular details, the book cleverly provides scientific insights into the aesthetic and behavioral aspects of animals. We discover how colors in the natural world serve a purpose, are used as a mode of communication, a survival tactic, or attract mates. We spoke to the authors to understand more about their enchanting creation.
About the book authors:
Minhaj Sirajuddin is an Associate Professor at the Institute for Stem Cell Science and Regenerative Medicine (inStem), Bangalore. Minhaj’s research work is funded by DBT-inStem, Department of Biotechnology, Department of Science and Technology, India, DBT/WT- India Alliance and EMBO Young Investigator. Get in touch with him on Twitter or LinkedIn
Ipsa Jain is a scientist turned illustrator who tells stories of science. She was a postdoctoral fellow in Minhaj Sirajuddin’s lab at inStem. She has also been a writer, illustrator and editor at Club SciWri. When she is not drawing science, she is consuming children’s picture books. Get in touch with her on Twitter or Instagram.
1. What inspired you to create this book?
Minhaj: As a scientist, I have been exploring avenues for Science Communication and Outreach. In 2017, our collaborator Carsten Janke from the Curie Institute had hired an artist in his lab that inspired us to host Ipsa as a resident artist in our lab at inSTEM. Ipsa and I brainstormed various ideas and settled on creating a popular science book that would capture everyone’s imagination and set a precedent for other academic labs to connect with the public creatively and engagingly. We realized that very few books discuss cellular and molecular changes linking to a particular natural phenomenon, so we set out to fill that niche. The color change theme was Ipsa’s suggestion. We then narrowed our search down to animals/elements that undergo dynamic color changes. Coincidentally, cytoskeleton proteins- an area our lab actively researches, are the key players in mediating color changes in animals. Therefore, connecting a popular science book to the lab research was deeply satisfying.
Ipsa: What inspired us to make the book is that we wanted to use the book as a medium of science communication. The number of popular science books from India is pretty low, as scientists and science communicators are not using this medium enough. Certain publishers make science books for very young children, but we didn’t find many for young adult and adult audiences. We decided to make a book about color because we wanted to make a science picture book with a visually exciting topic.
2. The choice of using a microscope, a binocular and a camera for anchoring the story is fascinating. How did you come up with the idea to choose such a narration style?
Minhaj: In an earlier version of this book, or at least for one chapter, we used descriptive text that in the end felt like a text book. Ipsa and I went back to the drawing board and changed many things around, keeping the central theme intact. Within months Ipsa finished the illustrations, but the accompanying text was still undecided. We thought the text should be a narration; we dabbled with conversations between children, adults, or scientists and the lay audience. Despite all these combinations, something was amiss. One fine day, I told Ipsa we should narrate using lab instruments, particularly the microscope. We settled on the microscope, a binocular, and a camera. It was a win-win; we avoided stereotyping human characters and gave the lab instruments a voice. I recently rediscovered a book I read as a kid called “The Adventures of Pencil and Screwbolt”, perhaps subconsciously it may have inspired me to narrate stories using inanimate objects.
Ipsa: We arrived at the style of narration kind of by trial and error. Initially, we had written a couple of chapters in a poetic prose-like style. When we shared it with our network of test audiences, they found the writing somewhat cryptic and not comprehensive or relatable. We wanted this book not to look and feel like a textbook, so avoided writing in paragraphs. That’s when Minhaj came up with the idea of having a conversation, and it clicked. Around then, I was also doing some experiments related to the content of the book, for fun, and I was using some of these instruments. (In fact, we ended up making a video based on that.) We think of it as a bridge between fiction and non-fiction, like the kind of stories that the binocular shares is true for it, as are those from the microscope, and what they share is the reality.
3. How do you think this will trigger the curiosity of kids?
Minhaj: I think most of us have been brought up with a very human-centric view, and we will be successful in creating an impact if kids, after reading our book, can ask/observe/appreciate the subtle communication happening around us and between different species.
Ipsa: That is our hope, to invoke curiosity, and I can tell from the initial feedback received that it is doing its job. I think that if you answer certain things but leave scope for the audience to ask more questions, that does the trick. Those questions will keep gnawing at the brain, and make you want to look up more and find more and figure out more. A kind of approach taken in the book is that we don’t conclude, instead we ask a question at the end of each chapter. There are some QR codes sprinkled across the book and we’re hoping that this will lead people to read more and go beyond the book to find out and think for themselves.
4. How did you know how much depth and breadth to cover for a vast topic like this?
Minhaj: From the beginning, we knew that there would be a vast amount of information about the topic of color change. First, we narrowed it down to animals. Even there we excluded animals that show exterior changes by structural colors, the colors that emerge from optical properties of the surfaces, not pigments. Ipsa did a fantastic job in the scientific literature survey, and we both discussed at length and then finalized the key points. This is where having Ipsa, a trained scientist with a Ph.D. and with a passion for science and art, in the lab beneficial. The book is an outcome of the research work done by Ipsa in our lab, and we applied scientific rigor to synthesize and highlight the key points presented in the book.
Ipsa: Finding the entire depth and breadth to cover was the biggest challenge. We had to ensure that there were common threads connecting the topics we discussed across chapters. We wanted to ensure that understanding what comes later, is covered in previous chapters. We were mindful of not using jargon, so as not to put off the readers. We were able to cover a lot of depth because we were working with text and images. We had to figure out the important points to show visually and with text, and then clue in the details with clever use of words or details in the images. We were clear that we can’t possibly tell everything we know and can share only a fraction. The intent was never to flood with information but to inspire appreciation and curiosity for science, colors, and the cytoskeleton.
A page from the picture book, showing cellular details of pigment cell (chromatocyte) containing orange pigment molecules, that makes fishes change their color.
5. Is this your first published book? What part of publishing this book did you find most fun?
Minhaj: Yes. All of it was fun, right from the inception, research, to making the book and getting the print in hand. It was a good departure from the routine research work in the lab and my lab members also enjoyed the process. For example, whenever Ipsa used to present in lab meetings, we would have more than usual enthusiastic and lively discussions.
Ipsa: This is actually my second published book, although I started working on this one first. Working on a project like this as a postdoc was fun. I also got many curious onlookers as I painted in the corridors of the campus. Their reactions were both appreciative and envious. Navigating this collaboration was also quite fun. The favorite part was to share the work in progress with the lab and get their critical feedback. The fact that lab folks asked me questions as rigorously as when they were presented with a gel picture by any other labmate still tickles me. It made the work as well as my understanding of Scicomm so much better.
6. What part did you find most challenging?
Minhaj: While it was fun, every bit was also equally challenging. For me, the most difficult part was writing the accompanying text where we spent a lot of time, and the pandemic was not helping either. We managed our time through the last year and finished the narration. We also got good help from Somdatta Karak, as an editor on our book, in finalizing the narration.
Ipsa: For me, as the illustrator of the book, the challenge was to interpret different kinds of scientific data and microscopy images into a consistent presentation style, that did not have the feeling of a textbook. I had to find a delicate balance between the clarity of the image and the level of details. This is a tightrope that I walk in pretty much all of my work. I had to take some creative liberties and deviate from the scale and number of cells and structures to showcase the phenomenon. I wanted a style that felt friendly and adopted a style of drawing (the chalky texture) that looks easy and approachable. I want my audience to think that this is something they can also draw; that feeling increases the accessibility of the work.
7. What advice would you give to other budding science communicators?
Minhaj: Advice would be a strong word here, but I would like to project something I encountered over the past years. There are many ways to communicate science, first step may be to pick a medium that suits your personality to be sustainable. Second, is determining the target audience, it can be as broad as non-scientist, non-specialist scientists, fellow specialist scientists, school kids or policymakers and the political community. Third is through research, the bedrock of Scicomm.
Ipsa: I always ask people first to identify the audience, then the intent and why they have the urge to talk to the audience. And then the content. I have always believed that the context of your work in relationship with a target audience is more important than content.Another set of advice that comes from working on this book is: a) collaborate, it will force you to expand and learn what you would not otherwise, and b) take feedback on the work in progress, it will correct your assumptions and biases.
8. What other exciting sci-art projects should we look forward to from you?
Minhaj: I have been involved in short documentary filmmaking, in collaboration with wildlife filmmakers Munmun Dhalaria and Ram Alluri. This project is funded by the DBT/Wellcome Trust India Alliance Public Engagement Award. The movies are about Forgotten Indian Scientists and their discoveries. We have ensured this is palatable for a general audience. In the first movie of the series we have covered 3 scientists, it was released in March 2022.
Ipsa: I am slowly working towards a set of zines about trust in science among the public. I hope to release them by the year-end. And just maybe, there is another book on the cards!
9. What is the take home message you want the reader to carry with them?
Minhaj: Ask questions and be curious. Perhaps the biggest take-home message will be ‘All the big visible changes are carried out by tiny invisible things churning out small changes.’
Ipsa: There is joy in asking questions and beauty in the answers you find. Strive for questions as much as you strive for the solutions.
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You can order a copy of the book ‘Actually, Colors Speak’ from:
https://notionpress.com/read/actually-colors-speak
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09Q1WM3S8
Author and Editor:
Sumbul Jawed Khan received her Ph. D. in Biological Sciences and Bioengineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, where she studied the role of microenvironment in cancer progression and tumor formation. During her post-doctoral research at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, she investigated the gene regulatory networks that are important for tissue regeneration after damage or wounding. She is committed to science outreach activities and believes it is essential to inspire young people to apply scientific methods to tackle the challenges faced by humanity. As an editor, her aim is to simplify, translate, and excite people about current advances in science.
Editor:
Roopsha Sengupta is the Editor-in-Chief at ClubSciWri. She did her Ph.D. at the Institute of Molecular Pathology, Vienna, and postdoctoral research at the Gurdon Institute, University of Cambridge, UK, specializing in the field of Epigenetics. During her research, she was involved in many exciting discoveries and had the privilege of working and collaborating with a number of inspiring scientists. As an editor for ClubSciWri, she loves working on a wide range of topics and presenting articles coherently, while nudging authors to give their best.
The contents of Club SciWri are the copyright of Ph.D. Career Support Group (DBA STEMPeers) for STEM trainees, experts, and professionals. This work by Club SciWri is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
