Behind the Cover: May 2022

Each month, Physics Today editors explore the research and design choices that inspired the latest cover of the magazine.

The May issue includes updates from ITER , news of an imaging technique tackling a new molecular system , and a history of nuclear nonproliferation in South America . But perhaps most unexpected, Charles Nicholson invites readers to consider the spaces between brain cells.

Far from just useless gaps, extracellular space is essential for passing electrical and chemical signals between cells. Much of the space is exceedingly narrow—only tens of nanometers wide compared with the body of a typical neuron, which is tens of micrometers wide—so imaging and probing it has proved difficult. Nicholson details the advances in diffusion analysis and imaging techniques that have allowed researchers to begin characterizing the elusive area.

Depictions of brain tissue are plentiful and can lean toward the realistic, the artistic, or the schematic. Whatever aesthetic direction, our art and editorial teams wanted a cover image that emphasized the space between brain cells. Physics Today‘s graphic designer, Freddie Pagani, discovered the work of artist and neuroscientist Greg Dunn, who paints Asian-inspired pieces that highlight the brain’s beauty and complexity. Pagani ended up selecting his print Neural Migration because it was dramatic and the neurons were recognizable.

The image was paired with a simple, modern font thin enough to mimic the neurons but thick enough to be legible. The Allumi font was created by Jean François Porchez, founder of Typofonderie and designer of the fonts currently used by Le Monde newspaper. Because the letters are neither perfectly round nor perfectly square, they hint at the intersection of the human and the scientific.