“This isn’t a painting. It is the most detailed image of a human cell to date, obtained by radiography, nuclear magnetic resonance and cryoelectron microscopy.”
Iako:
The image in the post is a digitally-rendered model of a eukaryotic cell designed as an interactive scientific learning tool, its creator says. He told AAP FactCheck it is “extremely misleading” to suggest it is an image of a real human cell as it would exist in its natural state.
The model was developed between 2009 and 2015 by US scientific animator Evan Ingersoll with concept and art direction by Gael McGill at visual science firm Digizyme.
Mr Ingersoll told AAP FactCheck in an email the image is “an illustration of molecules involved in various processes inside a cell” to help tell the “story” of how those molecules relate to each other.
He said the illustration was never intended to represent a real cell.
The various features of the cell are provided “for orientation and context”, Mr Ingersoll said, but are not necessarily illustrated to scale. Instead, the cell features have been simplified and “squashed together” to help users make sense of the scientific story.