Late last spring, a doctoral student worked late into the night. As she doodled, her chemistry thesis took on a life of its own, transforming into a comic book.
去年春末，一位博士生常常忙到深夜。經過她的妙筆，她的化學論文以自己的方式“活了起來”，變成了一本連環漫畫。

Veronica Berns, 28, was working on her Ph. D. in chemistry at the University of Wisconsin -Madison. Berns said she long struggled to explain her work to her parents and friends. The self-described comic book fan said she began drafting her thesis on quasicrystals — a subset of crystals that diverge from the usual structural characteristics of crystals. Berns quickly concluded that she would be best able to describe the oddball compounds with illustrations.
28歲的維羅妮卡·伯恩斯是威斯康辛大學麥迪遜分校的一名化學博士生。伯恩斯說，她曾長期苦于向父母和朋友解釋自己的專業。當她開始起草關于準晶體的論文時，自稱漫畫迷的她很快意識到她可以通過繪圖的方式更好的講解這些古怪的化合物。準晶體是一種從普通晶體分化出來的子晶體。

"They're not very well-polished illustrations. That's on purpose," Berns said. "I wanted it to be like I'm explaining on the back of an envelope."
“它們不是畫功一流的圖畫，而是功能性更強。”伯恩斯說，“我一度想讓它起到這樣的作用——就像我在信封的背面畫圖向人們解釋化學一樣。”

And on many occasions, it was on the back of an envelope or on a napkin that she doodled sketches of the chemical bonds to better show her parents what she was working on in the lab. Jody Berns, Veronica's mother, said their family has a history of doodling and has shared comics for years.
以前的很多時候，她就是通過在信封或者餐巾紙的背面畫化學鍵的草圖，向父母解釋她在實驗室里的工作。維羅妮卡的母親喬迪·伯恩斯說，她們家一直有涂鴉的傳統，很多年來大家都一起看各種漫畫。

Berns surprised her family with her comic book "Atomic Size Matters" at her graduation last year. The book depicts cartoons of Berns wearing various costumes and uses humor as well as simple comparisons to describe elaborate chemistry.
在去年的畢業典禮上，伯恩斯以漫畫書《原子大小的重要性》給了家人意外的驚喜。在這本書里，伯恩斯自己的漫畫形象以不同的行頭出鏡，用幽默詼諧、簡單類比的方式向人們描述復雜的化學。

"We're just really proud that she can take something so complex and put it into a fun visual explanation that everyone can enjoy," Jody Berns said.
“我們很驕傲，她可以把如此復雜的東西變成有趣的圖像解析，讓每個人都能欣然接受”，喬迪·伯恩斯說。

Veronica Berns' professor Danny Fredrickson said Berns was the first of his students to construct her thesis in an artistic way. He said often it is difficult for scientists to explain what they do with proper context.
維羅妮卡·伯恩斯的教授丹尼·弗雷德里克森說，伯恩斯是他的學生中第一個以藝術的形式完成論文的人。他還說，通常情況下，科學家們都很難用適當的語境來解釋他們所做的事情。

"If it's worth doing, we should be able to explain it," Fredrickson said.
“如果值得這么做，我們都應該能夠解釋，”弗雷德里克森說。

And he said Berns managed to accomplish that.
他說，伯恩斯已經做到了。

Berns said she hopes other scientists will find ways to illustrate what they're doing in the lab. She now lives in Chicago and works as a chemist. Berns also writes a blog in which she uses comics to explain the work of Nobel Prize winning scientists.
伯恩斯說，她希望其他科學家可以找到方法闡述他們的實驗室工作。她現在住在芝加哥，是一名化學工作者。她還在自己的博客里用漫畫向人們解釋諾貝爾獎科學家們的著作。

Berns started a Kickstarter fundraising campaign to finance printing a small batch of the books. She said she wanted to raise $5,965 to cover the costs of professional printing. The website says she has raised more than $14,000.
為了能將這些書中的一小部分付印，伯恩斯在Kickstarter網站上發起了一項籌款活動。她說她需要籌集5965美元，用于支付專業印刷的成本。該網站透露，她籌得的款額已經超過了1.4萬美元。

Vocabulary

doodle：涂鴉

quasicrystal：準晶體

subset：(組成大套的)一小套

oddball：奇怪的

chemical bond：化學鍵

elaborate：復雜的

（譯者：南格BISTU?編輯：杜娟）