MONNALISA BYTES

Monnalisa Bytes was born in 2019, with the idea of bringing science and interactive graphic art together. The project merges the experiences of Emma Gatti, a scientist with six years’ experience as a researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology, and Jumper, a communication studio operating in the field of publishing, digital innovation and academic training. Together we decided to create a new way to discuss science, more accessible and engaging, without sacrificing the depth and rigor of the subject: we check and analyse what is written, we refer only to peer-reviewed papers, and our sources are all experts in their own fields. 

In the last two or three decades, the digital native generation has been accused of screen-feeding only on social media. In truth, this is a universal phenomenon, a tendency to swallow information without considering its source. Moreover, science has been relegated to be distant and boring. This difficulty science has in reaching people, combined with the ease with which other media can spread misinformation, has contributed to creating the climate of distrust which we live in today. 

Monnalisa Bytes is a science magazine and much more. It is a digital platform in which we combine rigorous content with dynamic and engaging visuals: we publish in-depth analyses, we transform uninspiring datasets into interactive interfaces, and we explore new formats to communicate. It is a magazine, but also a laboratory to formulate a new way of seeing and reading about science. 

We are not here, though, to tell you what to believe, rather we want to involve you in the scientific debate. We focus on the open debates, the controversies and the unresolved questions, because the way forward for science communication is not to propose science as rigid and untouchable, from top to bottom, but to talk openly about its limits and weaknesses and communicate its doubts with transparency and rigor. 

The image at the top is @ Martina Ghezzi.