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。经过她的妙笔，她的化学论文以自己的方式“活了起来”，变成了一本连环漫画。
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岁的维罗妮卡·伯恩斯是威斯康辛大 学麦迪逊分校的一名化学博士生。伯恩斯说，她曾长期苦于向父母和朋友解释自己的专业。当她开始起草关于准晶体的论文时，自称漫画迷的她很快意识到她可以通 过绘图的方式更好的讲解这些古怪的化合物。准晶体是一种从普通晶体分化出来的子晶体。
"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."
“它们不是画功一流的图画，而是功能性更强。”伯恩斯说，“我一度想让它起到这样的作用——就像我在信封的背面画图向人们解释化学一样。”
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.
以前的很多时候，她就是通过在信封或者餐巾纸的背面画化学键的草图，向父母解释她在实验室里的工作。维罗妮卡的母亲乔迪·伯恩斯说，她们家一直有涂鸦的传统，很多年来大家都一起看各种漫画。
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.
在去年的毕业典礼上，伯恩斯以漫画书《原子大小的重要性》给了家人意外的惊喜。在这本书里，伯恩斯自己的漫画形象以不同的行头出镜，用幽默诙谐、简单类比的方式向人们描述复杂的化学。
"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.
“我们很骄傲，她可以把如此复杂的东西变成有趣的图像解析，让每个人都能欣然接受”，乔迪·伯恩斯说。
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.
维罗妮卡·伯恩斯的教授丹尼·弗雷德里克森说，伯恩斯是他的学生中第一个以艺术的形式完成论文的人。他还说，通常情况下，科学家们都很难用适当的语境来解释他们所做的事情。
"If it's worth doing, we should be able to explain it," Fredrickson said.
“如果值得这么做，我们都应该能够解释，”弗雷德里克森说。
And he said Berns managed to accomplish that.
他说，伯恩斯已经做到了。
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.
伯恩斯说，她希望其他科学家可以找到方法阐述他们的实验室工作。她现在住在芝加哥，是一名化学工作者。她还在自己的博客里用漫画向人们解释诺贝尔奖科学家们的著作。
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.
为了能将这些书中的一小部分付印，伯恩斯在Kickstarter网站上发起了一项筹款活动。她说她需要筹集5965美元，用于支付专业印刷的成本。该网站透露，她筹得的款额已经超过了1.4万美元。
Vocabulary
doodle：涂鸦
quasicrystal：准晶体
subset：(组成大套的)一小套
oddball：奇怪的
chemical bond：化学键
elaborate：复杂的