For centuries, scientists have relied on visual representations to make sense of the world, from anatomical drawings and microscopy images to increasingly complex computational visualizations. Yet most scientific data still ends up on a flat screen. Extended reality (XR), including virtual and augmented reality (VR, AR), offers new ways of interacting with information. Researchers can step inside a dataset, such as the Human Reference Atlas (HRA) and move around structures, manipulate them with their hands, change scale, and explore the same virtual space together. With Dr. Andreas Bueckle, Research Lead at the Cyberinfrastructure for Network Science Center at Indiana University Bloomington, we discuss what a metaverse for scientists could look like and what scientists can learn from gamers about virtual spaces.

Find Andreas’s website here: https://andreas-bueckle.com/ Find Andreas’s LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreas-bueckle/ Watch Andreas’ TEDx talk “Living and Learning in the Metaverse”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpnLKoAK1YE Explore the HRA Organ Gallery: https://humanatlas.io/hra-organ-gallery

Image: Lucrezia Carnelos via Unsplash

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