An example of a metaphor in public science discourse:
"The debate surrounding water microdroplet chemistry is set to continue. Even so, [Stanford University's Professor Richard] Zare remains motivated by his belief that water microdroplets can instigate useful chemical reactions, if not enhance the reactivity and rate of traditional catalysis. Within the last nine months, he and his colleagues have published a significant amount of work in this area. This includes papers reporting that water microdroplets can help turn carbon dioxide and nitrogen into urea; nitrogen into ammonia; benzoic acid into phenol; and toluene into phenylacetic acid.
'Normal water, you think puts out fire and is supposedly benign and inert, but I'm telling you water droplets at their surface are really chemical dynamos,' Zare concludes."
Rebecca Trager, Are water microdroplets really chemical dynamos?, Chemistry World, February 2024, pp.38-40
Read about metaphor in science
Read about examples of science metaphors
Many examples of science metaphors are listed in 'Creative comparisons: Making science familiar through language. An illustrative catalogue of figurative comparisons and analogies for science concepts'. Free Download.
