Scientific notation (5x10^5)

fancy_scientific.R

fancy_scientific <- function(l) {
     # turn in to character string in scientific notation
     l <- format(l, scientific = TRUE)
     # quote the part before the exponent to keep all the digits
     l <- gsub("^(.*)e", "'\\1'e", l)
     # turn the 'e+' into plotmath format
     l <- gsub("e", "%*%10^", l)
     # return this as an expression
     parse(text=l)
}

Thanks to Jack Aidley