Joshua, a conservation biologist, writes, ” This was a tattoo I got of one of the species that I did my Ph.D. on. The fish is Halichoeres hortulanus and the DNA sequence is the primer for one of the genes I used to study the fish (the mitochondrial control region).”
Archive for the ‘Science Tattoo Emporium’ Category
A Recipe For Fish [Science Tattoos]
The Snake And The Ring [Science Tattoo]
Jeff, a pharmacy student in Richmond writes,
One thing about Richmond is that most everyone in the city has a tattoo. After living here for 3 years I finally gave into peer pressure and got a tattoo. The only thing I could think of getting that I wouldn’t regret later in life was something nerdy/chemistry related, organic chemistry to be specific. While searching for inspiration I stumbled upon this story about the German chemist August Kekule who is responsible for discovering the ring structure of benzene.
Kekule claims that he stopped writing and dozed off to sleep. He saw atoms whirling and dancing before his eyes. The atoms then began to reassemble themselves into long rows that seemed to move about in a snake-like motion. As he watched the snake dance, the vision progressed until the snake formed itself into an image he had seen years before at a 1850 murder trial: the snake devouring its own tail.
So there it is…a benzene ring with an Ouroborus around it…
CMP For Short [Science Tattoo]
Chrissy writes, “My science is microbiology, and my tattoo is Life in the Dice [Science Tattoo]
Arnaud writes, “I am a geneticist interested in the processes that make every individual unique. This tattoo symbolizes a living being as the result of a ‘game of life’ where random and deterministic processes interacts together. Genes provide a solid framework, but random and external factors have an equally important role in determining who you are.”
Schrodinger’s Tat [Science Tattoo]
Berg writes, “I’m a big fan of quantum mechanics (regardless of how little I truly understand it), so getting a tattoo of Schrodinger’s cat seemed like a no-brainer. It’s on my right forearm, which means it ends up being a good conversation starter after a quick handshake. Either people get what it is right away, or I have the pleasure of explaining ‘No, it’s not two cats fornicating, it’s one superpositioned cat,’ which is fun in its own right. Huzzah!”
Where Am I? [Science Tattoo]
Patrick, a research specialist in a computational memory lab, writes,
Yesterday, I got my first science tattoo — and first tattoo period — taking inspiration from you and the lovely people in the Science Tattoo Emporium.
Mine is a hippocampal neuron: specifically, a pyramidal cell found in area CA1. It’s been implicated in spatial memory, which is something my lab works on. (In rodent EEG, hippocampal “place response” has been seen in this type of neuron.) But more than that, I find it to be one of those classically beautiful images in science.
Thanks for the inspiration and encouragement. Science nerd pride!
What Do These Names Have In Common? [Science Tattoo]
After I saw this tattoo over on a sibling blog, Science Not Fiction, I knew it had to join the emporium. Its owner, Mark Yturralde, sent me this description of its origin:
After the Columbia accident, I felt compelled to do something. Space has always meant so much to me, and I felt I wanted to memorialize them somehow.
I donated to college funds and other charities in their name, but still felt like I needed to do more, and I found myself reliving and considering Challenger, and Apollo one too, Gus Grissom being a long time hero of mine.
One morning, I made a list of all of them. It just struck me. I’ll put their names on my forearm. People will see them. They’ll ask who they are. I can then tell them about my tattoo, and what it means to me. Everytime someone asks, and I explain it, they take a second. They reflect. They remember.
The Imaginary Vortex [Science Tattoo]
Margot, a zoo veterinary technician writes, “In reading Carl Charles Seife’s fabulous book Zero, he presents a graph of complex numbers which plot a changing exponent for the basic formula (X+iY)n in which X represents real numbers and Y represents imaginary numbers. If Y=1, the result is a circle. Y<1 creates a spiral inside the circle and Y>1 creates a spiral outside the circle. The logarithmic spiral is a very natural and fractal form, and being in the biology field and a fractal freak, I was captivated by this figure. Then the philosopher in me started seeing all the symbolism one could glean from this and it was all over. The other side of the story is that after 3 years of cortisone shots, physical therapy, surgery, more therapy and acupuncture to treat tendonitis in my right elbow, my arm is finally back to “as good as it’s going to get”. Unfortunately, my lifestyle as a zoo veterinary technician, musician, and mother all conspire to cause re-injury unless I am extremely careful. This tattoo is a colorful and metaphorical reminder to be mindful yet still live my life to the fullest extent possible.”
All Creatures Great And Small, Hosts and Parasites [Science Tattoos]
Marcus, a parasitologist in Brazil, writes:
I am sending the two scientific tattoos that I have:
1. It is an undescribed species of freshwater stingray from the Family Potamotrygonidae (Potamotrygon sp.n.) that has being described by Dr. Marcelo Rodrigues Carvalho from Universidade de São Paulo.
2. An ectoparasite from needlefish (Belonidae) that I am redescribing. The parasite, Nudaciraxine gracilis belongs to the Class Monogenoidea (Platyhelminthes). This parasite group is characterized by having anchors, clamps, and hooks at the end of the body (named as haptor) used to attached to the host gills.
Let the Stars and the Ink Guide You Home [Science Tattoos]
Marc Morency, Quartermaster 1st class, USN, writes: “While I am by no means a scientist, I have been fortunate enough to be paid by the government to get ships from pt. A to pt. B serving in the US Navy as a Quartermaster. I was drawn to the navigation when I joined. In my opinion, it is the only job in the military that is both a science and an art Celestial navigation has been something I have become profoundly interested in since I joined ten years ago. In this age of GPS, it is, in my opinion more important now than ever for Navigators to remain proficient in the old ways to fix a ship’s position using a sextant and trigonometry. My tattoo is the visual depiction of how to plot a line of position from a celestial body using the altitude intercept method, a method which has been time tested for more than a century. For me it serves as a reminder that while technology improves, the sea remains an unpredictable place and it is up to the older generation to teach the younger the old school ways of doing business.”
The Three Faces of Life [Science Tattoo]
Cheri writes, “I am a huge fan of yours. I also want to share my new science tattoo, which I got because I am a biotechnologist and wanted to show my love of science….The blue atomic symbol is for science; the black biotech is for, well, biotech; and the flower is my home state’s flower, the Alaskan forget-me-not which also symbolizes life.”
A Million Ankles And You’ve Got A Laptop [Science Tattoo]
Benjamin writes, “The tattoo on my ankle is of a one-bit binary full adder. It one of the most basic building blocks of all computer chips. The flow of binary state would be from left to right as oriented in the picture.”
