Luke writes, “I’m about to start postgrad studies in biochemistry but currently work in a bacteriology diagnostics lab. Working with the nasty side of E. coli all day long makes it easy to forget how important the little guy is to science – I definitely have a soft spot for it now though! I was recently in Amsterdam and wanted to get a tattoo done while I was there. I happened to be reading your book Microcosm at the time and decided to get an E. coli tattoo on my foot. I only found the Science Tattoo Emporium today and was quite surprised to discover that it’s curated by the same person who inspired the tattoo!”
Archive for the ‘Science Tattoo Emporium’ Category
Small Microcosm [Science Tattoo]
The Taste of Science [Science Tattoo]
Ariel writes, “I am happy to see that other science dorks like myself have inked up our passions. This is the molecular representation of glutamic acid, the amino acid associated with the Umami flavor, the proverbial fifth taste. I am a former chef turned public health major and fell in love with the elegance of chemical compounds but never forgot my unctuous roots.
Binary Dad [Science Tattoo]
Zachariah writes, “Binary ink of my eldest daughter’s name: Lain.”
Stomping Through the Permian [Science Tattoo]
Mandy writes, “I am actually a microbiologist, but my side interest is the trilobite. I went in thinking I’d just get a small black outline of a trilobite, and the tattoo artist was so excited that I wanted a trilobite, and insisted on designing something more complicated for me. So attached is a photo of my right foot. It’s like a pet trilobite that follows me everywhere.”
Hornet, Hardcore [Science Tattoo]
Nick writes, “A tattoo of Vespa crabro. I got it while I was working in the entomology department of Va Tech. I was the most hardcore nerd there.”
Rendering Vitality [Science Tattoo]
David writes, “My tattoos each mark–although in rather oblique and coded ways–life events, or at least transitions that are important to me (several are a rebus for my 1999 dissertation in post-structuralist political philosophy). This 10th tattoo, of Hemoglobin A, perhaps requires less decoding than many. Over the last couple years, I have had the opportunity to work with some amazing people, on the computer science side of things, who have built the world’s fastest supercomputer–called Anton, after so-called ‘father of microbiology’ Antonie van Leeuwenhoek–which is highly specialized for computing molecular dynamics. As a gesture to this opportunity, I commemorate it with a molecular rendering (of the PDB chemical 2W6V, using VMD and the NewCartoon rendering style) of the sort that the chemist who do the actual MD often look at. Of course, Hemoglobin is a well-known molecule to laypersons, and it is one that is easy enough to give a metaphorical or mimetic sense to; the molecule is inscribed above my heart, whose function is largely to pump around oxygen-carrying Hemoglobin (hence giving my body life, vitality, energy, etc).”
The Posing Snake [Science Tattoo]
An anonymous reader writes, “I am a computer programmer and amateur herpetologist. On my leg is Henry, a North Brazilian Boa constrictor — rare in captivity at the time. I brought him in for photos before we began, and again after it was completely healed. As you can see in this photo, his colors were altered in the tattoo to stand out better. It took 20 hours over the course of 14 months to complete and was done completely freehand. Each scale was drawn individually. This photo is so special, since he’s posed very much the way he came out on my leg, tongue and all. It’s not like I could give him instructions on what to do.”
Graduating Into Entropy [Science Tattoo]
Ivanka writes,
I got this last week and as I’m sure you know, it’s the second law of thermodynamics (the original equation, by Clausius) before -N even represented entropy. This is a strange story, because I’m not a physics or math major, I’m a female philosophy person.
I really do love physics though, and I’m about to leave my home country and all my undergrad friends behind and go and do my MSc at LSE. So the sentiment behind this is that now, after undergrad, we begin to disseminate. Entropy.
It’s also a great boyfriend filtration system:
‘Can I have your number?’
‘Wait, what’s this mean?’
‘Um… I don’t know?’
‘Too bad, you were cute’ (walk off)
The Companion Molecule [Science Tattoos]
Scicurious, a blogger at Neurotopia with a PhD in physiology, writes,
The molecule is caffeine, and the tattoo itself was designed by artist Glendon Mellow of The Flying Trilobite. I got it to celebrate my PhD.
Why caffeine, you ask?
1) I had a friend once tell me that my friendship was like a hot cup of coffee. Warm, vivacious, stimulating, and comforting. It was one of the best compliments I ever received.
2) I have spent the last six years of my life studying drugs in various forms. Caffeine always spoke to me as a stimulant, because it is so different from other traditional drugs classified as stimulants. I’ve always been a little different myself.
3) I also spent the past six years studying various neurotransmitters. I will spend more years studying different neurotransmitters. Which ones I study and why will change over time, but caffeine will be with me through all of it. 
On Growth and Ink [Science Tattoo]
Alex, a graduate student studying human biology and evolution, writes, “As an undergraduate at I was fortunate enough to study On Growth and Form by D’Arcy Thompson. His synthesis of mathematics, classics and biology was an inspiration to me, and drove me to pursue science as a career. Though I am now studying to be a paleoanthropologist, my tattoo of an (idealized) ammonite fossil is a reminder to me of the material and mathematical processes behind all living things. Plus extinct cephalopods are more aesthetically appealing than hominin skulls.”
Love By The Numbers [Science Tattoo]
Josephine writes, “My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer on Valentine’s Day. Happy V-Day, right?? She, being the eternal matriarch of the family, called each child individually and told us the news. She is VERY upbeat and positive, and so we are, too. I am a mathematics major in college and when she told me the news, my sister and I both wanted tattoos in her honor. At first I wanted a blue whale, it being her favorite animal, but I went with a heart curve. In mathematics, as I’m sure you know, there are 6 heart curves. This is just one of them, and the least ‘busy.’ I am proud to display it on my right forearm for my mother through this trying time.”
There Are More Painful Things [Science Tattoo]
Corey writes, “I got this tattoo as an homage to the pain of my graduate work. It’s a model of fulvic acid which is a representation of natural organic matter in the soil. I work with this molecule for my grad work and I figured I might as well get it etched into my skin so I can look at it and say, ‘Well, at least it hurt less than grad school at Cornell.’”
