Last fall the Loom was awash in tattoos from scientists. Since then, I’ve moved them over to my Science Tattoo Emporium. If you haven’t checked it out recently, let me invite you over. Incredibly, someone sends me a new science tattoo just about every day. I post them as fast as I can, but I’ve still got a backlog. And most of them are astonishingly cool–both beautiful and enlightening. I particularly like today’s post, today’s post, an homage to Darwin’s finches. Plenty more where that came from.

Let’s hope the phylogeny of life doesn’t get revised drastically anytime soon, for the sake of this woman…More details–and lots of new tattoos over at my Science Tattoo Emporium. (Plus a cool new category cloud for browsing!)

After six months of science tattoo madness, the ink keeps flowing. To keep up with the rising tide, please visit their new home: The Science Tattoo Emporium. (You can also get there via http://sciencetattoo.com ) I have an amazing backlog of tattoos to post there, which I will be doing so once at day–with an increasing amount of my own commentary on the story behind the picture.

"Here are my two Copernicus/scientific revolution homages. I teach science at a public school in eastern MA. It’s nice to see the size of the subculture of science geeks that are also tattoo geeks." –Chris

They’re two of the newest contributions to the my flickr set of science tattoos, but they’re two of my personal favorites. Check out all 131 images.

“My right forearm has a 8" ruler on it that I use for everything from measuring PVC diameter to wire lengths. My background is in embedded hardware design, but I choose to spend my time doing experimental building, transportation, and energy these days. The tattoo gets used daily.”–Mikey

The science tattoo train started to peter out this month. But then Boing Boing unleashed a tidal wave of scientific ink in my direction. Now we’re up to 111 pictures, with over 296,000 views of the Flickr set. I don’t even know what those numbers mean anymore.

And the press’s fascination does not stop. The latest article appears in India’s Mail Today.

“"I did my Ph. D on olfaction in sea turtles, sequencing the olfactory receptor genes of the three species featured in my tattoo (leatherback, loggerhead and green). The “bubbles” represent DNA."–Dr. Michelle Vieyra, University of South Carolina.

Congratulations, Dr. Vierya–your submission is the 100th addition to my Flickr set of science tattoos. Make full use of your bragging rights.

[See also New Scientist's droll blog coverage of this project.]

"This neuron tattoo was done a few months ago. When I was 18, my dad passed away from Lou Gehrig’s, which is a disease of motor neurons that innervate muscles. His battle with neurodegeneration helped me decide on a career in medical research, and I am currently pursuing my PhD in Neuroscience."–Lindsay

I fell behind on my Friday uploads to the Flickr site. But the tattoos keep coming. We’re up to 97…so if you want to be tattoo #100, email me soon.

1. From this week’s crop of new tattoos: Abraham writes: “I got mine in grad school (PhD materials science and applied physics, 2004 Cal). The tatoo is a convergent beam electron diffraction (CBED) image of 6-4 Ti alloy (hexagonal, or beta phase) one of the first ‘super alloys’. Being light-weight, high-strength, and corrosion resistant, I felt it was appropriate to put on my back, to keep it strong.”

2. We are now actually inspiring people to get new science tattoos. Janet Stemwedel, my estimable fellow scienceblogger, send the following request:

I’m planning a mini-midlife crisis for my next birthday in the form of a tattoo. (I can’t afford a sports car.) The challenge is to work out what to get permanently applied to my skin.

Something science-y would be ideal. (My first choice would be something related to chemistry, but something cool from the history of science would work as well.)

Maybe your readers can tell me what to get tattooed on myself? (I’m loath to ask my own readership, since that includes my mother!) In case it matters, the most likely location would be in the vicinity of an ankle.

If you need inspiration, check out all 91 pictures in my flickr set. Janet promises to add her own photo to the set once we give her the right idea.

“Here is a picture of my serotonin tattoo. I don’t know that it needs much more explanation than it’s my favorite neurotransmitter.”–Hayley

I thought there were more science tattoo out there. Last week brought nothing, but this week brought the collection up to 85.

It appears that I didn’t receive a single new science tattoo this week! Could it really be that on the entire planet, there are only 81 people passionate enough about their science to go under the needle? If so, thanks to everyone for a fascinating experiment. If not…keep them coming.

"I am a biochemist, studying to be a molecular biologist, and the tattoo I am sending is the entry for carbon on the periodic table of elements. Since all living things on this planet at least are carbon based, from a chemical standpoint, it doesn’t get much more basic than carbon. Hence the tattoo." –Erin

The call for science tattoos has brought 81 images now. After two months, they keep coming.

It is an approximation of the locus of connectedness for the Julia sets of the family of functions f(z) = z^2 + lambda/(z^2) (rotated by pi/2). This is analogous to the standard Mandelbrot set (which applies to the family f(z) = z^2 + c), but holds additional fascination because for lambda values which are in the interior of one of the subdomains of the connectedness locus, the Julia set is a Universal Curve. To me this represents the structure unifying chaos (since Julia sets are chaotic) and order (since Universal Curves act as a sort of catalog of all planar curves).–Aaron

The tattoos keep coming, and so do the visitors. So far over 212,000 visitors have come to the Flickr set alone, which doesn’t count the post that started it all.