Nuria Gonzalez-Montalban , a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Maryland, writes:

My name is Nuria and I am a biologist working with prions. Since the structure of prions has not been described yet (at least completely), I would not want to tattoo a possibly-wrong prion. Instead, I chose a T4 virus since part of my undergrad and PhD were related to E.coli and T4 bacteriophages.

Given that bacteriophages are the most common living thing on Earth, it’s good that at least one person on Earth has it on his arm.

You can see the rest of the Science Tattoo Emporium here  or in my book, Science Ink: Tattoos of the Science Obsessed.

Originally published October 14, 2011. Copyright 2011 Carl Zimmer.