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. 🙂

Click here to go to the full Science Tattoo Emporium.

Originally published May 2, 2010. Copyright 2010 Carl Zimmer.

What will the world be like when your genome sequence costs less than a cell phone? A couple days ago I went to Cambridge, Mass. to find out.

Continue reading “A Day Among the Genomes” →

I’m on the road today, so I don’t have time to explain the fascinating science behind this freaky new picture of feathered dinosaurs young and old. So let me just direct your attention to fellow D-blogger, Ed Yong, and Nature’s Janet Fang for more.

[Image by Xing Lida and Song Qijin]

Originally published April 28, 2010. Copyright 2010 Carl Zimmer.

In tomorrow’s New York Times, I take a look at a new way of finding disease-related genes: search their ancient evolutionary history. Scientists can find genes involved in blood vessel growth in yeast–which have no blood. They can find genes that help build human embryos in plants, where they sense gravity. It’s a twist on a twist on Darwin’s great insights descent with modification. And I’m pleased to see that University of Chicago evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne, a tough audience if ever there was one, is swayed by the piece. So check it out!

[Update: 9/27 7:30 am: I forgot! You can also listen to me talk with David Corcoran of the Times about this new research on the Science Times podcast.]

Originally published April 26, 2010. Copyright 2010 Carl Zimmer.

Everything is connected. And when I say everything, I include you, dear reader, and the tapeworms of Madagascar. They carry a hidden history of our entire species.

I’m sure we’d all prefer that there was no such connection. Tapeworm are not just gross, but they are pretty much the polar opposite of the human existence. They have no brain. They have no eyes. They lack mouths and guts, having turned their body inside out, absorbing food through its surface. Most of their hideously long body is made up of segments, each of which contains its own supply of both eggs and sperm. To reproduce, the tapeworm fertilizes its eggs, either with its own sperm or another tapeworm’s, and then sheds its segments. Once out of the body, those segments can crawl around on the ground on their own.

Continue reading “Why Madagascar’s Tapeworms Matter–To You” →