Andrew, a medical student, writes,

“I recently got a tattoo of Penicillin G on my arm. As someone who stumbled into medical school as a non-traditional student after a few career missteps, I appreciate a good mistake. There are few mistakes that were as amazing and important to medicine as the ‘discovery’ of Penicillin. Had Alexander Fleming remembered to close his laboratory’s window, who knows where we would be in the fight against infectious disease?”

Continue reading “In Praise of Mistakes [Science tattoo]” →

One of the pleasures of teaching a writing class at Yale is that I can rope in some excellent writers to give talks there. Next Monday, Richard Preston, author of The Hot Zone, The Wild Trees, and many other books and New Yorker articles, will be coming to New Haven to give a public lecture. Please join us!

When: September 20, 2010, 5:30 p.m.

Where:
Burke Auditorium, Kroon Hall
Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies
195 Prospect St.
New Haven, CT

Originally published September 13, 2010. Copyright 2010 Carl Zimmer.

Melinda writes,

I have attached a photo of my Dirac Equation tattoo, which I obtained a few months ago. I am really happy with it. In fact, it caused quite a stir at the Yuri’s Night celebration at NASA Ames. I’m a physics student and research at the University of California, Santa Cruz. I currently conduct research analyzing gamma ray radiation from astronomical sources (blazars and pulsars mainly) with Cerenkov detectors located in Amado, Arizona…Side Note: The equation was written up on a LaTeX document and stenciled from there. Doesn’t get much nerdier than that!

Continue reading “Science Ink: I want your skin! [Science Tattoo]” →