Allen writes:

“In our case, my wife and I got tattoos as our wedding rings. I can still hear the guffaw of one of my wife’s good friends at the wedding when it was announced what we did. Our tattoos are ankle rings composed of a siphonophore, deep sea relatives of the Portuguese Man-o-War. We modeled it after one of Haeckel’s plates, but have since been told by the guy who knows more about siphonophores than anyone else alive that it “doesn’t exist”. That is one aspect for which it is not an apt symbol.”

Continue reading “Siphonophores” →

From an entomologist. More information here.

Click here to go to the full Science Tattoo Emporium. 

Originally published February 16, 2008. Copyright 2008 Carl Zimmer.

Jessica Pikul writes:

I am a Chemistry PhD student at University of Washington. My research is in bioinorganic chemistry, specifically modeling non-heme iron-sulfur metalloenzymes. I am also a Celiac (autoimmune disorder triggered by ingesting gluten). The tattoo on my leg is one of the segments of the gluten protein that I can not digest. The ball and stick molecule is of a Proline-Serine-Glutamine-Glutamine peptide that I can’t break down which then stimulates T-cells to start the fun chain reaction that ends in my small intestine villi being attacked by antibodies.

Continue reading “Celiac” →

This is how the Emporium was born. Last summer I was at a pool party where a friend, Bob Datta, was bobbing around in the water with his kids. Datta is a post-doc at Columbia, where he studies genes in Drosophila flies. I noticed that Bob had a tattoo of DNA on his shoulder. At first I thought it was a generic snippet of the molecule, but then Bob told me that it actually represents, in the genetic code, his wife’s initials: EEE. Geek love in its noblest form.

Continue reading “The Emporium is Now Open” →

After a lot of writing and a lot of waiting, the first review of my next book, Microcosm, has just come out. Actually, it’s coming out on Monday in Publisher’s Weekly, but they apparently couldn’t wait, sending out a link to it today in their weekly newsletter:

When most readers hear the words E. coli, they think tainted hamburger or toxic spinach. Noted science writer Zimmer says there are in fact many different strains of E. coli, some coexisting quite happily with us in our digestive tracts.

Continue reading “Microcosm’s First Review: You Are Required to Buy This Book” →