“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. 

Originally published October 19, 2007. Copyright 2007 Carl Zimmer.

[Update 10/18 8:30 am: Honestly, when I wrote this post last night, I could only access the first couple paragraphs of the op-ed in question. But now the link takes you to the full text. Could it be that my cries were heard?? Doubt it, but open access is always nice.]

In today’s Wall Street Journal there was a very provocative op-ed by ecologist Daniel Botkin. He argues that the evidence of potential harm from global warming is overblown. Here is what you can see for free…

Continue reading “Rupert Murdoch, Tear Down This Wall!”

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

Continue reading “Science Tattoo Friday: Chaos And Order Battle For Aaron’s Back”