Renate writes, "As a geologist and in respect to my temperament, I though a volcano tattoo would be just adequate. I got it at a time when tattoos were not as fashionable as they are now. Someone said to me 'Oh, with such a tattoo you will never get a permanent position.' But I have a permanent position now, despite the tattoo (actually the second one)."
Julia writes, "I got this tattoo done on Saturday. It's the same set of footprints I use in the avatar for my blog (The Ethical Palaeontologist), but in fact they're the narrow-gauge sauropod dinosaur trackways from the Ardley quarry in Oxfordshire. There's no deeper meaning other than the fact that I've spent most of my academic career working on sauropod dinosaurs. But there are plans for more, if I could just get hold of a decent black and white illustration of a sauropod dorsal vertebra in dorsal view..."
Carl: Here's a paper Julia co-wrote on what the trackways reveal about dinosaurs. [Update: Whoops, wrong Julia. Thanks for the correction, Julia...]
Rachel writes: "I studied geology for three years before I reached my major’s capstone course in paleontology. Therein, I became much more familiar with the subject that has since become my greatest scientific passion: evolution. Darwin’s breathtaking brilliance left me awe struck and I have since devoted much of my free time to studying natural selection, specifically, the origins of Darwin’s ideas. One of the basic foundations for Darwin’s discovery was the adaptation of different types of finches to various islands in the Galapagos. To commemorate my devotion, as well as to honor his genius, I got this tattoo of his first published drawing of said finches."
Carl: If you haven't read The Beak of the Finch, do so now.
Kate writes, "I thought I'd send you a photo of my tattoo. I guess it fits into the 'anthropology' category although I'm actually a vet (I've seen exactly one deer in a professional capacity since I graduated). It's a copy of a tattoo found on the Pazyryk mummy, a 2,400 year old Scythian, possibly a shaman. I've heard that it's the oldest known tattoo found on a woman, but I'm not sure whether that's correct. It was done to celebrate the end of a 1, 200 mile walk from John O Groats to Land's End back in 2002. I've heard of other people with it, but haven't seen any, so I'd be interested to find out if any of your other readers have the same one. Not as cool as some, but I like it!"
Ben, a philosopher of science grad student, writes: "Darwin sketched the great tree of life and as a philosopher of science and I endeavor to help to complete his project. 'Metaphysics must flourish, he who understands baboon would do more for metaphysics than Locke'- I believe that by analyzing the universe underneath the lens of evolution we can come to complete Darwin's project. Darwin, more so than any other great thinker, has provided humanity with an explanation for its existence."
Mark writes, "This tattoo is the Zermelo-Fraenkel with Choice axioms of set theory. These nine axioms are the basis for ZFC set theory, which is the most commonly studied form of set theory and the most well known set of axioms as well. From these nine axioms, one can derive all of mathematics. These provide the foundation of mathematics, a field that you can likely tell that I love dearly."
Carl: Mark is making an encore appearance at the Emporium. See his Y combinator here...
Ryan writes, "I am a big astronomy buff and this is a depiction of an eclipse with the Eagle Nebula and one of the angelic spires within it."
Carl: Check out this site at NASA for more pictures and some background about these staggering towers of light.
JC writes, "The broken triangle is an illustration of the Gestalt law of closure. The law of closure demonstrates how the mind creates wholes out of parts - and a world out of sensory information - by "filling in the gaps." Although I'm no longer a professional social scientist, the law is a useful one in the realm of public policy where I'm currently employed. Personally, I use it as a reminder to stay humble, because you never know how much of the world you're making up as you go along."
Orla writes, "I'm a Zoology undergrad in Dublin, Ireland. I got this tattoo of an orangutan to ensure that, even if they die out in the wild, which seems to be quite likely, they'll still be remembered. The noblest of the apes sits on my lap forever."
Drew, an oceanography graduate student, writes: "This, on my leg, is the incompressible form of the conservation of mass equation in a fluid, also known as the continuity equation. When people ask what it means, I say it defines flow. Sometimes I say it means you should have studied more physics, but that is only when I am feeling like being funny. What it means in more detail is that, for an incompressible fluid, the partial derivative of the velocity of the fluid in the three spatial dimensions must sum to zero. It therefore concisely states the fundamental nature of a fluid.
"My advisor took this picture, and I swear he is obsessed (in a good way) with this tattoo. He is giving a talk at Woods Hole next week as he is the recipient of an award, and he is planning to show off 'how quantitative scripps students are' which i think is hilarious and only slightly mortifying. Speaking of mortifying, it is slightly mortifying to be sending this email at all--I have to admit I am a little embarrassed. It is definitely the most vain thing i have done today. I do have an ulterior motive which I have no problem admitting: I want to stake a claim on this particular piece. I guess it might be a little lame to want to claim ownership over something so silly but there it is and I guess at least I can admit it."
"My name is Sharon and I'm an undergraduate math student at Arcadia University. A while ago, I decided that I wanted a tattoo that showed my love for mathematical formulas and equations. I got the quadratic formula on the back of my neck. The quadratic formula has been my favorite equation ever since I learned to sing it to the tune of "pop! goes the weasel." My tattoo is also useful for anyone who happens to sit behind me on an exam!"
Ashton writes, "My boyfriend and I wanted tattoos that looked good on their own but had significance when they were joined. It took a long time to find the right design; my doodles went nowhere. Then, in the course of research for the American Museum of Natural History where I'm a staff writer, I saw a picture of a cell during meiosis, and bingo! (visualize a membrane surrounding both sets of chromosomes on our forearms.) We love the way it looks, as well as the way it symbolizes both pulling apart and coming together. And it ended up being the catalyst for a book project about tattoos with a shared meaning ( http://www.tattoosfortwo.com/)."
Carl: If you forgot your high school biology, here's an elegant little refresher on meiosis.
Paul writes, "I have a degree in Computer Science, and I work with RFID (or at least I did till recently)." On his Livejournal blog, he adds, "For the curious, this is an Alien Technology's European model Gen 1 Squiggle RFID tag. It's actually copper in color and about six centimetres long. I scanned it and blew it up to a bit over twice it's original size, and changed its color to black."
Carl: RFID stands for radio frequency identification. RFID tags, which are embedded in many of the products sold today in stores, are programmed to store information about them. To get the information, you point an RFID reader at the tag and release a burst of radio waves. The energy from the waves powers up the tag, which then sends back a signal of its own. Paul's RFID tattoo says a lot about him now, but, if he wanted, it could say a lot more. Maybe too much.
Therese writes, "I teach molecular and cell biology at a University in Atlanta. Many of my students have commented on the tatoo, I think they think it makes me 'cool.' Haha!"
Carl: In honor of National DNA Day, here's another image of one of the most common images on this blog.
Abigail writes, "My first year of college, I wanted to be an English major, and I took Intro Chemistry to fill the science requirement. The brief unit on thermodynamics made me fall totally in love. Entropy made sense to me - scientifically, philosophically. I became a Chemistry major and love every second of it. I got the tattoo to mark my rite of passage - Entropy going both ways, with its symble delta-S in the middle, all supported in the roots of Yggdrasil, the world-tree of Norse mythology (harking back to my English-lit days)."
Michael Ruse, a leading philosopher of science, writes, "Well, now I am starting to feel a little bit inadequate !!!"
Lauren writes, "I'm not a scientist by trade, but I am, in fact, a huge nerd. I study 18th-century British literature, including scientific literature. It was a wild time to be in science. It was also the heyday of the orrery, which provided the initial impetus for my tattoo. (Orreries, as it turned out, involve too many circles to make them feasible for inking on a large scale.) Then I discovered & fell in love with the comprehensive diagrams in Giovanni de'Dondi's 1364 Il Tractatus Astarii--the plans for the first famous astrarium. My backpiece is of the Mercury wheelwork. Of course, you couldn't track Mercury with it--de'Dondi followed Ptolemy--but I find his Astrarium a lovely & impressive testament to human ingenuity & curiosity."
Carl: It took sixteen years for de'Dondi's astrarium to be built, but it was later destroyed. See a reconstruction here. And read about de'Dondi here.
Abraham writes: "My fascination with Tesla started in elementary school, when my science teacher compared Tesla and Edison. I decided to pay my tribute to the wizard with a patent drawing on an electric magnetic motor, submitted by Tesla in the late 1800's."
A biochemist writes, "Here is a picture of my science tattoo, which is a stylized structure of glycolipid A, the preformed glycolipid membrane anchor precursor I discovered as a graduate student some 20 years ago. At that time, membrane proteins that were anchored via glycolipids, rather than transmembrane protein domains, had just been found and this was the first precursor to be reported. The structure is simplified but basically correct, although considerable artistic license has been taken with bond lengths and angles."
Sarah writes, "My latest tattoo is a black-line representation of the Uffington White Horse in England. It's a huge earthwork carved into the countryside about three thousand years ago. I'm not really sure what compelled me to get it, since I'm a grad student in English and not archaeology or anthropology. But it's such a beautiful, simple design, and it represents a real feat of Bronze Age ingenuity."
Carl: There was a time when the Uffington Horse was thought to be a dragon--in particular, the dragon slain by St. George. But in fact, it is older than dragons. The Uffington Horse is three thousand years old, we now know, because that is the last time that light struck the buried soil around the figure. Some kinds of soil and sand contain radioactive elements that break down at regular intervals. The energy they release damages the crystal structure of the soil particles, creating traps in which electrons get stuck. Sunlight striking the soil has enough energy to jostle the electrons free, and they release a tiny burst of energy. Once this soil gets buried, however, the electrons become trapped again, and the longer it is buried, the more electrons are trapped. Scientists dug up buried soil around the Uffington Horse and shined a light on it. Electrons incarcerated for three thousand years escaped, and in a flash, the horse had an age.
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