Carl Zimmer's Science Tattoo Emporium

The Evolution of Chad

Chad writes, "Based on Huxley's Man's Place in Nature." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ape_skeletons.png

Voyaging

Craig writes, "I teach English at a community college in Kansas City. My tattoo is attached. You might wonder why I am sending a tattoo of a sailing ship to you. That's not just any ship: it is the Beagle, in a famous image as it anchored off of the Galapagos.  Darwin has long been one of my main intellectual heroes. In addition, I do teach science (evolution and climate change at various times) in writing classes because the "debates" about each represent much that is wrong with public discourse today and because we have a theme of informed citizenship in those classes; it is impossible to be an informed citizen without some understanding of what science is and how it works. For both of those reasons, teaching science in college writing classes is both relevant and very interesting"

Darwin, "A Venerable Orang-Outang"

Kim writes, "This is my tattoo of Darwin. It's from a political cartoon published in the late 1800's. As I'm an anthropologist studying human evolution, it felt appropriate."

The original cartoon appeared in Hornet magazine in 1871, in the wake of Darwin's publication of The Descent of Man. Here is the magazine editor's note; if you then press "next" you can see the original. Wikipedia has a cleaner copy of the original.

Descent of Man

"A tattoo of human evolution on my leg. I think that explanation is pretty.... well, self-explanatory" --Krisko

Galapagos

Amanda, a biologist, writes, "Here's my science tattoo. It's inspired from the REM song Man on the Moon and by trip to the Galapagos a few years ago."

Darwin's Tree

"Attached is a photo of a tattoo I got immediately after turning in the final paperwork a little over two weeks ago for the completion of my Ph.D. in biological anthropology. It's the first evolutionary tree that Darwin sketched in his 1837 Notebook B on the transmutation of species." --Julienne

See Darwin's original sketch here

Darwin Fish