Carl Zimmer's Science Tattoo Emporium

That About Covers It

MLR writes: "The Tree of Life--carbon, glucose, light, DNA, and the golden rectangle.  A tattoo by Kevin Riley. On the chest of a PhD student in molecular biology."

The Evolution of Chad

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

Origin of an Epidemic

Lea writes, "I am an evolutionary biology graduate student working with some of the world's earliest known HIV samples, trying to clarify the early evolutionary history of the virus.  I was inspired by an elegant circle tree phylogeny my PI put together for a publication submission and I decided I had finally found something I connected with enough to get permanently put on my body."

Carl: Typepad swallowed up this post last week for reasons unknown, so here it is again...

Feminism And Cannibalism

I am a soil scientist and entomologist. My favorite insects/arthropods are praying mantises, psuedoscorpions and spiders. I am also a big time feminist. I find praying mantises to be so fascinating, and while they are extremely adept killing machines, they are also one of the oldest insects around! This tattoo is a metaphor for my independance and tribute to my mantis friends.

From Wikipedia: Sexual cannibalism is common among mantids in captivity, and under some circumstances may also be observed in the field. The female may start feeding by biting off the male's head (as with any prey), and if mating had begun, the male's movements may become even more vigorous in its delivery of sperm. Early researchers thought that because copulatory movement is controlled by ganglion in the abdomen, not the head, removal of the male's head was a reproductive strategy by females to enhance fertilisation while obtaining sustenance. Later, this bizarre behaviour appeared to be an artifact of intrusive laboratory observation. Whether the behaviour in the field is natural, or also the result of distractions caused by the human observer, remains controversial. Mantises are highly visual creatures, and notice any disturbance occurring in the laboratory or field such as bright lights or moving scientists. Research by Liske and Davis (1987) and others found (e.g. using video recorders in vacant rooms) that Chinese mantises that had been fed ad libitum (so were not starving) actually displayed elaborate courtship behavior when left undisturbed. The male engages the female in courtship dance, to change her interest from feeding to mating. Courtship display has also been observed in other species, but it does not hold for all mantises.

So in fact, the common assumption that all females cannabilize their mates either during/after copulation is debated because most observations of this were in a lab, where the mantis was likely highly aware of her captors. I have a magnet on my fridge with a woman in a wedding dress that says..."Marriage? No...I don't mate well in captivity!"

Carl: For more on mantises and their hungry love, see my article in the New York Times.

The Beak(s) of the Finch

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.

Baboon Philosophy

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."

Dead Ends and Interesting Aunts

Jim describes his tattoo: "a design of Opabinia regalis, a Burgess Shale fossil dating from the Cambrian. It has some pirate imagery, including the hourglass, skull, and nukes. As an evolutionary dead end, Opabinia reminds me of the diversity and tenacity of life through difficulty (how do you put 'Ad Astra Per Aspera' into fossil terms?), and plus it looks awesome."

Carl: Opabinia is the weirdest of the weird, a creature with five eyes and a single appendage sticking out of its head like the arm of a backhoe. It existed half a billion years ago, and its fossil remains were preserved exquisitely in the Burgess Shale formation of Canada. Because it looks unlike anything alive today, it can seem like a dead end. But it would be a mistake to separate it entirely from the animal kingdom. In fact, it shares many traits with living arthropods, a group that includes insects and crustaceans. And while the five eyes and single head arm haven't survived as far as we know, Opabinia was part of a transition from ancient forms to the arthropod body plan seen today. Its legs, for example, offer clues to how a single appendage branched in two. So while there may be no living descendants of Opabinia, they still have something to tell us about life today.

Five Kingdoms

Claire d'Alberto of the University of Melbourne writes, "I would like to share what my friends call my 'science nerd' tattoo with you! I am currently doing my PhD in Zoology and have been fascinated by the biological world for as long I can remember, so when I decided to get a tattoo it seemed logical that I look within my field for inspiration....It took 4.5 hours, and certainly didn't tickle, but I love that I have such a beautiful representation of evolution and the natural world with me all the time." [Tattooist's site: http://www.eternalinstinct.com/]

Carl: The tree of life has changed shape over the years. On another tattoo, you can see a nineteenth century version, its branches reaching upward through time. Today, scientists use DNA to draw the branches of thousands of species at a time. To make space for them all, the scientists must stretch the tree out into a wheel. Claire modeled her tree after a 3,000-species tree created by David Hillis at the University of Texas. She did not have all 3,000 species tattooed on her, obviously, but this simplified version captures the overall shape of the tree. The pictures around the tree represent the five kingdoms--Monera (bacteria), Protista (amoebae and other single-celled organisms), Plantae (plants), Fungi (illustrated here by yeast and the penicillin mold), and animals (a comb jelly, a mollusc, a starfish, and a seadragon fish). Of course, even 3,000 species is only a tiny fraction of the full diversity of life--1.8 million known species, and perhaps 10 or 20 million more to be discovered. If the current trends of discovery hold up, most of that diversity will be made up of bacteria. So future tattoos will need more microbes, and fewer seadragons.

Cousin to Pigeons

Jeremiah Drewel, a geology student at the University of Alaska writes, "This is my personal favorite Deinonychus!"

Carl: Deinonychus holds a special place in the history of paleontology. Its remains were first discovered in 1931 in Montana, but for decades they languished, unstudied, at the American Museum of Natural History. In the 1960s Yale paleontologist John Ostrom discovered a wealth of new fossils from the same species and began to contemplate what the animal was like in real life. At the time, dinosaurs were still widely considered to be sluggish scaly lumps. But Ostrom argued that Deinonychus was for more active, able to keep its stiffened tail straight out behind its body. He argued that they may have even been warm-blooded. Ostrom also noticed a number of similarities in Deinonychus's skeleton and those of birds. He revived an old theory that birds are dinosaurs, and argued they were closely related to Deinonychus. It's a connection now almost universally accepted by paleontologists.

Deinonychus changed the way we see birds, but birds have also changed the way we see Deinonychus. Many relatives of Deinonychus--non-flying dinosaurs--show evidence of primitive feathers. Velociraptor, a close relative of Deinonychus, had what look like quill knobs on its bones. It's plausible that Deinonychus itself was covered in feathers of some sort as well, which it might have used to attract mates. Depending on what paleontologists discover in years to come, Jeremiah may need to get re-inked.

Almost Human

"I thought I would send you mine : Paranthropus (Australopithecus depending on your school of thought) boisei."--Gabrielle Russo, Hunter Colllege.

Carl: Paranthropus boisei existed from 2.3 million to 1 million years ago--a good run. It stood upright like us, but had a small brain and powerful jaws for biting tough food like seeds and roots. Paranthropus boisei is not our ancestor, not even a close cousin. Instead, it belonged to a separate branch of hominid evolution--one that may have been wiped out by a changing climate. Now it is remembered in museums and on at least one tattooed arm.

Descent of Man

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

Brittle Star

"This is another Haeckel- a brittle star. I am a physical chemist, but I've always admired Haeckel's obsessive use of visual and design analogy to bolster his (useful, but not entirely correct) ideas about evolution. " -Aurelia Honerkamp-Smith, PhD student, University of Washington.

Trilobites and the Fossil Record

" I am a currently a neuroimaging research assistant and I used to work in inorganic chemistry. I got this tattoo after I took a philosophy class on the origins of life, which turned out to be an intelligent design class in disguise. The geological record was always being disputed in class. This is my political statement against intelligent design being taught in schools. This tattoo shows my support of the geological record and evolution, as well as my love for trilobites and other ancient marine creatures. It is based on the species paradoxides davidis. I am going to get a similar tattoo on the other arm of a fossilized leaf, so that I have both the flora and the fauna." -- Judith Segall

Pikaia (An Early Fish)

"here is a photograph of the one my boyfriend offered me three years ago. Although I don't work directly on the Burgess Shales fossils, they are some of the coolest fossils around, and a summary of what is so fascinating in paleontology and evolutionary biology..." --Mag

More information on the fossils here

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

The Tree of Life

"I'm a biochemist, but I've always been fascinated by evolution. Here's my tattoo representing the tree of life, based loosely on a couple of phylogenetic trees drawn by Ernst Haeckel. Here it is attached to the pictures that inspired it."--Kevin

Homonculus

"I’m an evolutionary biologist who investigates the evolution of sperm form, sperm-female interactions and sperm competition. So...yeah, it’s pretty much about sperm. Wanted to bring the concept of the homunculus to life, as all illustrations of it have always been rather cartoonish. Found a guy (Anil Gupta at Inkline Studio) with the skill and creativity to do it justice."

Scott Pitnick, Syracuse University