A few years ago, well known science writer Carl Zimmer was at a pool party with a scientist friend who studies genetics, and noticed a tattoo of DNA on his shoulder.
It prompted him to wonder if other scientists had similarly chosen to have tattoos related to their scientific pursuits. He put the call out on his popular blog, The Loom, and the responses became the basis of a feature he called the Science Tattoo Emporium (see my post from 2008).
Zimmer has now collected a number of the images into a book titled Science Ink: Tattoos of the Science Obsessed.
You can see a few pages from the book on the Amazon preview, but you can view many more of the tattoos by browsing back through the posts in the Science Tattoo Emporium.
Instead of monsters and flaming skulls, we have tattoos of real animals, both prehistoric and extinct, and scientifically accurate skulls of various species.
In place of iconic hearts, we have biologically accurate illustrations of the human organ.
Throw in molecular structures of various compounds (in the example above, the molecule for LSD), planetary bodies, illustrations of the golden section laid out against a chambered nautilus shell, various scientific formulas and, of course, other interpretations of DNA strands — and you have a range of unusual and fascinating tattoo images.
Unfortunately, the tattoo artists, and/or the artists who created illustrations they may have worked from, aren’t credited.