Not long ago, Carl Zimmer, who writes a blog for Discover Magazine called The Loom, wrote about his recent discovery of several tattoos on the bodies of some friends of his who happened to be scientists. The first discovery was by accident, the second and third came about from curiosity and he finally asked his readers if this was an anomaly or were there more scientists out there with tattoos related to their love of science? He was surprised by the flood of responses he received.

The first tattoo he spotted was on Professor Sandeep Robert Datta who is a neurobiologist at Harvard. Yes, that Harvard. He has a DNA coiled around his arm and not just any DNA, but one that spells out his wife’s initials. I won’t get into the intricate background of how this is accomplished; just trust me that it all make sense to anyone who is geek enough to understand it. And you would probably have to be a geek to even want to get into how it was done. But the tattoo, shown here, is pretty cool looking.

And then there is Marcus Davis, a developmental biologist at the University of Chicago who is studying the genetic instructions stored in the fins of fish to understand better how they came to develop into things like hands and fingers. He just happens to have the tattoo of a eusthenopteron on his arm, a very old species of fish that was one of those early guys that crawled up on land. The kind you see in all the cartoons about evolution.

It turns out that many scientists have etched on their bodies symbols of the passion that rules their lives, the science that draws them out and makes their curiosity a tool to change the world around us. The end result of his conversations with all of these scientists is a wonderful book, which if you are the kind of person, who is curious about science and tattoos, might be just the thing for you. I know that I am just enough of a geek to love a book like this. Here are a few more pictures from the book, called Science Ink, which you may have you wanting more.