In this special episode, Sinead sits down for an interview with Carl Zimmer, an author and lecturer at Yale University, where he teaches writing about science and the environment, to discuss the topic of his latest book Science Ink: Tattoos of the Science Obsessed. The Angry Hippie joins the Dude before the interview and then pops back up after to help Sinead close the program and announce the specifics of the giveaway (which we will get to in a moment). Before the interview, Sinead covers the science behind exactly how tattoos work with a bit of an in depth look at our skin. As always, we really hope that you enjoy the show as much as we did putting it together.

Below are the details on the contest and a short gallery of nerdy ink from Science Dude and friends!

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The Giveaway

Because of the awesomeness of Sinead, the podcast has a copy of Mr. Zimmer’s new book, Science Ink: Tattoos of the Science Obsessed to give away to one lucky listener of the show (winners limited to locations where Amazon ships). And there are two ways to enter:

• #1 – Leave us a comment telling us if you were to get a nerdy tattoo (in regards to whatever field you work in), what would it be and why?
• #2 – Show us your nerdy ink (be it temporary or permanent) via email or with a link in the comment section below!

All entries by email and comment must be in by 11:59pm on December 31st! So get those wheels a turning or cameras loaded and get entered to win the copy of Carl Zimmer’s book that was discussed on this episode of the podcast. Winner will be chosen randomly.

Linky Links from Sinead

The books of Carl Zimmer

Gallery of Nerdy Ink

Gytis Dudas is a first year PhD student at the University of Edinburgh working on the interactions between co-circulating RNA viruses. He says that at the moment it means looking at what happens to influenza viruses when new ones show up. His tattoo is of the first evolutionary tree drawn by Darwin – evolutionary trees show relationships between lineages through time.

Tom Little is a Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh. He does research is on host-parasite coevolution, and combines the study of immune responses, the genomic regions and genes that underlie susceptibility and, ultimately, evolutionary dynamics in the field. As far as we know, his work has nothing to do with cephalopods in general, or octopi specifically, but Science Dude does find this tattoo pretty awesome.

The Hofmann group is based at the University of California in Santa Barbara, but goes to the Antarctic regularly. Science groups doing research in Antarctica are assigned ‘event numbers’ as a shorthand to identify personnel, equipment and activities associated with the group. ‘B’ identifies the project as Biology, ‘M’ identifies the location at McMurdo Station, and 134 is a number that Gretchen chose herself. We have put our (temporary) tattoo on carpenters, dishwashing assistants, other scientists, and a National Science Foundation representative–it’s been our way of giving our love to the citizens of McMurdo.

Sinead Collins (a.k.a. Science Dude) is a Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh. She does experimental evolution with microbes, trying to figure out how genetic adaptation works when the ecology and genetics get complicated, and then applies this to how photosynthetic microbes might evolve in response to global change. Despite the fact that she works on things that are only one cell big, Sinead is fascinated by flight, perhaps because she spends so much time flying. Her forearms show the four times flight has evolved: insects, pterosaurs, birds and mammals. All of the animals are actually little robots, incorporating the fifth time flight has shown up: when humans managed to build flying machines.