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Biomedicine in museums

Are there any microarray tattoos out there in the skin world?

Biomedicine is displayed in many ways. Science writer Carl Zimmer wondered last summer if scientists are making tattoos with images from the world of science. It turned out they have — and so yet another science blog (Carl Zimmer’s Science Tattoo Emporium) was born, filled with skin images of science motifs.

Here, e.g., is a DNA motif on the ankle of Therese (last name unknown) who teaches molecular and cell biology at a university in Atlanta (from Zimmer’s post here):

And here’s a DNA monster (from an earlier post):

If we are right in believing that the microarray pattern is gradually about to replace DNA as an icon of postgenomic life sciences (because the double helix is so last year), then we should soon be able to see a red, green and yellow microarray tattoo. A fitting pattern for a broad back, with thousands of dots! Let us know if you find one (or make one yourself!).

(jen_drake is close too it: (s)he has tattoos and is also using microarray analysis — but has apparently not made the connection between them yet …)

Thomas Söderqvist

Author Thomas Söderqvist

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