Carl Zimmer is a writer for Discover Magazine, amongst many other things. Having discovered a scientist friend had a DNA strand tattoo with a story behind it, he asked on their blog whether anyone else had science related tattoos.

Many, many people did. He now has a thriving gallery of submissions, and has woven the best images and stories in to a new book, Science Ink: Tattoos of the Science Obsessed.

If you’re interested in the human stories behind tattoos, we strongly recommend having a look through the gallery and clicking some of the images to see the story written up about them. The love some of the scientists and geeks have for their favourite subjects is inspirational.