A few months ago, Zimmer, a science writer, began compiling a collection of scientific tattoos — he’s amassed a terrific set of photographs. Our favorites? A remarkably precise illustration of the uranium atom, impressed upon on a ribcage, and an amino acid etched, sexily, into a woman’s hip. But we’re also fond of the buckyball nets and zebra fish, and of the “Macroscope” that takes up the whole of someone’s back. (Not surprisingly, you’ll also find sketches of the formula for LSD.) To paraphrase Karl Popper, the stereotype’s being falsified, one tat at a time. - Noah Carter
Robert Burton is a neurologist (and novelist) who marshals scientific and psychological arguments and concludes that our strongest convictions can arise just as readily from prelogical processes as from rational thought. Alarmingly, Burton also suggests that our sense of certainty attaches as readily and firmly to false ideas as to true ones — and feels precisely the same whether we’re dead right or totally wrong. - Noah Carter
