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Plaza, Version 1.0

By Kamelia Kilawan

Donors and city officials help President Wallerstein (third from left) cut the ribbon of the new plaza. Photo by Emma Kazaryan

Donors and city officials help President Wallerstein (holding giant shears) cut the ribbon of the new plaza.
Photo by Emma Kazaryan

Does one closed street constitute a campus? Baruch’s president said he thinks so.

Before the opening ceremony for the East 25th Street plaza, President Mitchel B. Wallerstein said he had been able to “give the college a campus for the first time,” adding, “The street is closed and it never will be re-opened.”

Where once cars and trucks clogged the street between Lexington and Third avenues, the corridor is now covered with sandy gravel and dotted with some rocks and small potted plants. No-smoking signs hang in campus windows, and each day about 20 blue tables and chairs are brought into the plaza, which separates the college’s library and its Vertical Campus building, creating a new space for students, faculty, workers and local residents to congregate. Within a few years, grass, trees and benches will replace the street curbs, Wallerstein said.

Students, discouraged from smoking outside the school are shooed away by security guards, and school officials are discussing the possibility of hiring of more of them. Baruch spokesman Eric Lugo describes the new outdoor center as a “public-private partnership” with the city’s Department of Transportation, and funding from private donors including Baruch alumni. College officials have promised to take responsibility for the costs, which include maintenance and security.

“It is bringing to fruition something we’ve been working on for two years,” said Wallerstein after cutting the ribbon of the new plaza on Feb. 20, 2013. “It is going to be a huge game-changer.”

According to Baruch’s Office of College Advancement, approximately $3 million in funding from Baruch alumni, the Baruch College Fund, the student government and the City University of New York will be allotted to the development of the new pedestrian plaza.

“There is an immense push in Baruch’s administration to get this to happen,” said M. Anas Uddin, a senior at Baruch and former senator in Baruch’s undergraduate student government.

Uddin, who organized students to attend Community Board hearings in 2011, noted that some members of the student government had doubts about the use of funds for the plaza. “There was some concern that we could use this money to hire teachers because we have a staggering amount of adjuncts—but the money we came up with was for this cause,” he said, adding that the funds were often donated by alumni and “earmarked for a public plaza.”

Wallerstein said, “There was an opportunity and a political opening to get it done. This was the time to do it.”

According to Lugo, local officials including City Council members Rosie Mendez and James Vacca and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, State Senator Liz Krueger, Assemblyman Brian Kavanagh, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and organizations such as the Flatiron/23rd Street Partnership Business Improvement District, support the 25th street pedestrian plaza.

“It made it smoother, it wasn’t like we were trailblazing to get this,” said Mark Thompson, the former chairman of Community Board 6. He said the mayor’s New York City plaza program gave local residents a sense that the plaza would be similar to others throughout the city.

Rob Pihl, a Kips Bay resident of four years, said he sat in the plaza one day for lunch and felt it was a nice break from the street. Pihl said the closed street seemed to be safer for students walking to and from each building. “Anything they had before didn’t seem to make a lot of sense,” he said.

Students and the public are welcome to enjoy Baruch's new plaza. Photo by Emma Kazaryan

Students and the public are welcome to enjoy Baruch’s new plaza.
Photo by Emma Kazaryan

Community Board 6 approved the project, despite initial pushback from some members concerned about limited parking, an increase of noise from students and more garbage.

Robert Dress, who lives six blocks away from the plaza, noted the appearance of many new plazas throughout the city. “The city is becoming increasingly harder to cross town; this makes it harder,” he said.

Dress also mentioned that he was concerned whether school officials would listen to residents who question the impact of the new space on the surrounding community. “I think it looks safer for the students but it doesn’t look like there is a real plan,” he said, adding that the plaza looks “haphazard and temporary.”

Thompson said the community board has been in support of giving Baruch a campus, even though the first proposal was turned down by the city’s Department of Transportation.

Thompson said Baruch hired the engineering firm Philip Habib & Associates to conduct a traffic assessment of the neighborhood, which concluded that traffic issues in the neighborhood were minimal because 25th Street leads to Madison Square Park, not a major intersection.

Thompson said nearby restaurants would not face many changes with deliveries because the shops were located close to avenues. However, Karen Liang, the manager of Jimmy’s House of Vietnamese Cuisine, a small restaurant adjacent to the Vertical Campus, said she regretted signing the statement of approval for the plaza because it has made her daily delivery of fresh pork, beef, and chili “very difficult.”

“I have to go around and around,” she said explaining that she cannot park in front of her shop anymore. Now, she needs to have someone sit in her minivan on the busy avenue while she unpacks her goods and wheels them down the street into the shop. “It’s nice for the school,” she said. She then added, “I have lots of problems, but the school is not helping me.” She noted her restaurant has been located next to the college for 10 years.

Thompson said he believed the plaza to be an “asset to Baruch” and the surrounding community. He explained that he overheard local residents saying, “We can’t believe we have this.”

He did disclose, “Baruch will have to expand a little more,” explaining that it may need to accommodate for the new space in its budget.

Steven Bartashev, a senior at Baruch, said he was curious as to how the school planned to keep the plaza clean with many students still smoking within the area. “It’s finally a campus whereas before it was a cloud of smoke and some chairs,” he said, mentioning his only concern for the new plaza is that Baruch students “don’t make it dirty.”

Debbie Mazzia, who has worked at Baruch for 29 years, said she was happy with the new “mini-campus” because it was something different for the school, but she also expressed concerns about cleanliness. “It’s going to take a lot of manpower to maintain, between the cigarette butts and normal litter,” she said. Though she added, “It will be gorgeous in the summer.”

According to Lugo, school officials may consider generating revenue to help fund the maintenance of the plaza by holding public events on the space.

Before then, school officials need to concentrate on the design of the plaza’s infrastructure in an effort to get it approved by the Department of Transportation and other city agencies.

A view of the interim plaza from Baruch's library building. Photo by Emma Kazaryan

A view of the interim plaza from Baruch’s library building. Photo by Emma Kazaryan

Wallerstein said “significant construction issues” remain, noting the presence of an old sewer line under 25th street. He said although the budget for the construction of the plaza is estimated at $3 million, that amount is dependent on the specifics of the plaza’s design.

“I think it will be a part of my legacy,” he said of the campus and plaza. He also pointed out that he still needs approval from city agencies to make sure his final vision does not get turned down.

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    Plaza, Version 1.0

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Cisco Blogs

Cisco Blog > Enterprise Networks

IWAN Wed: Is FIFA supported on the ISR?

Food for thought

The other day, I went to the café to grab my lunch and notice something that got me thinking of an IT problem we’re going to see more and more.

I’m not a soccer sport fan but of course I am aware of the 2014 FIFA World Cup™ event that is happening.

Anyways, I saw a guy watching a live stream of the game between Iran and Nigeria on his mobile device and it got me thinking “I wonder how much bandwidth this thing is taking?”

All major sports event like the Superbowl, World Cup, NBA Finals, PGA tour, Olympics, etc. are streaming LIVE games and many people around the globe are watching the World Cup during business hours as its always 9 to 5 somewhere. Read More »

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IWAN Starter Kit and CiscoChampions

Over the weekend I had a brief twitter chat with someone who mentioned he had been wondering ‘what the heck is IWAN?’ (I’m paraphrasing here) and hadn’t been able to find anything on it.  Besides asking the obvious – why he hadn’t asked me or @CiscoEnterprise about it – I thought I’d put together a brief on IWAN.  Here, you’ll find the top 7 items to get you started learning about IWAN.  Also, just wanted to put in a plug for Cisco Champions for Enterprise Networks – you can still nominate yourself or a colleague and one of the perks is that we’ll be making sure to do briefs and/or deep-dives on our solutions with Cisco Champions so you’re in the know.

First, what is the “I” in IWAN? Intelligent.  (The I doesn’t refer to “i” as the Pods, Pads, and Phones and should be written upper case, not lower.) We’re calling the capability to use both internet and MPLS for your WAN as Intelligent WAN (IWAN).  This idea comes as a result of the confluence of the forces hitting *right now* you’ve probably already heard about that I’ll may over simplify.  Skip to the pretty list if need be or check out this intro to the CVDs that has 5 great use cases for IWAN on pages 2 and 3. Read More »

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A Brave New World for IT: Internet as WAN

Today’s IT organizations are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Most face an avalanche of new bandwidth requirements hitting their networks, yet too few resources to support the business’ needs.  In 2013, three out of four organizations will not have any additional wide area network (WAN) budget (Nemertes Research). That means 75% of IT teams will not be able to buy more bandwidth to address exponential traffic growth, and will need to re-think their entire approach to the network if they want stay successful.  Treading water will not be an option.

Here is a sampling of the trends that are challenging IT now:

  Read More »

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Webinar: Service Containers Transforms the Router

#GameChanger is the one word we used to describe the new branch router: ISR 4451-X.  We said it was designed from the ground up with rich services and application delivery in mind.  How did we do that?  Two words: Service Containers.

Service Containers are embedded into the router hardware itself, making it easy for you to manage and operate network services and applications.  Services and applications are protected within each container, making it possible for each service to perform at the level that you need to, but also gives you the flexibility as its embedded nature entails.  And since these containers can talk to each other even if they are on a separate device, you get high availability for your branch automatically. Read More »

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Twitter: June 2009 Archives

Twitter of green on #Iranelection

If you've ever wondered just what the point of Twitter is -- and you know you have --  the  coverage of the #Iran election answered that.

Forget CNN, the New York Times or any other mainstream form of media for that matter -- frustrated with the lack of coverage, people worldwide turned to Twitter

Twitter, Time writes, is the medium of the moment.

And it continues. The sea of green at the protest in Iran has now become the sea of green on Twitter.


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Blogs -- Sports - News - Entertainment - Lifestyle - Opinion

Another Big Game For Kaleena Mosqueda Lewis

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UConn's highly touted recruit, who is set to join the team next season, had another big day on Tuesday.

Mater Dei defeated Rosary High, 79-28, and Kaleena Mosqueda Lews had 26 points and eight rebounds in just three quarters.

Mater Dei leaves for snowy Springfield, MA tomorrow morning where it will play in the Hall of Fame Classic against Murry Bergtraum from NY on Friday.

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John Altavilla was reincarnated as UConn women's basketball beat writer by The Courant before the 2007-08 season. He originally spent three seasons on the beat in the late 1990s... read more

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Want to attend a service academy next year? Now's the time to apply

Rep. John Carney is now accepting applications from Delawareans looking to be nominated to the U.S. Naval Academy, Air Force Academy, Merchant Marine Academy, or the Military Academy at West Point.

The application deadline for those who want to start classes at one of these top-notch institutions next fall and join the class of 2017 is Wednesday, October 31, 2012.

 “It’s a tremendous privilege to nominate some of Delaware’s brightest and most talented young people to attend our nation’s service academies,” Carney said. “The academies offer an opportunity to earn a degree from some of the most prestigious colleges in the nation, while receiving the training and skills necessary to succeed throughout life.”

To be considered for an appointment, applicants must meet all eligibility requirements and receive a nomination from a member of the House or Senate, the vice president or the secretary of the Air Force, Army, or Navy.  Applicants can also be considered for nomination by both of the state’s U.S. senators – Sens. Tom Carper and Chris Coons.

Applicants to the Air Force Academy, the Naval Academy and West Point must be between the ages of 17 and 23 as of July 1, 2013.  They must also be a U.S. citizen, unmarried, not pregnant, and have no legal obligation to support children or other dependents.

Those seeking an application packet or more information about the nomination process should contact Kristy Huxhold in Carney’s office at (302) 691-7333 or Kristy.Huxhold@mail.house.gov.

This entry was posted in Rep. John Carney, Sen. Chris Coons, Sen. Tom Carper, service academies. Bookmark the permalink.


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SUNY Brockport Softball Forms “Ks for a Kure” Againt Childhood Cancer

SUNY Brockport Softball Coach John Dumaw and his players have founded Ks for K. photo courtesy of SUNY Brockport Athletics.

SUNY Brockport Softball Coach John Dumaw and his players have founded Ks for K. photo courtesy of SUNY Brockport Athletics.

Regular readers of my Blog are familiar with Saves for A Cure – the amazing organization former SUNY Brockport ice hockey standout Todd Sheridan founded to raise money to fight childhood cancer.

Now, another sport at SUNY Brockport is following in Sheridan’s foot steps by forming their own organization to support childhood cancer research and treatment: Ks for a Kure.

The SUNY Brockport softball team – under the direction of head coach John Dumaw - came up with Ks for a Kure partly to remember Dumaw’s daughter Robin who died of childhood cancer at age eleven twenty years ago.

Childhood cancers have impacted Dumaw’s players over the years as well – most recently player Jessica Stahl’s twelve year old cousin Emily Herman battled childhood leukemia and is now in remission.

The softball program’s first Ks for a Kure event will be held on April 23rd during Brockport’s 1:00 p.m. doubleheader with SUNY Potsdam.

At the game members of the Golden Eagles will be collecting cans and bottles, with 100 percent of the proceeds going to CURE Childhood Cancer Association of Rochester.

Following the conclusion of the Potsdam doubleheader, Brockport’s softball players will canvass the Brockport neighborhoods, collecting bags of bottles and cans from participating homes across the community.

Additionally, $1 will be donated by the coaches and parents for each strikeout by a Brockport pitcher.

About a dozen children fighting or having fought childhood cancer will be honorary guests at the game – including Emily Herman.  Herman, of Kendall, will throw out the opening pitch.

If you cannot make the game but would still like to make a donation of cans or bottles call Coach Dumaw at (585) 395-5955 or drop them off at or in front of the door of the softball office (Room 219 in Tuttle South on the campus of SUNY Brockport)

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Caurie Putnam I'm proud to have called Brockport my home for the past 15 years. I love it because it has a small town feel, but the presence of SUNY Brockport adds a small city flavor. I moved to Brockport after graduating from the University of Rochester to cover the community as a reporter for Messenger Post Newspapers. I grew up in Connecticut and Washington County, NY but fell in love with Brockport and decided to raise my family here. I am a single mom to two busy little boys who take after their busy Mommy! I am also a freelance writer for The Democrat and Chronicle and several other publications in western New York. My Brockport activities include: The Brockport Moms Club, Brockport PTSA, JJ's Angels, The Brockport Blizzards, and Tri-County Youth Hockey. As the Brockport Blogger, my goal is to bring you positive, family centered, community news and photos. Brockport is the hidden gem of Monroe County and I love to shine it up. Please send ideas, press releases, and feedback to Caurie at You can also follow me on Twitter at @CauriePutnam

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- Cold Cases - http://blogs.denverpost.com/coldcases -

DU student raped, stabbed after accident

Names: June Kowaloff, 20
Location killed: 2301 S. Race St.
Agency: Denver Police Department
Date killed: Oct. 20, 1973
Cause of Death: Stabbed
Suspect: Jerry Nemnich

UPDATE: A Grand Junction jury found Jerry Nemnich guilty Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2010 in the murders of 24-year-old Linda Benson and her 5-year-old daughter, Kelley, according to a Grand Junction Daily Sentinel news report.

The 65-year-old Longmont man, who is a suspect in the murder of June Kowaloff, 20, has not been charged in Kowaloff’s case.

Nemnich, 65, fatally stabbed Benson and her daughter on July 24, 1975. He was arrested in the spring of 2010 following an investigation by the police department’s cold case unit.

According to the Sentinel report, Nemnich surprised prosecutors by taking the stand during his trial and testifying that he was in the apartment. Nemnich told jurors that he was assaulted by someone with a knife before stumbling upon the victims.

Prosecutors pointed out that his story didn’t account for his DNA found under Benson’s fingernails, the newspaper reported.
The Sentinel says that Nemnich faces a mandatory life sentence. Sentencing will Nov. 8.

Kowaloff story:

University of Denver student June Kowaloff had survived a devastating car crash in 1971 while driving home to New York City after school that year.

She spent most of the next year in an Ohio hospital recovering from severe injuries.

Then in 1973, the 20-year-old returned to Denver, eager to renew her studies in mathematics.

That year was also eventful for serial rapist Jerry Nemnich. He moved to Denver after a stint at the Colorado State Penitentiary in Cañon City on a rape conviction.

Jerry Nemnich

While in prison, he vented about the mistreatment of criminals and the uselessness of rehabilitation programs in a guest editorial to The Denver Post.

“Destruction will continue as long as prisoners are caged, herded about like cattle under the watchful eyes of armed guards and segregated from their families, friends and society in general,” he wrote.

He warned of consequences for further mistreatment of inmates.

“Pacifying them with reform only further aggravates their sense of impotence, frustration and rage. It merely intensifies their condition and feeds the fires of rebellion.”

When he was released from prison, Nemnich came to Denver, seemingly bent on fulfilling his own prediction. In the succeeding years he would be arrested repeatedly for rape and was suspected in other more serious crimes.

On Saturday, Oct. 20, 1973, Kowloff screamed at about 5 a.m. Witnesses saw a man flee and a car speed away, the newspaper article says.

The manager of her apartment at 2301 S. Race St. found Kowaloff face up in a pool of blood wearing only a blue-green bathrobe at the bottom of concrete steps leading down to her apartment. She had been repeatedly stabbed.

No suspects were arrested at the time.

In 1974, Nemnich was arrested for a Boulder rape. That charge was dropped. In 1978, he was charged with raping a Denver woman and was convicted. He served a prison term until 1992.

In the early 1990s, New York City attorney Arthur Kowaloff got a call from the same Denver detective who had worked on the investigation of his sister’s murder 19 years earlier.

The detective told him he was going to seek a DNA test of a man who had been a suspect in June’s death all along. Arthur Kowaloff said he couldn’t recall the suspect’s name. The detective wanted to test the man to determine whether he was the killer before his release from prison.

Arthur Kowaloff never heard from the detective again.

Another 18 years passed.

Grand Junction authorities charged Nemnich, a long-haul trucker, with first-degree murder in the 1975 stabbing deaths of Linda Benson, 24, and her 5-year-old daughter Kelley. Both were stabbed to death.
Nemnich was placed in a Grand Junction jail with bail set at $3 million.

The arrest sparked new interest in the Kowaloff case. Denver cold-case detectives are investigating whether Nemnich killed Kowaloff, according to Sgt. Anthony Parisi.

“We have reopened the case,” Parisi said. “We are reinterviewing witnesses.”

Kowaloff’s murder is the only Denver homicide case that detectives are currently looking at in connection to Nemnich.

Investigators are going to compare semen found on the woman to Nemnich’s DNA, according to sources.

Parisi said even if there is a DNA match, detectives must determine whether there is evidence that counters the possible defense of consensual sex.

Arthur Kowaloff said it would be wonderful if Denver detectives could solve the case after 36 years.

“The only thing I ever heard was this one guy they thought did it but they couldn’t pin it on him,” Arthur Kowaloff said. “But none of this will bring my sister back. She was a terrific kid in the prime of her college career.”

Contact information: Anyone with information about the case is asked to contact Metro Denver Crime Stoppers at 720-913-7867. Denver Post reporter Kirk Mitchell can be reached at 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com


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Posts by Topic: KNUSRSS feed
May 15, 2014, 11:26 am

760 AM dumps progressive format, turns to money

Tom Martino, Denver police booking mug. Arrested in relation to a domestic violence allegation Dec. 20, 2013.

Tom Martino, Denver police booking mug. Arrested in relation to a domestic violence allegation Dec. 20, 2013.

In the latest purge of progressive political voices on the radio, Clear Channel’s 760 AM (KKZN) in Denver will switch to financial talk in the morning, conservative/advice in the afternoon, effective May 19. Part of the re-formatting includes a two-hour Tom Martino “Troubleshooter” simulcast with Clear Channel’s KHOW.

The new format embraces syndicated fare such as Jim Bohannon and Joy Browne and the morning show from the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg Radio. Clear Channel has always argued that it has no politics, only an allegiance to ratings. In that sense, they are following the money to … money. (We’ve been through this before. Remember Air America?)

The weekday lineup:
Money in the Morning 3 a.m.-10:00 a.m.
Troubleshooter Tom Martino 10 a.m. – noon
The Dave Ramsey Show noon – 3:00 p.m. (beginning June 2)
The Clark Howard Show 3:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Dr. Joy Browne 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. & midnight – 3 a.m.
Jim Bohannon 8:00 p.m. – 11:00 p.m.
TMZ Live 11:00 p.m. – midnight

It remains to be seen how the syndicated “Money in the Morning” does against local talker Peter Boyles on KNUS 710 AM.

The only ratings available are the very broad measure of persons 12+ (whereas advertisers buy specific target demos), but here’s what we know about local talk:
KOA had a 3.8 average quarter hour share of the 2,486,500 local population for April 2013. KHOW drew a 1.5. KKZN barely registered with a 0.8. Hello? Hello?
By contrast, public broadcasting outlet KCFR scored a 4.1.

Peter Boyles KNUS 710: Radio host takes his listeners to new station

Peter Boyles

Peter Boyles, longtime local radio talk host

Peter Boyles has not only landed on his feet at a new radio station, KNUS, he’s taken his old KHOW audience with him.

After a rough segue from his longtime berth at Clear Channel’s KHOW Boyles is beating that station in the ratings, according to the July Arbitron ranker.

One month in at Salem’s KNUS, and judging only by the broad figures in the ranker (as opposed to the specific demographic numbers by which advertisers make their spending decisions), Boyles is drawing nearly 1,000 more listeners per average quarter hour from 6-7 a.m. than his competition. Of course July was during a period of churn for KHOW before settling on a permanent successor to Boyles.

KOA remains the No. 1 morning radio contender, drawing a bigger audience than No. 2 KNUS and No. 3 KHOW combined.

Boyles’ competitor, conservative talker Mandy Connell from WHAS Louisville, KY, didn’t begin on KHOW until this month. Coming ratings reports will reflect that match up.

July 3, 2013, 11:17 am

Peter Boyles debuts on 710 KNUS after initial misfire

Peter Boyles on 710 KNUS

A promotion for Peter Boyles’ new morning talk show is prominently displayed on the KNUS website, as seen July 3, 2013.

“The lines are jammed, lots of emails this morning…” Peter Boyles told listeners Monday. The talk-show host was newly ensconced at KNUS (710 AM) Wednesday after being bounced from KHOW, following an incident of workplace violence and a subsequent salary dispute and legal tangle. His previously announced start on KNUS slated for Monday was a misfire, as reported, and lawyers have been working overtime to remove obstacles to his new employment.

Wednesday he sounded relieved, chastened by his embarrassing physical run-in with his producer (he admits to yanking the lanyard of longtime producer Greg Hollenback, hard enough to leave a red mark) and, mostly, respectful of the “legal constraints” he continues to honor. Is he angry at Clear Channel? He can’t say much on the record, but listeners know about the long line of laid off and fired CC employees who’ve been shown the door in favor of cheaper syndicated fare. He’s glad to have signed on with Salem Broadcasting.

His show is 6-9 a.m. and available to stream online. KNUS General Manager Brian Taylor said the plan remains to add an online-only hour, likely after the show, in the future.

July 1, 2013, 11:37 am

Peter Boyles a no-show on KNUS (710 AM)

Peter Boyles

Peter Boyles, longtime local radio talk host, was a no-show for what was to be his debut on 710 KNUS.

Peter Boyles was absent from the KNUS Radio airwaves on Monday morning, despite last week’s announcement that his new morning show would launch.

A statement on the News/Talk 710 KNUS Facebook page read: “Due to circumstances beyond our control – we are unable to debut our new program this morning at 6AM – We will air our regular programming today and are working diligently to add a new program to our daily lineup at the earliest possible date. Stay tuned for breaking news and intelligent talk. Good things are coming,” the statement said. Station management did not respond to requests for comment.

Speculation was rife that Clear Channel, Boyles’ previous and longtime employer, had blocked his debut via a non-compete clause. Station management declined to address that issue. Lawyers reportedly worked through the weekend on the deal but are cautioning against making any comments for now.

Boyles had no comment. General manager Brian Taylor would say only that he hopes Boyles is on the air on Tuesday.

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Branded with Science

By Carl Zimmer | August 6, 2007 9:38 am

datta%20crop.jpgThe other day I was pondering how scientists tattoo themselves with their science. I was at a pool party where a friend, Bob Datta, had jumped into the water with his kids. Datta is a post-doc at Columbia, where he studies genes in Drosophila flies. I noticed that Bob had a tattoo of DNA on his shoulder. At first I thought it was a generic snippet of the molecule, but then Bob told me that it actually represents, in the genetic code, his wife’s initials: EEE. Geek love in its noblest form. [For the gorey specifics, see Bob’s comment below.]

Bob’s tatoo reminded me that I have seen other scientists festooned with their science. There was the mycologist whose arms were covered with a black mesh, which he explained to me was subterranean network of threads produced by the death cap mushroom. And then there was the developmental biologist whose arm is swathed in the image of the fish he studies. (He declined my request for a photo of the tattoo until he gets tenure.)

So I’m wondering now–have I bumped into the tip of a vast hidden iceberg, or do I just happen to know the few scientists with tattoos of their science? If anyone wants to send me a jpg, I’ll post it. If you’re worried about tenure, just let me know how the tattoo represents the object of your study. The more personal the link, the better (i.e., not a generic tattoo of pi).

Below the fold: the iceberg unveiled!

Update, 9/2/07: The response to my question has been so rabid that I’ve moved all the pictures to a Flickr set. Feel free to send me yours–either post in the comment thread, or email it to blog at carlzimmer dot com.

Update, 2/18/08: The tattoos are moving to a new home: Carl Zimmer’s Science Tattoo Emporium. The request for your science tattoo still stands.

MORE ABOUT: Science Tattoos

Comments (148)

  1. JD

    Once I gather up the funds for it, I’ll have a hydrogen atom on the back of my neck(if I remember, I’ll send in a photo when I get it) –

    – Physics student

  2. just FYI – the death cap link actually links to the Genetic Code info on wiki

  3. Mike Gray

    A postdoc in my old lab had a friend (an E. coli geneticist) with a DNA tattoo as well. It was the lac operator. :-)

  4. meerasedai

    I don’t have it yet, but I plan on getting an infinite tessellation by Escher, of butterflies. I’m a computer scientist/aspiring researcher, and this will represent the intersection of math and biology that has become my interest. Maybe someday people won’t see my double major as such a schizophrenic move :)

  5. A former student got a tattoo of a cartoon atom (like this)on the back of one of his legs. He told me that the first day after he got it, he went to rugby practice, adn was showing it to someone when one of the seniors on the team (also a Physics major) walked by.

    The senior looked at it, said “Oh, please. The Bohr model?” and walked off…

  6. I am a developmental psychologist specializing in infant cognition and once dated a auditory neuroscientist. We knew we would hit off when on our very first date we both agreed that the Necker cube, as well as being one of the most psychologically profound optical illusions there is, would make an excellent tattoo. So on our fourth date, we went and got matching copies.

    You see it happening here:

    We didn’t stay together very much longer but both still love our tattoos. Especially, showing them off at conferences.

  7. here’s my dromaeosaur (unfeathered)

    but, i’m a programmer, not a paleontologist, so i guess it’s not exactly my science. maybe i’ll get some C++ for the next one.

  8. I used to have the positive/negative light rendition of a perfect circle on my back. But now it’s covered up by my wife’s hand print along with my son’s hand print.

    I’ve seen many scientists here with science-related tattoos. I’ll have to see if they will contribute. Some have planets and solar systems, others with DNA or other genetics-related tattoos. Oddly enough, it seems like almost all of the scientists I know have more tattoos than regular tattooed folk.

  9. I was thinking of getting a DNA tattoo once, but I’m squeamish.

  10. I knew a guy when I was at Tulane who had (as I recall) the Navier-Stokes equation tattooed on his arm.

  11. Becky Oskin

    I don’t if this counts as science-related, but Caltech’s Christof Koch has an Apple logo on his arm.

  12. Lowk

    My friend Beth (an applied mathematician, which is almost a scientist) has a tattoo that consists of the symbols for ‘there exists’ ‘a unique’ ‘Beth’ (i.e. the hebrew letter Beth):

  13. Pinkhaired Girl, a CS Ph.D. student, has this tattoo.

  14. Grant

    In the first pic, I see 12 base pairs, and there are 3 letters in “EEE”. Did he incorporate a start or stop codon sequence in there too?

  15. Gina

    I’m not a scientist, but I have a molecule. One day, it would be nice to be a scientist.

  16. JD

    Joshua: ha! I usually remember to mention where I got the idea, guess it was a little early in the morning. I’ll get it on my forehead when I become a big blue god-like physical anomaly.

  17. vandalhooch

    Back when I still worked as a Fisheries Technician, I had a brook trout tattooed on my calf. (No pics available at the moment.)

  18. Bob Datta

    I knew someone in this crowd would ask about the 12 bases but three codons thing! So, 3 codons don’t give you two turns (wanted to approximate real DNA dimensions), so I needed at least four codons, all of which in this case are E (the single letter code for glutamate). E translates into GAG or GAA (I went with GAG GAA GAG GAA for variety), and used the colors green for G and amber for A. The complementary bases were coded C=Cyan and T=Tomato Red (ok, a bit of a stretch). So, you can see from the left – following one strand – Green Amber Green Green Amber Amber, etc.

    My wife’s first name is Eliza, and is known affectionately as Li, so I’m thinking seriously of getting a second tattoo (the first was her engagement present to me in exchange for the ring) of a Bohr model of a lithium atom. Helps too that we have two kids (so 1 Li + 1 Theo + 1 Jasper = 3).

  19. Willo the Wisp

    I was going to get a tattoo of the constellation of Orion to look like a group of freckles on my left inner forearm, going so far as to pay a deposit, book an appointment and submit a design, but my husband passive-agressived me out of it as he doesn’t like tattoos. The sacrifices we make. :/

  20. Dan

    This might make us too easy to round up when Ken Ham decides to put us in camps. I don’t want to end up a lamp shade in the cretinist museum.

  21. Ryan

    I have a resistor symbol tattooed to my wrist because I’m a tech geek and used to play in a punk band. It was our symbol… haha “resist”. Yeah. So I basically have a pun tattooed to my wrist.

  22. luckylindy

    this is my atp tattoo.
    my professors loved it when i was in school, but always made sure to remind me about academic dishonesty and tucking in my shirt on exam days.

  23. sciencebystander

    You can find lots of science/geek/tech tattoos on in their tattoo galleries. It has become quite a standard rite of passage!

  24. I’ve got to get one of those Darwin tats. Or maybe the “A” symbol.

    Has anyone seen a good one of a “freethinking” symbol?

  25. Jordan

    At Reed College in their Chemistry department, there are photos of all the seniors who thesised in the department going back to the late 80s. In one photo, a student has the Schrödinger Wave Equation tattooed on his uppper arm.

  26. The ninth tattoo, FYI, comes from Troy Roepke, who emailed it to me with a note:

    “Greetings! Here’s a pic of my science tat. I studied sea urchin development for my dissertation. Upon completion 2 yrs ago, I awarded myself this tat for my academic achievement. The tat is of a sea urchin egg, 2 cell embryo, blastula, gastrula, prism stage and pluteus larval stage. Or as my friend’s say, an orange developing into an Alien face-grabber.”

  27. I’m a med student, so these aren’t directly related to that, but I thought I’d share anyway (apologies for the blurriness):

    The Darwin fish, and a purple pansy (freethought).

  28. Lily [30]: Your link doesn’t seem to work.

  29. Viscount

    I’m just a grad student, but what the hell. Nothing says “SCIENCE!” quite like the Bohr model.

  30. knobody

    in a former life i graduated with bs’s in microbiology and zoology. i worked for a short time as a lab monkey in a plant path lab doing microscopy. someday, if/when i find my brain again, i intend go to gradual school and do something with molecular biology. before i graduated, i committed my love of biology to ink and flesh.

    this is my tat:
    it is representative not only of my interest in genetics, but it also contains my and my husband’s initials. (awwwwww)

    interestingly enough, just last night i posted on my own blog about the history of my current ink and the prospects for future tats. i haven’t figured out what they will be yet, but there will be at least three more (or one large one).

    p.s. do you know how hard it is to take a picture of the side of one’s own ankle while holding said appendage off the ground so no one can see my dirty kitchen floor in the background?

  31. i give you honu, the hawaiian green sea turtle on my marine biologist leg… oh the sweet pain…

  32. Neat! I do feel a little unoriginal now, though — I’ve been planning to get a DNA tattoo for some time now (expensive project, since I want it to go all the way up my arm, down my back, and down my leg), and now I feel like I’ve been scooped.

    None at the moment, though. Current tattoos are either literary or historical: a labyrinth on my sternum, and a Jabberwock on my arm.

  33. outeast

    Greta, what does a jabberwock look like? (is it anything like a boojum, say?)

  34. outeast: It might be something to do with John Tenniel’s version, though of course one’s interpretation of the poem is up for grabs.

  35. I have quite a collection of insect tattoos on my right arm, starting with a cicada when I finished my PhD.
    Thanks for the photos!

  36. Great idea Carl,

    I have several tatoos, all done before science was ever a spark in my mind. One is of two Kraken (although they were dragons when I got them done. But since I am a deep-sea biologist, they are now Kraken). The other is the Biohazard sign. I posted them on my blog here.

  37. “Greta, what does a jabberwock look like?”

    I took my tattoo from the original Tenniel illustration, minus the background. The artist had to adapt it somewhat to make it tattoo-friendly (all that cross-hatching would just turn to soup), but it’s a remarkably faithful translation. And it looks really, really terrifying. Here’s a link: not to my tattoo, of which I don’t currently have any pictures online, but of the original Tenniel drawing.

    And while I’ve passionately loved both this boook and this drawing since I was very young, I somehow never noticed until I got the tattoo that the Jabberwock is wearing a vest.

  38. Check out for a community of professionals with tattoos, including scientists.

  39. jtdub

    Re: lindy #25

  40. I have a small paramecium on my back. Picture is a bit blurry, but it was taken by my 5-year-old. She can even name some of the features like cilia and the oral groove.

  41. Sandra

    Here’s a neuron tattoo (not mine, but I’m thinking of getting something kinda like it):

  42. Those are cool tattoos. What a good idea, having tattoos to reflect your field of study.

  43. David Harmon

    I’m waiting for a programmable tattoo. now that would be ultimate geek cred!

  44. Chris Cohen

    I have a tattoo of an atom w/ electrons spinning around it —

    I picked it up on a trip to Costa Rica in 2000 and I’m looking to get a nice big new one soon.

  45. robert

    so how does that awesome DNA tattoo stand for “EEE” – as far as I know, the only nucleotides are A, T, G, C, and U. If some combination of those can form letters for some reason, how can that work? And, if so, how come the three series of four pairs are different?

    Just curious – as Dr. Datta would know infinitely more than myself…

  46. Rob knell

    robert – The one-letter code for the amino acid Glutamic acid is E, and it is coded for by GAA or GAG. I guess that some of the base pairs shown on the tat are meant to represent some combinations of those.

  47. Brent

    Thats correct, but it looks like it says EEEE

  48. I have Yggdrasil on my back. (just a link to the original picture, not my tattoo)
    I decided on Yggdrasil (versus Escher’s Moebeus Strip) partly because I love mythology, but also as it is a world tree supporting everything we know, much like mathematics is to our understanding of the world.
    Well, that, and because Roger Zelazny uses Ygg in his Chronicles of Amber.

  49. Don

    Sean Bonner, grand high kahuna of Metblogs, got himself the Flying Spaghetti Monster on a calf.

  50. I have a Japanese translation of “Free Electron” on the back of my neck. Actually, it literally translates to “un-encumbered child of the atom”

  51. To Robert [50] and others who are confused about Bob Datta’s tattoo: be sure to read his comment above.

  52. Pdiddy

    Once I gather up the funds for it, I’ll have a hydrogen atom on the back of my neck(if I remember, I’ll send in a photo when I get it) -

    Why don’t you put on your forehead? It will look even cooler!!!

  53. mark c

    sorta science: writer Harry Crews has a hinge tattoo inside his elbow. Ahhhhh simplicity….

  54. Brigit

    My hubby started his geek tattoo long ago but still hasn’t finished it. He already has a flame with characters that spell out mind inside. The plan is to get a Bunsen burner underneath the flame and then add psychoactive compounds but we’re still debating which ones. I’m into glutamate receptors so I want him to add GluR agonists but he likes more the GABA-acting drugs, oh well…
    I thought he was going to finish it up this summer but he decided he was going to finally cover his other arm with some ferocious-looking dragon. It’s still cool I guess.

  55. Richard

    I myself have a simple outline of a brain on my back.

  56. coolio

    Hey wow! that star of david is a scientific symbol? did.not.know.that.

  57. Andrew

    i think getting tattoos to represent a lover is a stupid idea, because at any time they could leave you/divorce you.

  58. Check out this link about the psychological significance of getting a tattoo and share your thoughts.

  59. I’m going to get Darwin’s words from the Origin ‘there is grandeur in this view of life’ tattooed above my ass, then when Mormons call I can jmoon at them in the porch.

  60. here’s mine:

    electron micrograph of a pollen grain.

    no, i don’t suffer allergies, i just like micrographs…

  61. WmD

    I couldn’t find a picture, but even Jeff Corwin has a tattoo related to his field.

  62. Slightly less science-related, but I know a guy with Euclid’s Proposition 1.4 tattooed on his right buttcheek. Also a girl with a “Q.E.D.” lower-back tattoo. And a good number of people with tattoos in ancient Greek.

  63. Not precisely scientific, but I did design my first tattoo mathematically using GrafEq: it depicts the interval function …

    (e^sqrt(x^2+y^2))/30000 + mod((sqrt(x^2+y^2) + arctan(y/x) + sin(x) + sin(x-y) + cos(y), pi) is less than pi/2.5

    …that is, two Archimedean spirals modulated by a 2D regular sinusoidal pattern, the whole clipped by a radial exponential function). Image here.

  64. Grayce

    How can I submit a science tattoo photo of my own?

  65. Grayce [71]: you can email the image to me, or put a link to an image in the comment thread. As I mentioned at the top, I’m really interested in tattoos that scientists get that illustrate something they study. (i.e., not just a pretty geometrical image)

  66. I’m a computer engineering student, and as I study a lot of math, I got Pi on my arm.

    Here is a picture of it

    Good luck with finding more tattoos!

  67. It could be quite good to have a pi symbol that is warped. Others are vey very ordinary.

  68. “I’m really interested in tattoos that scientists get that illustrate something they study. (i.e., not just a pretty geometrical image)”

    I feel like I should explain then: I studied nanotechnology in school and got my enormous bohr atom during that time.

  69. amanda

    I’m getting the first 11 fibonacci numbers and symbol Phi tattooed soon, I just have to decide where. (Right now it’s a debate between ankle and back of the neck.)

  70. Just FYI, now forwards to this post :) (well at least in a few more minutes it will – as soon as various servers update)

  71. Andrew Krause

    I cleverly disguised my ‘science’ tattoo as yet-another-asian-character. I had the chinese words yu zhao tattooed over my spine just below the collar-line. Roughly translated (because as Inara says on that Firefly episode, “there are nuances of meaning) it means Cosmos. And just to really geek out – I got the idea from a report done on gravitation submitted to the International Geophysical Union.

  72. I guess this is loosely a branch of science…

    I was a philosophy major at one point, and while I eventually got my degrees in other fields, I never lost my fascination with the subject, and so my tattoo reflects it. It’s two brackets – { } – which in logic means “the empty set”, or, all possibilities are open.

    picture here

  73. laur�n

    I’ve got M1 on my right arm, next, I’m getting the Mandelbrot Set on my left arm.

  74. FastEddie

    Neat stuff. Carl, you could have earned enormous geek currency had you named your essay “She branded me with science.”

  75. Mike

    i’m a physics major and i have lots of tattoos, so i decided to get this one on my “joke” leg because my buddy did it for free as a portfolio piece.

  76. I have the Arecibo radio message on my left bicep…. I think it’s on my blog somewhere. Next I am getting scientific notation instructions of how to build and operate a record player (from Voyager probe). ;D

  77. Nikka

    A girlfriend and I got water molecules on our ankles after we took a year’s worth of gen chem in one summer. Mine’s the standard “ball and stick” model, while her’s is the electrostatic potential map of water. Still deciding on the design of my calculus one (formal definition of the derivative). I’m actually a biology/pre-med major, but calculus (though I love it now) was hard for me, hence the celebratory tattoo.

    The periodic table up there is amazing. :)

  78. Its quite awesome to see nerd tattoos. A few years ago I decided to start a sleeve with mathmatical related tattoos. Once I get the pieces colored in I am going to get the digits of pi as a background filler.

  79. Earlier this year I had a 8″ ruler tattoo’d to my right arm. It has been quite useful in building. I only wish I had used my non dominant hand and been in a more relaxed position during the tattoo process.

  80. I really need to get a good photo of mine: back at the end of 1991, shortly after an article I’d written about the Burgess Shale appeared in print, a tattooist friend begged to buy a book I had on building stop-action models, and I joked “I’ll trade you a tat for it.” Amazingly enough, he took me up on it, so I now have an Anomalocaris on my right shoulder. I’m thinking about going back for more, because a left shoulder bereft of a Nectocaris is an absolute shame.

  81. Kristin

    This was a graduation present to myself. It came to me during a genetics lecture and I got it done 3 years later. It goes ankle to mid thigh. I’m a geneticist now and LOVE it. Genetics stole my heart. P.s. It codes for a snippet of an exon from the sonic the hedgehog gene.¤t=bostonglobe1.jpg¤t=legback3a.jpg

  82. Justin H.

    $20 says that Eric (post #69) is/was a St. John’s College student.

  83. Patrick

    Great post! I’ve linked it from my tattoo blog, here:

  84. Andrew

    Justin H., I was thinking exactly the same thing. So, I’m not taking that bet, because you and I obviously are/were also!

  85. Leigh

    When I was a PhD student in philosophy, I did a lot of work in philosophy of science. Not science proper, but after all, philosophy was (and is) the beginning of science. ;)

    Anyway, my tattoo is a riff on the history of both science and philosophy– the hermetic symbols for the Philosopher’s Stone (sulfur + mercury + salt, and some sort of time designation). Yep, that’s right, alchemy.

    Here it is.

  86. Leigh, I never would have bought that philosophy was a science either, until I started to wash out in Symbolic Logic as a freshman Philosophy major at UT.

    Alas, my BS in Criminal Justice really affords me no good scientific symbol.

  87. The Significant Other and I were contemplating her next tattoo… She’s decided to go with a cutting instead of a sucrose molecule.

    Nothing to do with science, but it’s the punchline to the Taoist tale “The Vinegar Tasters”. And the molecule can be read in any language!

    Not the best reading of the legend, but you’ll get the idea.

  88. Rae

    I’m a Chemical Engineer. Amongst my other tattoos, I have a pair (one on each side) on my ribcage. Sigma and Pi. Molecular orbitals are my friends… In the same vein, my cat is called Ion (as in Schroedinger’s Cation) :-p

    A good friend of mine, a Mechanical Engineer, has her favorite gear on her shoulder… and my Biochemist friend has delta +/-

  89. I have a friend who’s a Biologist (working on circadian rhythms) and has this ( symbol tattood on his chest, circling the left-hand side nipple.

  90. heather

    I have a small rattlesnake on the inside of my elbow – its a tiny thing, but I love it and it is appropriate (as I study snakes). I like that I can teach an entire term in short sleeves and most of my students don’t notice it (kind of like a well-camouflaged snake hiding in the grass!).

  91. Christian

    Milton Love has collected a whole slew of marine biologists and their tattoos at

    I’m the rockfish on the first page of the galley.

  92. As the movie ‘Pi’ has now so clichely put it, “Numbers are the language of nature.” As a physicist, I always felt this was one of the most beautiful sentences in that language — a medley of the five most important numbers. Through an odd turn of events, this is actually my own handwriting from a bar napkin.

  93. Steve

    Anatomy tattoo gallery:

    The first tattoo of arm musculature is amazing!

  94. Ashton Applewhite

    my partner and I each have a set of chromosomes on our right wrist; put them together and it’s a cell during meiosis (website with photo in the works). thus inspired, I’m collecting tattoos with significance shared by two or more people for a book to be called TATTOOS FOR TWO. (I’m a science writer and published author, and got Carl’s permission to post this request.) if you’d like to participate or know others who might, it would be great to hear from you: Ashton Applewhite (girl not boy, btw); 646-644-4040. thanks very much.

  95. christina

    This is amazing! A combination of two of my favorite things (science and tattoos) I have many tattoos but none in my field (microbiology) although I was definitely inspired by a set of plush toys of different bacteria I saw once..who knew staph could look so cute?

    On another note though (this would probably be the most appropriate place to try to get an opinion…) would you say that your colleagues are generally accepting of your tattoos?

  96. Madeline
  97. sirhcton

    Well, tattoos may be nice, but will interfere with your donating blood. Many of us do regularly donate blood, don’t we? Remember the questions about tattoos and acupuncture? You do answer honestly, right?

  98. Somewhat less daring than a tattoo, but a colleague of mine who also runs a jewelry store has started custom-designing DNA double-helix jewelry.

    Huh. There must be some kind of axiom about Neils and trilobite shoulder tattoos. Well, Marrella isn’t a proper trilobite, but awfully close. I got the tattoo shortly after SJ Gould’s death. I had settled on the design before he died so it’s not quite an homage but I did lift the picture from Wonderful Life. The original figure is by Marianne Collins I believe. The Cambrian “c” was added later, my long-range plan was/is for a whole paleozoic sleeve but I ran out of funding soon. I’d also like to get more ‘stem’ taxa one of these days.

  100. p.s. Troy has my vote for best in show, tube-feet down, although that Haeckel tat has got me thinking…

  101. Pax

    My Galileo tattoo

    I’m in computers, but it’s a general sentiment.. I think it fits the thread. :)

  102. knobody

    while rules may be different in different places, here one has to wait for one year after a tattoo before donating blood again. i believe that is the fda’s rule, so would apply all across the u.s. i have one tattoo and am still a semi-regular blood donor.

  103. sw

    I don’t have a pic, but I have a friend who’s got the Fibonacci sequence tattooed up her leg. She’s a high school math teacher.

  104. My $hbar c$ tattoo.

    It synthesize the union of the Macro (Universe: c) and the Micro (Quantum: hbar) cosmoses.

  105. Cosmos*.

    I need more coffee!

  106. Niles Ingalls

    My tatoo if the Pioneer Plaque.

    background on the Pioneer space missions.

  107. Niles Ingalls

    My tatoo if the Pioneer Plaque.

    background on the Pioneer space missions.

  108. miguel

    Anybody know the name of the font used for the Eppur si muove tattoo?

  109. I wrote an article about this post in my own blog. This is just to weird not to mention. I think my favorite so far is the periodic table.

  110. Tamsin Cleo German

    I work in science (cognitive science/neuroscience field), and about a year ago I got this DNA tattoo:

  111. The hyperbolic plane (H2) is commonly represented in a mapping analogous to a stereographic projection of a sphere. I worked out a mapping analogous to Mercator projection, but have never seen it used; it preserves a line, and maps H2 to a strip. If I ever get a tattoo the most likely is a wristband based on this idea; perhaps a tiling of right-angled pentagons rendered as knotwork.

  112. Steven

    As an electronic engineer, I got a full-wave rectifier circuit diagram tattooed onto the back of my shoulder for my 30th birthday (actually got it done the day AFTER my birthday, complete with hangover!). I

  113. Valerie

    Rather late (I found it off a link) and not exactly a scientist, but my calculus teacher has X/[infinity symbol]=0
    tattooed on his shoulder, which I think is pretty awesome.

  114. my mandelbrot throat sleeve

  115. Thank you for this astonishing collection of science tattoos…

  116. Steve K.

    Carl’s brother Ben made me aware of this thread and suggested I write in. I’m a lexicographer with a degree in linguistics; I have a phonetic vowel chart tattooed on my left shoulder blade. It was done in 1993, and it’s two-color, and actually looks lame, so I don’t have a photo of it anywhere.

    This New York Times article — — refers to it, but the writer and I agreed that the concept sounded neater than the actuality, so we didn’t show a picture of it and decided to let readers’ imaginations run wild.

    At some point though, I do want to get a new, enhanced one. That I’ll take a picture of.

    – Steve

  117. CJH

    I have an Ourobouros twisted into an infinity symbol on my wrist and this weekend I’m getting a simple line design of a shark on the back of my neck (small).

    This is the wrist one.

    PS. I’ve a degree in Marine Biology (sharks) but I am currently working in a microbiology lab as a scientist and tech. officer.

  118. Glenn

    Well I doubt if he’s a scientist, but he’s got an anatomically correct skull tattoo!

  119. There is a thread on the tattoo forum about this post. If anyone else has any pics of any unusual tattoo’s or any mnore pics like the ones in the comments then please put them in the thread cheers.

    the thread is here

  120. Henry Barth

    The galileo.jpg tattoo “Eppur So Muove” located at:

    Should be tattooed across the man’s buttocks to make more sense.

    The seaweed Dictyota menstrualis with amphipods Ampithoe longimana crawling on it. The subjects of my dissertation, the amphipod feeds on and lives on the seaweed. Feeding by the amphipod induces the seaweed to produce higher concentrations of chemicals that protect the seaweed from grazers. Erik Sotka took the picture, and has worked on the evolution of this seaweed-herbivore pair.

    Carl: Love your books. At the Water’s Edge is required reading for my marine biology students.

  122. V.

    I’m watching so nice crib sheets :P

  123. robojoe

    i got a similar one that I designed with my father upon graduating highschool. It spells family and uses symbols instead of colors.

  124. For know all about Tattoo i recommand you to go vist this very great and complete tattoos forum:

  125. I like the idea of science tattoos… Science concepts have this natural built-in aesthetic to them. Pretty cool…

    Zimmers website is pretty nice imo.

  126. Great job once again! I am looking forward for more updates!

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The Loom

A blog about life, past and future. Written by DISCOVER contributing editor and columnist Carl Zimmer.

About Carl Zimmer

Carl Zimmer writes about science regularly for The New York Times and magazines such as DISCOVER, which also hosts his blog, The LoomHe is the author of 12 books, the most recent of which is Science Ink: Tattoos of the Science Obsessed.

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text:
You ask for signed bookplates, you get signed bookplates

By Carl Zimmer | May 10, 2012 7:27 pm

At some of my recent talks, I’ve been running into people who’ve been annoyed that they forgot to bring a book of mine to get signed. You really couldn’t think of a better way to cheer up a writer, and so I feel the need to reciprocate.

So if you’ve gotten a book of mine and want to get it signed, I’ve printed up some bookplates that I can autograph and send to you.

Just to ensure I’m not signing bookplates for alien robots who will take these bookplates to their home planet to…do whatever evil thing alien robots do with bookplates from science writers…please follow these steps:

1. Take your picture with the book.

2. Email it to me, with your mailing address and any special signing request. As in, “To Ken Ham, so that someday he may appreciate transitional fossils….”

Optional step 3. For those on Twitter: instead of emailing me your photo, you can upload it to Twitter (mentioning my Twitter name @carlzimmer). Be sure to email me your address, too, so that I know where to send the bookplate.

So far, I’ve got three bookplates–one for Parasite Rexone for Science Ink (in matching Goth type), and one for Planet of Viruses. (See below). It’s weirdly easy to produce these things, so I’m happy to take requests for my other books.

Comments (5)

Links to this Post

  1. Science Ink bookplate | Hermitina | May 17, 2012
  1. Jamie Curtis

    Such a deal! I’ll have my picture taken by a grandchild on Mother’s day and send it to you! (Just remember: You asked for it.)

  2. Carl – Love this idea! Stumbled upon your post on GoodReads. As a writer, I’ve thought of doing the same thing, and was wondering if you would mind sharing how you got the bookplates made or what service you used. Thanks!

  3. Here´s hoping that you´ll do one for “The Tangled Bank”.

  4. I just got kindle books

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The Loom

A blog about life, past and future. Written by DISCOVER contributing editor and columnist Carl Zimmer.

About Carl Zimmer

Carl Zimmer writes about science regularly for The New York Times and magazines such as DISCOVER, which also hosts his blog, The LoomHe is the author of 12 books, the most recent of which is Science Ink: Tattoos of the Science Obsessed.

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text:
College Illinois! A Pension-like Problem

College Illinois! A Pension-like Problem
Special Contributor: Intern for State Rep. Joe Sosnowski, Amanda Taylor

College Illinois! was at one point a very promising pre-paid tuition program. It was established in 1997 under the Federal Section 529 plan that was designed to aid parents with inflating college tuition prices. College Illinois enables parents and other family members to contribute to a savings fund for their child’s future tuition. This pre-paid tuition program provides certain benefits that others do not. Enrolling in the College Illinois program provides locked tuition rates, exemption from paying income tax on the returns from monies given or invested in the child’s account, all while the investment return hopefully offsets future educational expenses. Unfortunately, College Illinois has poorly managed its investments and given unrealistic return forecasts. Therefore, the College Illinois program no longer offers a safe investment to families planning for the future.

In May of 2012, in the form of House Resolution 174, the Illinois House of Representatives directed the Illinois Auditor General to conduct a management audit and an asset allocation study of the College Illinois’ administrative operations and investments. The assessment found that the program is $11,565,072,807 short of its projected obligations. That horrifying number is a result of risky investment plans that did not correspond well with the recent economic downturn. In 2008, the Illinois Student Assistance Commission who oversees College Illinois, invested $12.7 million in ShoreBank, a privately held company. In 2010, that entire investment was lost due to the downturn. Similarly, in 2009, College Illinois’ assets were essentially all stocks and bonds. At the close of January 2011, however, the fund held $419 million, or 38-percent, in riskier alternative investments, like hedge funds, real estate, and private equity investments. These examples show something needed to be done about College Illinois’ inappropriate investment management.

To begin reforming the College Illinois Program, a Recovery task force was formed to work with the Illinois Student Assistance Commission to repair the program and begin to ensure sustainability. In addition to the task force the General Assembly passed other important legislation that should help to prevent anymore future calamities. One is House Bill 3923 which amends the Open Meetings Act. It requires that the College Illinois program be excluded from the Act, whereas their investment meetings of funds deposited into the Trust Fund must be open to the public. This change to the program will now allow public investors and families who own these contracts to see where their monies are being invested. The second, House Bill 4116, regulates the types of investments the board is allowed to divulge in. The bill says College Illinois’ funds are to be placed under the provisions of the Public Funds Investment Act, which covers monies that must be invested in low impact or safe fixed-income investments like federal bonds. These Important pieces of legislation are aimed to protect College Illinois investors from foul investments in the future.

As a result of the Recovery Task Force’s hard work, both bills passed in the General Assembly and were effective immediately. The task force is working to develop a solvent and stable plan to get the College Illinois program on track with the help of additional contributions from 2022 through 2036. This plan should help College Illinois create stability.

Other states with pre-paid tuition programs have experienced similar financial shortfalls. Like Illinois, these states have been forced to restructure the plan and cancel the program to future investors. While the task force hammers out a plan to salvage College Illinois, it is a good idea for the program to remain closed to investors. When the program began, it was designed to offer families preparing for college a safe economic investment. However, College Illinois’ economic history has proven to be just the opposite of safe.

The problems seen in College Illinois’ and other state’s plans point to perhaps a fundamental rule that the role of state government should be limited and should not be in the business of setting up defined benefit investment programs that the private sector does not. Private sector 529 plans do not guarantee investment returns because that guarantee doesn’t make any sense. No one can predict returns with absolute certainty and private 529 plans simply provide a structure in which the investor gets what the actual return is. But with all 529 plans no matter if it is through companies like Wells Fargo or through State led programs such as Bright Start, your return all depends on how risky of investments you are making and how the economy is holding up.

College Illinois will need to be bailed out by the taxpayers and the plan needs to be eliminated. The State of Illinois will be better served to be excellent in fewer services rather than poor in many service areas.


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Taylor Hall says the first step is getting another game with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Jordan Eberle. Now it’s up to the Edmonton Oilers Kid Line to stay together

After a humiliating loss to the St. Louis Blues, which took place on home ice, and another thumping in Nashville a couple of nights later, Edmonton Oilers Ralph Krueger opted to roll out the kid line once again.

So effective were Taylor Hall, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Jordan Eberle in a 3-0 win over the Blues in St. Louis, the trio will play together in tonight’s game against the Columbus Blue Jackets. The Kid Line scored all three of Edmonton’s goals and did so five-on-five.

“It was time to bring them back together,” said head coach Ralph Krueger. “They seemed a little stale, at times, when we broke them up. The time apart was good. I thought they just reconnected immediately.

“We’re very pleased to see that production five-on-five. It’s as if something opened up in their reportroie that hadn’t been at the start of the season.

“We know the protential of that group going forward.”

The Blue Jackets, who sit two points up on the Oilers in the Western Conference standings, have gone a head-turning 8-1-5 since Feb. 26. Goaltender Sergie Bobrovsky has a 1.23 goals against average in March with three shutouts in his last nine starts.

“When you take a break from playing with each other and come back together, it’s fresh and new and it makes it exciting,” said Hall. “We like playing together and we want to do everything we can to play together for the rest of the year.

“The last game was a really good start for us but we have to keep it going. If we come out tonight and we don’t have any points and we’re minus-two, everyone is going to forget our last game.”

Whitney has heard trade talk
Sometimes the best defence is a good sense of humor. Take Ryan Whitney. The Oilers defenceman, one of the NHL’s moveable parts with the trade deadline fast approaching, was asked if he’s been following the rumblings on Twitter.

“I read how happy the fans will be if I do get traded from here,” said Whitney, who has been an active social media participant for some time.

“(But) it’s obviously in your head. It’s tough not to think about it but we have a big game tonight and we still believe we’re in it here. I’m still on the team and I want to be a part of this.

“When I do think about (being traded) I do think it will be a team that’s a contender . . . so it’s exciting either way. I do love the guys here. It’s tough to judge it.”

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« Indiana's Phased Turnaround Model | Main | Why Achievement Gap Mania Isn't Cost-Free »

Our Achievement Gap Mania

Yesterday, the quarterly journal National Affairs published my essay "Our Achievement Gap Mania." As I'd suspected it might, the piece seems to have angered a number of educators and reformers who I like and respect. So, I thought I'd try over the next couple days to explain what the fuss is about and why I felt compelled to challenge a well-intentioned, deeply ingrained consensus.

A decade ago, the No Child Left Behind Act ushered in an era of federal educational accountability marked by relentless focus on closing race- and income-based "achievement gaps" in test scores and graduation rates. The language has become instinctive, with a generation of would-be reformers learning to focus on closing achievement gaps. For all the subsequent critiques of NCLB, both deserved and undeserved, this has been universally hailed as an unmitigated good. It is not. It has shortchanged some children. It has undermined public support for reforming schools while ghettoizing school reform. It has narrowed the scope of schooling and stifled educational innovation. Oh, and its moral philosophy is, at best, shaky.

A year ago, Berkeley High School in Berkeley, California, moved to eliminate after-school science labs for Advanced Placement classes and five science teachers so that the resources and faculty could be devoted to struggling students, in a push to address "Berkeley's dismal racial achievement gap." The New York Times has reported that, in Sacramento, California, low-performing students are only permitted to enroll in math, reading, and gym, in a mad dash to help close the achievement gap. The Center for Applied Linguistics has reported that the share of U.S. elementary schools offering foreign language classes fell by one-fifth from 1997 to 2008. Instruction in foreign language and advanced science have come to be seen as frills.

The all-consuming push to "close achievement gaps" has meant focusing, to the exclusion of nearly all else, on boosting math and reading proficiency and the graduation rates of poor and minority children. The Education Trust, perhaps the nation's most influential K-12 advocacy group, explains, "Our goal is to close the gaps in opportunity and achievement." The National Education Foundation has launched its own "Closing the Achievement Gaps Initiative." The California Achievement Gap Educational Foundation was launched in 2008 to "eliminate the systemic achievement gap in California K-12 public education." Elite charter-school operator Uncommon Schools says its mission is running "outstanding urban charter public schools that close the achievement gap and prepare low-income students to graduate from college." Education Week, the newspaper of record for American education, ran 63 stories mentioning "achievement gaps" in the first six months of this year.

Indeed, at the elite level, there's a bipartisan consensus on this question. President Bush bragged in 2008 that NCLB "focused the country's attention on the fact that we had an achievement gap that--you know, white kids were reading better in the 4th grade than Latinos or African-American kids."
Echoing Bush, President Obama has termed education the "civil rights issue of our time" and declared that his agenda is intended to address "the pervasive achievement gap between today's black and white students." Secretary of Education Arne Duncan repeated the familiar formulation last year at the National Press Club, declaring, "The achievement gap is unacceptable. Education is the civil rights issue of our generation."

Such sentiments are admirable. And it'd be hard to argue that any of this is bad on its own terms. The legacy of achievement gap mania isn't necessarily undesirable. Focusing on the neediest students is admirable, as far as it goes. With limited time, talent, and resources, we can't do everything--and it's not unreasonable that some think our priority in every case should be the most in need.

The real problem has been the unwillingness of gap-closers to acknowledge the costs of their agenda or its implications. And yet, the groupthink consensus that the business of education is "closing achievement gaps" has made it tough to talk honestly about the costs--for fear of being branded a racist or thought unconcerned with inequities. It has dreadfully narrowed the potential coalition for reform. It has distorted the way we've approached educational choice, accountability, and reform. It has warped and retarded the pace, reach, and power of school improvement efforts. And it has yielded a stifling and ultimately troubling vision of schooling. If you're curious as to how I can say such things, check out the essay here.

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Software Development And The Transparent Company (Part I)

A new business model is emerging, and it depends heavily on software development. Many companies are dropping many of the traditional barriers between product development and customers. Without investing in software development, these efforts, no matter how well-intentioned, will have a better chance of failing than succeeding.

The simplest term I can concoct for this business model is "the transparent company." There are other defining characteristics of this corporate strategy, such as confidence in the ability to execute, and a very different sort of relationship with customers. However, as companies have been decidedly opaque to their customers, any transparency is a striking detail in itself. Hence the term "transparent company."

Wave Hello To The Engineer Fixing Your Bug
Here's an example of what I mean. I don't have to be a customer of Atlassian to know what issues Atlassian's engineers will fix in the next release of their wiki product, Confluence. That information is publicly available at this link. Diving into an issue at random — I chose "Database deadlock during initialisation of plugins in sql server" because it sounded fairly dire — I can see which engineer is working on this issue, Don Willis. I can even see the daily activity stream for Don Willis as he works on this issue and other projects.

Read more

Mass Customization Is (Finally) The Future Of Products

Mass customization has been the “next big thing” in product strategy for a very long time. Theorists have been talking about it as the future of products since at least 1970, when Alvin Toffler presaged the concept. Important books from 1992 and 2000 further promoted the idea that mass customization was the future of products.

Yet for years, mass customization has disappointed. Some failures were due to execution: Levi Strauss, which sold customized jeans from 1993-2003, never offered consumers choice over a key product feature – color. In other cases, changing market conditions undermined the business model: Dell, once the most prominent practitioner of mass customization, failed spectacularly, reporting that the model had become “too complex and costly.”

Overall, the “next big thing” has remained an elusive strategy in the real world, keeping product strategists away in droves.

Read more


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A European watchdog in Paris is going to snatch regulatory control of Libor from the British — or so the European Commission is proposing. It is the stuff of nightmares for the UK Treasury. The political land-grab is the most striking element of a broader shake-up to restore faith in the largely unregulated and, in some cases, shockingly amateur business of compiling benchmarks for everything from heating oil and coal to mortgage rates.

What is the Commission up to? The crux of the draft proposal, which we obtained and wrote about in today’s paper, is ending self-regulation for thousands of indices. All benchmarks must be authorised by a regulator, but there is a sliding scale of regulatory intrusiveness. In the naughty corner are Libor and Euribor, inter-bank lending benchmarks deemed important enough to require direct supervision by the European Securities and Markets Authority, an EU watchdog in Paris. Brussels argues the users, contributors and fallout from problems are EU-wide, so therefore deserve EU oversight.

Is this a bit heavily handed? The stakes are high. The benchmark industry generates around €2bn in revenue but the Commission estimates the size of related markets approach €1,000,000bn. Given many benchmarks have never been touched by law, there is a risk that the voluntary contributors may simply decide the legal risks aren’t worth it. When it comes to Euribor and Libor, the Commission’s answer is to give Esma powers to compel banks to submit transaction data or complete questionnaires on prices or bids. But contributions to the less important benchmarks won’t be mandatory.

Hadn’t these benchmarks already been reformed? Global regulators have launched a big clean up in the wake of the Libor scandal. While its rules to tighten governance go further than expected, the Commission vision, especially when it comes to methodologies, is largely aligned with the guidance from Iosco, the umbrella group of financial regulators. So for instance, Michel Barnier, the EU commissioner in charge of the proposal, stops short of requiring benchmarks to be based purely on transactions and allows a hybrid methodology where necessary, which uses survey results to estimate prices. The UK, of course, also launched its own big Libor reform project led by Martin Wheatley, the UK financial regulator. The Commission sides with most of his substantial findings but decides it should all be overseen from Esma in Paris rather than London.

Could they have done more to annoy London? Probably not, at least in terms of the governance. The Treasury will see this as another Brussels masterplan to centralise power and will probably rue the decision not to sue when Esma was made regulator for credit rating agencies (they almost did to show this went beyond the EU treaties). The real sting though will be the fact that it comes so soon after the UK’s own clean-up. What does it say about the Commission’s faith in the proud UK regulators? On top of that, the Commission opted for the European financial watchdog in Paris to do the job, rather than the European Banking Authority in London, which was at least politically a bit more palatable. For now though the official response from London is relaxed; they are confident of their arguments, have shown they are able to reform Libor, know this isn’t a London problem and not too worried about the power all going to Paris.

 Read more

After months of deliberation and some not-so-private sparring with Berlin, the European Commission has pretty much anointed who it wants to be the all-powerful bank bailout and clean-up authority for Europe’s banking union: the European Commission.

This (somewhat predictable) conclusion to its internal policymaking journey is outlined in a paper, seen by the Financial Times, which was distributed to commissioners ahead of their weekly college debate on Wednesday.

There is no sign of Brussels bowing to pressure from Berlin. At the heart of the Commission’s proposed system is a powerful central authority, which has access to a single bailout fund and the clout to shut down a bank even against the wishes of its home state’s government. Brussels wants it operating by 2015.

What about those German concerns that this would breach the EU treaties? Michel Barnier, the EU commissioner responsible for financial issues, concedes in the paper that “only an EU institution” has the legal authority to take important decisions with European effect. Given there is no legal basis to give the European Central Bank this role, the Commission concludes that the only option is to anoint itself as the top resolution authority. Read more

Google’s three year tussle with Brussels over its search business is almost over. Our report today outlines the substance of its pre-charge settlement with the European Commission. Once formally adopted, it will allow Google to avoid a fine, any admission of guilt and a lengthy legal battle. But the price is accepting legally binding restrictions on how it can present its search results. Google has never yielded ground to a regulator on its prized core business before.

Given the space confines, we didn’t lay out all the details of the pact in the news piece. Some of it, as will become clear, is highly technical and not ideal weekend reading. For specialists we thought it would be useful to run through the full settlement taking each of the Commissions four concerns in turn:

The concern: The Commission investigators provisionally concluded that Google was potentially diverting traffic to its own specialist, or vertical search services — like Google’s finance, news, shopping and weather sites — potentially to the detriment of consumers. Brussels alleged it 1) did not to inform users clearly when it was favouring its own in-houses services and 2) did not give proper visibility to rival search engines that may provide more relevant results.

The solution: As a principle Google promises to ensure its own in-house services are clearly labelled and demarcated from the general search results. Users should be “clearly aware” they are Google in-house services, not natural search results. Read more

Hollande made clear his Syria position had hardened in his remarks heading into the summit

Will a debate on Syria hijack this seemingly uneventful EU summit? That is certainly the Anglo-French plan. Foreign ministers discussed it only a fortnight ago and there was no mention of Syria on today’s formal summit agenda. But Paris and London have nevertheless decided to bounce their counterparts into a potentially fraught review of the sanctions regime.

Although Britain has been pushing the line for weeks, it France’s president François Hollande who fired the opening shot at the summit, making clear his position had hardened. The message: it is time to change the sanctions regime to allow Paris and London to arm Syrian rebels fighting the the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Read more

Malta's Joseph Muscat arrives at the EU summit

Finally the Socialists are talking. Most of the early arrivals to the pre-summit gathering of the Party of European Socialist in Brussels said next to nothing. The only statement from Danish prime minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt was a striking neon apricot jacket. Joaquin Almunia, the EU competition commissioner and former Socialist candidate for Spanish prime minister, just gave a “buenos Dias” to the throng of journalists.

So it was with some relief that the newly elected Joseph Muscat of Malta broke the silence with a call for “common sense” on economic policy. On the day to his first summit, he said the magic balance was ensuring that “good economic governance” does not “stifle growth”. It is hardly controversial. But the tone and indeed the arrival of a newly elected socialist gives a small taste of the shifting political mood in parts of Europe. Read more

France’s François Hollande is expected to attend the pre-summit meeting with centre-left leaders

It is all about to start. EU finance ministers will for the first time debate bankers’ bonuses. Brussels may say it loves democracy, but the meeting is fixed so the most contentious discussion is off-camera, in secret. George Osborne, UK chancellor, will gingerly defend his position against the planned bonus cap in the public debate afterwards, but by then the outcome of the negotiation will be clear. Think of it more like a post-match interview. This is a short guide to what to expect:

Will Osborne be able to overturn the bonus cap? Without wanting to ruin the suspense, the answer is no. The main terms of the political deal — a 1:1 bonus-to-salary ratio, which can raise to 2:1 with a shareholder vote — is here to stay. The European parliament is wedded to it. And apart from Britain, every other country is willing to compromise. Read more

Politicians the world over have huffed and puffed about excessive pay at banks since 2008. While remuneration curbs were put in place, nothing fundamentally challenged bank operations, or their ultimate flexibility to reward staff. The European Parliament has bucked that trend with the mother of all bonus clampdowns. Here are five key questions on the cap: how it works, how you can avoid it, whether it will really pass and what it means for Britain and the City.

1. How is the cap calculated and applied? Read more

The EU clampdown on bankers’ bonuses is nigh. The final talks (or so diplomats hope) have begun and the room is booked until midnight. The frantic politicking earlier today certainly indicates the deal is close. This blog includes some of the latest political intelligence and a few tentative predictions. But be warned: the Brussels blog would not wager its bonus on the outcome.

1) Britain is looking isolated. It is a complex picture, but the UK is running short of allies, especially on the terms of the cap on variable-fixed pay. Most member states are happy to compromise with the European parliament, which is leading the bonus charge. Berlin is showing no appetite for running to London’s rescue. Even Sweden, the UK’s main friend on financial issues, was relatively silent at a meeting yesterday. The Netherlands said it could even accept a tougher crackdown. Ireland want a deal this evening. Read more

Should bankers breathe a sigh of relief over the deadlock in EU talks last night on introducing a bonus cap?

The British are certainly happy to have a bit more time to achieve the improbable and turn opinion in Brussels against strict limits on bonuses that are double or triple fixed pay.

At the same time, the omens from parliament are looking no better for the City’s finest. Just look at the tone of this statement the MEPs spearheading the talks put out today:

We are ready to give the Council one more week for internal discussions. If – after ten months of negotiations – a viable compromise cannot be found on 27 February, we do not see any other possibility than to ask the plenary of the European Parliament to vote on its position.

The threat of a vote is mainly symbolic. But there is no sign of backing down. Indeed parliament is upping the ante. They are pressuring the EU member states — who are represented by the Irish presidency — to override the hold-outs to a deal. It is, in other words, a challenge to force the Brits into line or outvote them within the week. High stakes. Read more

Now here is an striking quirk in European Commission recruitment: an institution dominated by men from old member states has taken a shine to women from new ones.

For all its preaching about gender equality, the Commission is conspicuously top heavy with men, particularly when it comes to policymaking jobs (so-called administrators). According to the latest Commission stats, women are outnumbered 45 per cent to 55 per cent; three out of four senior managers are men.

The situation is worse if you look at staff by nationality, especially for longstanding EU members. A meagre 23 per cent of Dutch Commission officials are female, 26 per cent of Belgians, 29 per cent of Brits and 31 per cent of Germans. In the top three civil servant ranks of the Commission, the Dutch ratio of men to women is an extraordinary 31:1.

No doubt the Commission want to see a better gender mix. But it seems the effort to improve the situation is generating some imbalances of its own. Read more

David Cameron is now the only leader in Europe openly advocating the revision of EU treaties by a set deadline. He asserts that this will happen by 2017 because the eurozone will have to make “massive changes” to save the single currency.

But what if that is not the case? What if Britain is the main reason for a treaty revision? How would Cameron trigger a renegotiation?

The answer lies in Article 48 — to spare you from reading the text, here’s a summary of the hurdles it places before any advocate of treaty change: Read more

Predicting what Germany will do in a negotiation is fast becoming the Brussels equivalent of soothsaying. Tuesday’s tetchy banking union talks set off yet another diplomatic stampede to consult the ouija boards, throwing canes and tarot cards in order to find out what Berlin really wants.

Were the strident objections of Wolfgang Schäuble, the German finance minister, just negotiating tactics? A manifestation of German domestic politics? Or are they red lines that will require the reforms to create a single banking supervisor to be totally recast or significantly delayed? We’ve consulted the FT Brussels Blog Oracle (and a few diplomats) to draw up these two scenarios.

The Germans are digging in: no deal this year

There was genuine shock at Schäuble’s intervention. Ahead of Tuesday’s meeting of finance ministers, four EU ambassadors predicted to us that a deal — or partial agreement — was at hand. That was until Schäuble spoke. He opened with a dispute that officials thought was close to being resolved: whether small banks fall under the ECB’s supervision responsibilities. Don’t think this will pass the German parliament, he warned.

More worrying for some was his next point. Read more

Jonathan Faull, EU Commission's director general for internal market and services

Today’s instalment of the FT series on banking union turned to Britain and its troubled relations with the EU on financial services. We quoted Jonathan Faull in that piece, who runs the European Commission department overseeing the banking union plans.

He is British to boot and as close as it comes to a Brussels celebrity, so we thought it would be worth publishing our entire Q&A since he has some strong views about Britain’s role in the EU. Note the questions were partly intended to provoke; Faull characteristically kept his cool.

1. Are the views of Christian Noyer, the French central bank governor, compatible with the single market? Would the Commission stop the eurozone forcing most euro business to be within the euro area?

The EU’s financial services policy and legislation are for the whole single market, except for specific measures for the banking union being developed for the eurozone and volunteers among other EU countries. No banking union measures will discriminate against non-participating member states. The EU treaties are binding on all members and do not allow discrimination on grounds of location of business within the EU. What happens “naturally” as markets develop is another story. London has to compete!

2. Are there any genuine UK safeguards against the power of the banking union that would not fragment the single market? What are the dangers if the UK is not realistic in what it asks for? Read more

This issue has always been a potential dealbreaker: how will Germany’s politically powerful network of small public banks — or Sparkassen — sit under the bailiwick of a single bank supervisor? Until now we’ve mainly seen diplomatic shadow-boxing on the matter. But that fight is beginning in earnest.

As is the custom in Brussels, some ambiguous and unclear summit conclusions are helping spur things along. Chancellor Angela Merkel last week hailed a one particular sentence as a breakthrough for Germany: that the European Central Bank would “be able, in a differentiated way, to carry out direct supervision” over eurozone banks.

To her, that vague language was recognition that the Sparkassen would be treated differently — the ECB would concentrate on big banks and those that are facing troubles, and leave the rest to national authorities. Read more

Tomorrow will mark another milestone in the long meandering path towards a international financial transaction tax, otherwise known as the Tobin tax.

What exactly will happen? Well the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, will approve a proposal that paves the way for an avande-garde of member states to agree their own Tobin regime. In EU jargon, it’s a proposal authorising “enhanced cooperation”.

Ironically the step forward will come in the shape of a legal admission of defeat, a formal acceptance that there is at present no consensus for a pan-EU levy, let alone enough for a global one.

It is largely a formality. But it means the 11 EU countries that want the levy will be one procedure closer to setting up their own Tobin tax. Such breakaway groups are considered a last resort under EU rules, so any enhanced cooperation must clear various legal hurdles, including proof that a pan-EU deal is impossible for now. Read more

Legal opinions from the top lawyer to EU ministers are not intended for mass circulation. They are usually virtually unquotable, often studiously ambiguous and always highly political. But the Council legal service’s take on the European Commission plan for a single bank supervisor is a classic.

The headline is that the Commission’s supervision blueprint — as announced in September — is illegal in key parts. More important, though, is the detail of the argument and the challenges it poses to finding a diplomatic solution before the end of the year.

Before diving into the argument and quoting key sections, it is worth sumarising and explaining some of the implications. Read more

Is it possible to have one supervisor for eurozone banks, while keeping 17 different paymasters for when things go wrong?

It is the big potential problem of phasing in a banking union – while prudential responsibility is centralized under one supervisor, the means to pay for bank failure isn’t. One cynical diplomat likened it to “telling all cars to suddenly change sides and drive on the left of the road – but leaving the lorries to drive on the right.”

Just think through what would happen in the case of a failed financial institution once the European Central Bank takes over supervision.

Under the Brussels banking union plan, the ECB will have the power to shut down the lender by removing its license to operate. But in practice it would require the authorisation of the bank national authority. As we know, some banks perform vital functions for the economy and are too big to fail. For the ECB to pull the plug, someone would have to be available to pay for winding it up or bailing it out. Read more

Planning for a European banking union is racing ahead, in spite of the considerable political obstacles. The vision is for two, five or even ten years in the future. But be in no doubt: the institutional turf war is already afoot.

It was on display today in the pages of the international press. Speaking to the FT Jose Manuel Barroso, the European commission president, laid out his vision of a banking union built on the foundations of existing EU institutions.

At the same time Christian Noyer, the governor of the Bank of France, made his pitch in the Wall Street Journal for eurozone central banks to provide “the backbone of the financial union”.

The clashing views highlight the great unanswered question of the banking union: if power over banks is centralised, who will be given control? Cui bono? These three scenarios lay down the broad templates for a union, and the institutions that would stand to win and lose depending on the outcome.

1. An EU banking union

Broadly as outlined by Barroso. A single supervisor, resolution regime and deposit guarantee fund serving all 27 member states. Should the UK refuse to take part — which it will — arrangements would be found to enable the other members to go forward. This union would cover countries outside and inside the single currency club, but remain within an EU framework.

Treaty change would not be necessary, at least according to the commission. Read more

Some issues to bear in mind when considering whether a European banking union is a realistic possibility. The difficulties highlighted are not impossible to overcome. But it would be a wrench.

1. Germans don’t like strong EU supervision of their banks. Berlin is fond of federal EU solutions. But it is even more keen on running its own banks. The political links — especially between the state and regional savings banks — are particularly strong in Germany. To date Berlin has proved one of the biggest opponents of giving serious clout to existing pan-EU regulators.

2. Germans really don’t like strong EU supervision of their banks. There is again some wishful thinking about Berlin shifting position. Angela Merkel did say she supported EU supervision. But there were important caveats. She referred to supervision of “systemically important banks” — which is likely to exclude the smaller Sparkassen banks and the 8 Landesbanks. To some analysts, this represents a giant loophole. She also did not explain what kind of supervision. Berlin may only support tweaks to the current system.

3. Germans don’t like underwriting foreign bank deposits. Another pillar of a banking union is common deposit insurance. To Berlin this proposal represents another ingenious scheme to pick the pocket of German taxpayers. A weaker proposal to force national deposit guarantee schemes to lend to each other in emergencies has been stuck for two years in the Brussels legislative pipeline. Most countries opposed it. German ministers say it could be considered, once there is a fiscal union across the eurozone. So don’t wait around.

 Read more