Dec. 19, 2010
If you're looking for that special Christmas gift, want something for your favorite biologist, or have a slightly macabre sense of humor, a company is selling cuddly stuffed versions of various germs and cells. The toys depict each microbe at a million times its actual size or larger, and each comes with an information card about their origins and avoiding illnesses they spread.
According to the owner of "Giant Microbes", Drew Oliver:
"From the beginning they were designed to be whimsical, of course, with the eyes and features like that, but also scientifically sound - to the extent that a plush doll of a germ can be."
The toys are meant to be educational, and have been used as teaching tools in numerous settings. Categories include Health (e.g., flu, common cold, stomach ache), Calamities (e.g., Black Death, anthrax, ebola), Tropicals (e.g., malaria, leishmania), and others. You can even search categories for your favorites based on the common or scientific name.
The Corporeals category includes an Adult Stem Cell ("The miraculous stem cell is the body's dreamer it can grow up to be whatever it wants to be.")