Soft Science
June 30, 2008 2:01 PM   Subscribe

If you like those giant plush microbes but maybe they're a little too life-sciencey for ya, perhaps you would like The Particle Zoo instead.
posted by sergeant sandwich (34 comments total) 10 users marked this as a favorite
 
$10 shipping?!?

Dang.

And Dark Matter would have been such a great un-birthday gift :(
posted by batmonkey at 2:26 PM on June 30, 2008


Man, I wish I had thought of this.
posted by hifiparasol at 2:34 PM on June 30, 2008


plush quarks! PLUSH QUARKS!

i heart you, sergeant sandwich.
posted by CitizenD at 2:41 PM on June 30, 2008


Pepsi μ
posted by grouse at 2:51 PM on June 30, 2008 [5 favorites]


I like the microbes because they (Sort of) resemble what they're supposed to be. Without getting to heft them to feel the difference in mass, these are just different shaped beanbags with funny faces that are otherwise mostly the same.
posted by [NOT HERMITOSIS-IST] at 3:01 PM on June 30, 2008 [1 favorite]


A friend of mine gave me the Flesh-Eating plush microbe after I suffered a bout of MRSA. I wish she'd suffer a bout of physics so I could give her one of these.
posted by katillathehun at 3:02 PM on June 30, 2008 [1 favorite]


I love the idea, but these all look too much alike.
posted by UseyurBrain at 3:03 PM on June 30, 2008


I never knew particles didn't have noses.
posted by Citizen Premier at 3:05 PM on June 30, 2008 [1 favorite]


That tachyon looks familiar.
posted by GeekAnimator at 3:15 PM on June 30, 2008


No spin... FAIL
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:27 PM on June 30, 2008 [1 favorite]


Photon is a cutie.
posted by cgomez at 3:30 PM on June 30, 2008


There's something altogether awesome about a smiling, huggable "massless wavicle."
posted by Sys Rq at 3:31 PM on June 30, 2008


oooo, now I can stuff this into a Nerf™gun and yell, "Fire Photon Torpedoes!"

...and promptly get kicked off the bus.
posted by not_on_display at 3:50 PM on June 30, 2008 [1 favorite]


I think it's weird that they sell both quarks and nucleons. They should just stick to elementary particles. After all, if I want a proton or a neutron, I should just be able to stick some up and down quarks together.
posted by pombe at 4:00 PM on June 30, 2008


I tried to make the tachyon completely massless but I'm still waiting for him to return from the past (future?) to find out if it worked.

OK, I laughed.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 4:22 PM on June 30, 2008


Man, I wish I had thought of this.

Don't feel so bad: the folks making these probably didn't "think of it" either. I reckon they got the idea from Moyashimon, which are, typically, much cuter and better-done than this lazy (they do indeed mostly look alike), sloppy American rip-off.

Nobody does microscopic cute like the Japanese.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:25 PM on June 30, 2008 [1 favorite]


The Protons should all have fuzzy velcro and the Electrons should all have rough velcro.
posted by Pope Guilty at 4:28 PM on June 30, 2008 [2 favorites]


These are pretty cool, but they really need to have some kind of widgets on them so that you can stick three of 'em together (in the proper combinations)...
posted by equalpants at 4:29 PM on June 30, 2008


uh, what Pope Guilty said, that is
posted by equalpants at 4:30 PM on June 30, 2008


I'm pleasantly surprised that there's no plush Schrodinger's Cat for sale on that page.
posted by xbonesgt at 4:46 PM on June 30, 2008


Without getting to heft them to feel the difference in mass, these are just different shaped beanbags with funny faces that are otherwise mostly the same.

No need to be anti-matter.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:52 PM on June 30, 2008 [3 favorites]


Aw. I like the idea a lot but I find these much less cute than the plush microbes, which already have the advantage of being sold at our neighbourhood mall.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 5:07 PM on June 30, 2008


My fiance got me the beer and bread yeast a couple years back, which led to him charmingly telling everyone we know how he had given me a yeast infection.
posted by supercrayon at 5:21 PM on June 30, 2008


No spin... FAIL
You could always report them to the Society for the Conservation of Angular Momentum.
posted by Zonker at 6:47 PM on June 30, 2008


These are cute although guts are more my style. I've been wanting a plushie heart for ages.
posted by shelleycat at 7:03 PM on June 30, 2008


I prefer the Parasite Pals.
posted by Clay201 at 7:06 PM on June 30, 2008


There's a bit on their site advertising future products, one of which is "A more anatomically correct proton and neutron", which I'm taking to mean what several people here want: nucleons actually comprised of quarks. The image.
posted by Arturus at 7:35 PM on June 30, 2008


I'm pleasantly surprised that there's no plush Schrodinger's Cat for sale on that page.

Not now you've looked, sure. Before then...
posted by alasdair at 10:30 PM on June 30, 2008 [1 favorite]


boo, they're not suitable for kids under 5... how am I supposed to instill a love of tachyons in between naps?
posted by mikw at 12:32 AM on July 1, 2008


How about some plush data structures for us computer scientists out there?
posted by destrius at 7:26 AM on July 1, 2008


Not now you've looked, sure. Before then...

I'm definitely not looking now so that the cat may remain for sale and not for sale.
posted by Spatch at 7:32 AM on July 1, 2008


I'm pleasantly surprised that there's no plush Schrodinger's Cat for sale on that page.

They tried to sell them at one point but they never knew if they were in stock or not.
posted by bowmaniac at 8:53 AM on July 1, 2008 [1 favorite]


This just helps to confirm my long held hypothesis:

Tachyons: faster than light, backwards through time, pink, angry.
posted by quin at 9:22 AM on July 1, 2008


Neutrinos= teenage mutant ninja turtles.
Finally, I understand.
posted by Shebear at 4:52 PM on July 1, 2008


« Older mmmm, bacon   |   A quarter century in black and white. Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments