For Christmas a couple of years ago, I gave my family the black death, ebola, flesh-eating Strep, and stomach ache. Lest you think me some horrible person, I should point out that all of these nasty afflictions were represented by cute plush toys, courtesy of Giant Microbes. A picture of their version of E. coli (a.k.a. "food poisoning") is shown at left. They even have a toy version of the "bacterium" found in Mars meteorite ALH 84001!

I recently got an e-mail from the Giants Microbes people, and it reminded me of their unique products. I think they're great, and I just thought I'd pass that on. Several years ago, when I took a cross country road-trip, a Shigella bacterium from Giant Microbes was the Westy's trip mascot. Choose your microbe, folks. Make sure you wash your hands after playing with them.

Labels: evolution, products