Who said physics couldn’t be cute? The Particle Zoo is the brainchild of Particle Zookeeper Julie Peasley who designs and makes subatomic particle plushies for physicists and geeks around the world.

You can order particle packs of bosons or theoretical particles. Or maybe you’d prefer a cuddly yet elusive Higg’s boson to keep you warm at night?

And best of all, Julie knows her physics. The particle plushy weights vary according to their properties. The dark matter, top quark and W boson, for example, are the heaviest, as they are stuffed with polished aquarium gravel. The massless bosons are the lightest—they are stuffed with polyester stuffing.

Here at EuroScientist, we love Julie’s geek toys. Personally, I’m fond of strange quark (purple one with three eyes) – awwww…

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Leila Sattary

Leila is a freelance science writer specialising in science funding and research policy. She is a former editor of EuroScientist. She writes for a variety of online and print journals including news and features for Chemistry World, her Lab Rant column for Laboratory News and many more. In her day job she works as a Project Officer at the University of Oxford with particular interest in research policy, knowledge exchange and impact.

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