SCIENCE

Valentine’s Gifts for Your Science Geek

February 11, 2009

Valentine’s Day quickly approaches, and you may be wondering what to buy for your own geeky Valentine (or what to request for yourself). You can start off by sending a Scientist Valentine. Darwin might be the best choice, since his 200th birthday is only two days before V-Day.

Let’s move on to the classic gifts of chocolate and candy. There’s a chocolate-colored tee with the molecule theobromine, the chemical that makes chocolate so fun. The molecule can also be found in the form of earrings or a necklace.

You can show your love with a gummy heart, an anatomical one, that is. But consider carefully—the cannibalism aspect might scare someone off.

Has your honey been spending a lot of time crunching data from that last experiment? Maybe the chocolate pie chart would be appropriate.

Or does your other half prefer perfume? She can make her own with a Perfume Science Experiment Kit.

Edmund Scientifics has several terrariums for sale, a nice alternative to cut flowers that will only die. My favorite, though, is probably not appropriate for this occasion: Carnivorous Creations, a collection of famous meat-eating plants, including the Venus fly trap.

But let’s get real. What your Valentine really wants is jewelry. Diamonds, however, are hackneyed, so I dug up some better ideas:

A DNA pendant made with garnets.
Periodic table rings—Ag, Au or Pt.
A pretty silver necklace based on the endangered apollo butterfly (Parnassius apollo).
Nicholas and Felice sell several sets of earrings with a science theme, including the symbols for pi and infinity.
How about a bracelet made from a ruler? In metric, of course.
A necklace made from Category 5 ethernet cable has nice colors.
Nervous System finds inspiration from things in nature, such as algae and dendrites, to use in their jewelry. I particularly like the conifer pendant.
But our favorite is probably the endorphin necklace from Made With Molecules. Raven Hanna, whose work also includes the theobromine jewelry above, says it took a long time to make the piece, “but I was compelled because I loved the idea of wrapping an endorphin around my neck. I was floored at how glamorous it turned out.” Gorgeous.