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10 cool science gifts (for every age and budget)

3. $40-$60

For kids: Perfume Science Kit, $53.90

Courtesy of Thames and Kosmos

This perfume kit is great for budding girl scientists, who can create their own fragrances from four basic oils and another four “creative” oils. The manual explores the physiology of smell, including how the brain helps perceive it, and also gives a lesson in perfume chemistry. Kids will even learn about the history of the perfume industry and learn to train their noses to certain smells.

Ages 10+

For adults: EcoSphere, $59.95

 

Courtesy of Ecosphere Associates, Inc.

This little globe is a world of its own that can fit snugly on an office desk. The EcoSphere demonstrates a micro ecosystem that can survive an average of two years on its own. Small shrimp, algae, and other micro-organisms fill the sea-water, but not to the point of overpopulation. This delicate balance of life means the spherical ecosystem doesn’t need much help to survive. 

The product actually stems from NASA’s research on self-contained communities for astronauts to live in during long flights.

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Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

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