An attempt to fathom out why Hamsters love PLoS...

My package from Razzle, sorry Zazzle arrived at work this morning.

This post by Bora aka Coturnix on 17th Nov essentially set the scene.

Closely followed by this FriendFeed thread:-



And without any further ado, here is my cool PLoS hoodie:-



FAB !!!

Excellent quality material and online print on demand/shipping time from CA, USA to Scotland took only 7 working days. Nice one, Zazzle (plus they threw in a freebie white Zazzle t-shirt too).

--

Whilst I've wanted a "Hamsters love PLoS" garment for a while, I remain at a loss as to what the logo might actually mean. And even before wearing it, some peeps have been asking. I expect more to do so when I wear it to work tomorrow and down the pub afterwards.

So I searched teh interbebz and here's what I found.

1) The connection of the logo to PLoS.org Not surprisingly, the best resource was from PLoS via this blog post by Liz Allen, July 2007:- "We hope that you like our picture entitled "Hamsters love PLoS.org". It was drawn by one of our founders' kids and has even appeared on a tee-shirt."

OK, so there is the connection to PLoS.

2) But what about the hamster in the spherical object. Hhmm. During my search, I happened upon (again) the blog post, Impact Fauna January 2009 by a certain Dr Henry Gee, Senior Editor at Nature.com


"Gee Minor models ScienceOnline09 swag, earlier today"

On the "X" loves "Y" front, I created a few images of my own. And here they are again....

A) Chickens love Nature.com



B) Centaurs love Improbable Research



and C) Dolphins love Science




--











So, bearing mind the above and also, this




and that,



I've come to the conclusion that for whatever reason, Hamsters love PLoS. End of story. They just do.

If you support the likes of PLoS and Open Access, please do drop by the official PLoS store, have a good look around and happy shopping !!