These Were a Few of Their Favorite Things

Science Times asked five noted scientists about the toys they remember from childhood.

Podcast: Science Times

This week we take up a history of science toys. And if you've ever wondered what toys the reporters and editors at the Science Times adored as children, well, we got that too.

Maria Zuber

54, geophysicist, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Of course I loved my chemistry set. I played with that a great deal and mixed together toxic things and household things, probably at age 10 or 11. It had flasks and test tubes and gave you small amounts of different elements you could mix together, things that changed color. It came with little paper sheets so you could measure the pH and tell if something was an acid or a base. I'm one of those odd people who read chemistry books for fun at that age.

Mike Brown

47, astronomer, California Institute of Technology, and author of "How I Killed Pluto"

ASTRONOMER Mike Brown, right, and his brother Andy with a toy rocket.

I did everything with Lego blocks. We just had boxes full of squares and rectangles and made buildings and contraptions that ran down strings. We experimented with things that had wheels and pulleys. My brother and I would try to make traps we would try to spring on each other. By 12 or 13, I was blowing up things with firecrackers and calcium carbide. At one point I gave myself second-degree burns on my arms.

Nancy Hopkins

69, biologist, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

A favorite toy for years was a construction set with metal pieces and magnets, all in bright colors that you could build things with. There were flat metal pieces and magnets of different strengths and sizes and everything in a different color. My mother was an artist, and we used to go every weekend to the Museum of Modern Art. I loved modern art. I liked Kandinsky. These magnets reminded me of him.

I can still remember being dragged screaming from it at bedtime, and recall the feel of the pieces.

Jonathan Eisen

44, evolutionary biologist, University of California, Davis, and academic editor in chief of PLoS Biology

BIOLOGIST Jonathan Eisen loved exploring nature in the backyard.

When I was a kid, it was much more a magnifying glass and go out into the yard and look at things. We would just go out and look at ants and roly-polies. Being able to see things close up was very cool. With our children (ages 5 and 7) we rear painted lady butterflies and chrysalises and eggs and watch them hatch into caterpillars. Silkworms, too. They are voracious eaters.

Jane Lubchenco

65, administrator of NOAA and under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere

The stereotypical science toys like microscopes and Erector Sets never really sparked my imagination. I was much more enamored with the outside world. I grew up in the 1950s in Colorado, and we spent a lot of time in the Rockies hiking and fishing. I was a veteran collector. I went through a wildflower phase and a rock phase. I was a girl scout for many years, and pretty much every outdoor science badge you could do, I did.

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