Gifts for Scientists
For the chemist, the biologist, the stargazer and the science teacher who has heard every pun twice. Tees and sweatshirts with jokes that are funny and, more importantly, technically correct.
Scientists are tricky to buy for. Anything clever enough to impress them they've usually already bought, and anything inaccurate they will quietly correct at the dinner table. The safest gift is a joke from inside their field, drawn with the care of a textbook diagram and accurate enough to survive peer review.
Every pick in this gift guide for scientists is a design that scientists actually buy from us, sorted by discipline. It's part of our wider geek gifts guide if your list goes beyond the lab.
For the one who knows their noble gases by heart
For the lab coat crowd, the chemistry teacher and anyone who has ever made a pun out of the periodic table.
The element of surprise
A periodic table tile for an element that doesn't exist, W and Tf, labelled the element of surprise. Chemists laugh, then check the table. Everyone else just reads the letters.
The one to buy for the friend who swears they have seen every chemistry joke already.
Shop Element of Surprise
I only use sarcasm periodically
Our best-selling design of all, spelled out in element tiles: S, Ar, Ca, Sm. It's a chemistry joke that doubles as a personality warning, and the first thing we'd hand anyone looking for a gift for a scientist.
Shop I Only Use SarcasmPowered by caffeine
The skeletal formula of caffeine, drawn properly, steaming out of a coffee cup. It's the molecule that runs most laboratories, and the one every scientist can name without thinking.
A quiet, clever design for the person who makes the first pot every morning.
Shop Powered By Caffeine
For the one who still counts nine planets
For the astronomer, the physicist and anyone who looks up at night and starts explaining things.
Pluto, never forget
A retro sunset, a battered little planet and two dates: 1930 to 2006. It's a memorial for the solar system's most famous demotion, and a reliable way to start an argument at any party.
One of our longest-running favourites with space fans.
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A spaceship timeline
Every famous spaceship in fiction lined up along a timeline from a long time ago to the far future. Sci-fi fans spot their favourites in seconds, and argue about the order for considerably longer.
Shop Spaceships TimelineThe birth of the Higgs boson
A particle collision drawn as a burst of tracks and light, the way the detectors at CERN first saw it. It looks like abstract art until a physicist explains it, at length.
For the person who has the LHC livestream bookmarked.
Shop Higgs Boson
For the biologist who thinks in base pairs
A, T, G and C, with a double helix standing in for the middle. The four letters of DNA are the cleanest joke in biology, and this is one of our best-selling designs of all time.
Simple enough for a lab Friday, smart enough for a conference, and a safe bet for a biology teacher who has seen every cell pun.
Shop ATGC DNAFour more science favourites
Four mugs for the lab bench
Free shipping on any 3 items
Mix tees and sweatshirts across any designs. The discount applies automatically at checkout, so the whole lab group ships for free.
Not sure of their size?
Everything is unisex. Our size charts list chest and length for every size, so you can measure a shirt they already own and compare.