Plushy Sales Are Up

One interesting thing about major world events is that they almost always have unexpected consequences. I saw evidence of this ripple effect today while browsing the website of a local retailer. This store has, for many years, sold fist-sized plushy toys in the shapes of different pathogenic bacteria and viruses-- there's a plushy rhinovirus, a plushy hepatitis virus, and so on. It turns out that with the ongoing Ebola epidemic, the Ebola plushy has become not only the most popular plushy pathogen, but one of the store's best-selling items. How about that?