If you've always wanted to legally purchase a set of Buckyballs, those small spherical magnets that can be messed with and molded into whatever you desire, now's your chance. A federal judge overturned a 2012 ban on the sale of the toy, meaning it's now legal to sell them in the U.S. again.

If you're not familiar with Buckyballs, also known as Zen Magnets and Neoballs, they're small balls made of neodymium magnets. They're popular as desk toys because they can be stacked and arranged into all kinds of different shapes.

That is, until 2012, when the Consumer Product Safety Commission banned them. It turns out that they're a big hazard to small children, who would often eat them. The balls would attract each other inside the digestive tract, causing massive damage and requiring surgery to remove.

But just last week, a federal judge overturned the CPSC decision, meaning that the tiny magnetic balls are legal again. Zen Magnets, one of the manufacturers of the desk toy, appealed the CPSC's decision to the 10 District Court of Appeals, which found that the CPSC didn't take into consideration all the ways that Buckyballs were actually useful.

"Numerous comments received by the Commission indicated that teachers and researchers use magnet sets to model and explain physics, biology, and geometry concepts," the ruling states. "The Commission's findings, however, contain no substantive discussion of those uses."

At least one company is wasting no time after this ruling. If you're so inclined, you can pick up a set of Buckyballs for only $30, just in time for the holidays.

Just please, don't eat them.

Source: Popular Science

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