ZOO NEWS

24 March 2010
The Particle Zoo will have a table at the Bizarre Bazaar as part of the 2010 Maker Faire in San Mateo, CA May 22-23.

19 February 2010
2010 Sakurai prize winners T.W.B. Kibble, Carl R. Hagen and Gerald Guralnik hold a custom Hagen boson.

3 December 2009
Higgs and W bosons used to illustrate story by Don Lincoln in Fermilab Today

16 October 2009
The Universe plush now available

26 August 2009
You can download a free Particle Zoo iphone app at the Apple app store through itunes.
Many thanks to Richard Burgess!

25 August 2009
My trip to Fermilab flickr gallery up

24 August 2009
Waiting for the Space Shuttle carrying the neutralino with astronaut Christer Fuglesang to launch tonight! Friday

19 August 2009
The Universe In A Box – now with antiparticles

5 August 2009
Back from Chicago and Ann Arbor and catching up on orders.
Also I'm turning 40 on Sunday so taking the day off to relax ;o)

26 July 2009
I will be at the AAPT Summer Meeting in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Also, a photo gallery of my trip to the CDF and MINOS experiments at Fermilab will be up soon!

17 July 2009
I added a physics LOLcat page to the site. Feel free to send in yours!

16 July 2009
Particle Zoo interview in the CERN Courier.

5 June 2009
Particle Zoo interview in the CERN Bulletin.

30 May 2009
Back from a great trip to CERN! Flickr photo and video gallery here.


A proton at the Control Centre

19 May 2009
I am off to Paris for a few days of vacation and then Geneva for a day at CERN!
I have a feeling I will discover some elusive particles of chocolate while there...

18 May 2009
The biggest news came 2 hours ago in the form of a 5.0 earthquake here in Los Angeles. Other than that, please check out
the Laserfest events coming up in a city near you in 2009 and 2010! They will be giving out free limited-edition
Particle Zoo photons in red, green and blue. If you can't make it to the events, you can order a special Laserfest photon here.

19 April 2009
Read about the neutralino that will be going into space with a NASA astronaut.

8 April 2009
Tiffany Ard is an artist who sells a book entitled Pat Schrodinger's Kitty,
a takeoff on the popular Pat the Bunny book for young children. Even if you don't have
children (like me), you will want this book because it's such a wonderful idea and beautifully
illustrated, yet holds sophisticated ideas in theoretical physics. A self-proclaimed science nerd,
she has many other lovely items for sale on her site and in her Etsy shop.

1 April 2009
It's no joke that the particles appeared on Fermilab's splash page today!

21 March 2009
The beginning of spring is a perfect time to introduce my newest product:
Universe-in-a-Box: A complete set of 22 mini particles + booklet

13 March 2009
Fermilab physicists Heidi Schellman and Ann Heinson use Particle Zoo
plushies in demo for the discovery of the single top quark:

11 March 2009
Check out the new custom particle section.
Also, a photograph of the W and Higgs in Symmetry Breaking magazine.

15 February 2009
The antineutrinos are here!
I've updated the Whole Zoo and Antiparticle Pack to accomodate them.

3 February 2009
The data is in! The particle popularity charts are here.

19 January 2009
Whew! After the busiest holiday season ever, I am finally breathing a sigh of relief and getting
particle orders out in a more timely manner. But what could make me happier than a photo of
Professor Peter Higgs holding his Higgs. More on the gallery page.

16 October 2008
If you're in the Bay Area, please come to the Wonderfest at Stanford and Berkeley the weekend of November 1-2.
It's the 10th Annual San Francisco Bay Area Festival of Science and there will be talks on physics, statistics, biochemistry, astronomy and a Klein bottle trophy. The Particle Zoo will be attending and vending all weekend, so stop and by and say hi! (and it's free!)
We'll have a table of selected particles for sale Saturday in Stanford from 4-7 pm and Sunday in Berkeley from 11:30-2:30 pm.

18 September 2008
I'm sewing like mad to get the flood of orders done. Between my recent Higgs sale, the LHC being in the public eye, two magazine reviews coming out at the same time and being Boinged, it's never been busier at the Zoo! So bear with me.

This has nothing to do with The Particle Zoo, but but since it involves some scientific experimentation and something cute, I'll post it:
my cat Squeaky has been invited to be on local Los Angeles TV.

2 September 2008

Particles for Animals: Donate to the Farm Sanctuary Walk for Animals.
I'll be walking in Santa Monica September 27. Particles heart animals of all kinds and sizes.

5 August 2008
Article in The Denver Post!

2 August 2008
The particles get a thumbs-up in Nature magazine (UK).

28 July 2008
Thanks to the nice people at CERN, the particles were given to the Nobel laureates in physics at the Lindau, Germany
conference earlier this month. I couldn't be more honored. Photo gallery.

Nobel winners David Gross and George Smoot pose with their particles in Lindau.

22 July 2008
No decent website is complete without a blog, right? Here is the new Particle Zoo blog.

11 July 2008
We're off to San Francisco to peddle the particles at the fair. The first batch of orders from the blogstorm will be shipping today, finally! Whew...Thanks to all my friends (and some neighbors) for working at the particle production studio the past 10 days.

6 July 2008
blogstorm continues:
toycyte

3 July 2008
From Prof. Dr. David Gross in his lecture at the Lindau Nobel laureate meeting
on July 3, 2008, on hopes for the Large Hadron Collider:
"The discovery of supersymmetry... that is the discovery of quantum dimensions of spacetime. We will be
observing–as we always do–using both our eyes and our minds, new quantum dimensions of space and time.
We have a wonderful theory of elementary particles, but the best is yet to come."

1 July 2008
blogged:
neatorama
geekologie
oh gizmo!
everything below $29.99

25 June 2008

I am excited to announce Seed magazine reviewed The Particle Zoo in the new July/August 2008 issue (#17). My only regret is that they ordered particles in February so the ones pictured are old old old and "not my best work" but I'm overjoyed nonetheless! Please notice a down quark in their photographic collage on the facing page to the contents. I never knew that my interest in space and physics would lead endless days and nights of ironing and sewing. Click each for larger.

24 June 2008

The particles are reviewed in Plastic and Plush Designer Toy News and Reviews.

18 June 2008

I have added two new particles: the W boson and the Z boson, short-lived but very necessary li'l guys. Thanks to the wonderful Phil Tanedo for his help in formulating these additions to the Zoo. How did the Zoo live without siblings Z and W for so long?

16 June 2008

Good news! The Particle Zoo has been accepted to be a vendor in the Renegade Craft Fair July 12-13 in San Francisco!
We'll be in booth #82 both days. This a juried event so I am excited to have the opportunity to sell the particles at one of the
busiest DIY craft fairs in the country. From their site:
"The Renegade Craft Fair is a unique DIY event held 4 times a year in Brooklyn, Chicago and San Francisco. RCF has gained a reputation over the last five years as being the biggest, best and the most well-known of all the DIY craft fairs out there. Each individual fair draws hundreds of applicants and tens of thousands of shoppers from all over the country and abroad! At the RCF you'll find all sorts of cool handmade stuff ranging from comic books to craft kits, silkscreened posters to reconstructed clothing."

12 April 2008

New and improved particles! The Zoo now have different colored backs
It makes them cuter, especially the Tau, who sports a brown bear-like fuzzy pelt (and sort of looks like a cookie):

I attended a UCLA lecture entitled "What's New In Physics 2008" and so it mayb almost be time to
start the supersymmetric partner particles. No one has actually seen them, buy we hear they're polite.

5 April 2008

Physics World, the magazine of the Institute of Physics in the U.K., has reviewed The Particle Zoo (print edition only).

jpg | pdf

13 March 2008

The particle popularity chart is up, containing some surprising and some not surprising statistics.
Who knew a Tau would be so popular? Please order more Gluons, they are taking it personally!

4 March 2008

I've returned from a wonderful trip to Japan to find many orders waiting for me and the particles blogged on:
fliptomato.wordpress.com
cosmicvariance.com
craftzine.com
mutablematter
chicalashaw's blog
physicsforums.com
Geek Girl blog catalog
physicality of words blog
elastojam
scintilla
patti haskins

We didn't get to the Kamiokande in Gifu, Japan, but a particle collider/research facility world tour is being daydreamed about.
I am looking forward to two UCLA Extension one-day classes this spring: "What New In Physics" and "Extremophiles to Exoplanets." Who knows, maybe some new particle ideas will come out of the lecture.

3 February 2008

30 November 2007
A big batch of particles were shown at Truxtop Gallery in Silverlake as part of their "Winter Wanderland" show.

Sonny surveys particles on display amongst other plushies at the show.

18 November 2007
The particles made their debut at the Arroyo Art Walk in Highland Park, California on November 18, 2007.
Thanks to Kelly Thompson for hosting this annual event!

Particles debut