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Citizen Science: Solving the Mystery of Celestial Elves, Trolls and Sprites

Sprites, TROLLs, ELVES—these are not fairytale beings but real and eerie atmospheric light events tied to thunderstorms, each with names as otherworldly as their appearances. Like the mysterious light-tinged footprints Nancy Drew finds in a moonlit garden, these atmospheric phenomena whisper of hidden processes and rare clues in the otherwise well-lit mystery of lightning.…
June 5, 2025
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Citizen Science: Solving the Mystery of Life on a Faraway World

First discovered in 2015 by the Kepler Space Telescope, K2-18b quickly drew attention. It is roughly 2.6 times Earth’s diameter, making it unlike anything in our solar system—a so-called “hycean” world. Imagine a planet with a deep, global ocean beneath a huge, puffy atmosphere dominated by hydrogen and helium. It’s not unlike Lewis’ fictional world Perelandra: vast, watery, mysterious.…
May 19, 2025
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Citizen Science: New Physics Mystery Series: Developing Nancy Drew Grit

In 2023, this “Citizen Science” column focused on distinguishing science from pseudoscience; in 2024, we sought to demystify energy by studying the various flavors of real energy. This year, we’ll further develop our critical thinking skills and sleuthing abilities by looking at outstanding mysteries in physics—what the problem is, why the solution continues to elude us, and what’s been done so far to solve it.…
February 6, 2025
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Citizen Science: Energy Demystified: Honing Light from Stonehenge to Science

Mere days before the winter solstice this year, on December 17th, I had the opportunity to visit Stonehenge with my son and husband. Driving clockwise in roundabouts and on the left-hand side of narrow roads gave my brain a workout, but I could still spare a moment of shock as I crested the top of a hill and saw the lone group of large stones surrounded by fields and sheep.…
December 27, 2024
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Citizen Science: Energy Demystified: The Bolts and Volts of Electric Energy

Consider a thunderstorm, nature’s best display of electric energy. Through complicated collisions and Sisyphean updrafts within the storm, particles with negative charges are driven toward the cloud base, with positive charges accumulating near the top. This separation creates a large electric potential difference (voltage) between the cloud base and the ground below, because the ground often becomes positively charged in response.…
October 31, 2024
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Citizen Science: Energy Demystified: Thermal Energy, a Hotbed of Activity

First, internal energy (U) is the sum of all forms of microscopic energy in a system. It includes all the kinetic energy (the motions, rotations, and vibrations) of tiny particles and all the potential energy of those particles interacting with each other. Think of Pandora’s box (in the original myth, it’s a jar, not a box!) rollicking with buzzing, sparking, invisible particles of evil and mischief inside.…
September 12, 2024
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PUTTING THE COMMUNITY BACK INTO THE NEWSPAPER

For a limited time, new annual subscriptions to the hard copy of “The Freeman’s Journal” or “Hometown Oneonta” (which also includes unlimited access to AllOtsego.com), or digital-only access to AllOtsego.com, can also give back to one of their favorite Otsego County charitable organizations.

$5.00 of your subscription will be donated to the nonprofit of your choice: Friends of the Feral-TNR, Super Heroes Humane Society, or Susquehanna Society of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals 

Visit our “subscribe” page and select your charity of choice at checkout

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