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Carol Potenza

Carol Potenza

New Mexico Mysteries

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Carol Potenza

Vanadium, Flow Batteries, and the Periodic Table of DEATH and Mystery

June 24, 2025 by Carol Potenza

Humans worry about the darnedest things. Especially humans who live in developed nations.   Nomophobia or No-Mobile phone-phobia (1): Anxiety related to being cut off from use of their cell phones or the internet, which affects something like 50% of the population who use cell phones. (Go ahead. Leave your phone at home one day on purpose. See how you feel.)   Electrophobia, the morbid fear of electricity. After all, everything around us that makes our lives easy and convenient runs on electricity. Imagine having a problem flipping a light switch on in your home or charging phones and computers or turning …

Read moreVanadium, Flow Batteries, and the Periodic Table of DEATH and Mystery

Selenium, the Ides of March, and the Periodic Table of DEATH and Mystery

June 24, 2025 by Carol Potenza

Wasn’t it the Ides of March (1) when Julius Caesar was stabbed in the back by people he loved and trusted? Et tu, Brute?   The Ides of March tend to be used as a harbinger of misfortune, to warn that something bad is going to happen. But it didn’t start off that way. The words “Ides”, along with “Kalends”, and “Nones” are actually ancient Roman calendar words (2) that refer to the phases of the moon. Kalends = new moon, Nones = first quarter moon, while Ides is for the full moon.   Which is propitious because the periodic table …

Read moreSelenium, the Ides of March, and the Periodic Table of DEATH and Mystery
Ruthenium

Ruthenium, Volcanoes and the Occasional Human Sacrifice, and the Periodic Table of DEATH and Mystery

June 24, 2025 by Carol Potenza

Even though this article is only gold adjacent, we need to talk about gold. Not the kind you find in a pirate’s chest (cue Dead Men Tell No Tales) or the coin of my heart, the American St. Gaudens Double Eagle, 1907-1933 (my birthday is coming up …), but the kind that underpinned the world’s money for centuries. For the better part of American history, the U.S. dollar was as good as gold—literally. You could, in theory, march into a bank with A Fistful of Dollars (Ennio Morricone, anyone?) and demand they hand over a handful of shiny yellow metal in exchange. This was …

Read moreRuthenium, Volcanoes and the Occasional Human Sacrifice, and the Periodic Table of DEATH and Mystery

DON’T GO INTO THE BASEMENT! A Radon Nightmare brought to you by the Periodic Table of DEATH and Mystery

June 24, 2025 by Carol Potenza

A Recently Discovered Hitchcockian Screenplay Genre: Horror/Mystery Tone: Suspenseful and Eerily Educational Scene 1/INTERIOR: THE RAYN BEAU 🌈 MOTEL – NIGHT A dilapidated motel sign flickers in the rain. The camera pans to Room 3, where MERRYAN RAYN, 28, sharp-eyed and skeptical, had just stepped into the shower. Her boyfriend, CAM BLOOMIS, 32, a geologist with a knack for doomscrolling EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) bulletins, clutches a Geiger counter and a folder labeled “RADON IS BAD FOR YOU.” He creeps into the bathroom, backlit by the bedroom light, his shadow slowly looming over the shower curtain … He rips back the curtain, raises the Geiger’s probe …  …

Read moreDON’T GO INTO THE BASEMENT! A Radon Nightmare brought to you by the Periodic Table of DEATH and Mystery

Germanium, Bigfoot, and the Periodic Table of DEATH and Mystery

June 20, 2025 by Carol Potenza

You’re deep in the forest, pleasantly exhausted after a long hike, absorbing the whisper of wind through towering evergreens and the distant vistas of dazzling snow-capped peaks. Away from digital noise, nature heals your overwhelmed mind and soothes your tattered soul. It’s a “touch grass” moment. You connect to the world around you by running your fingers over the rough bark of a thousand-year-old tree or trailing them through an icy stream where the water is so crystal clear, you can count every rounded stone. At camp, with the crackle of a fire warming your back, the golden light of the setting …

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(Time) Traveling on My Mind

November 26, 2024 by Carol Potenza

As you might have guessed, I always weave science into my fiction. Hearts of the Missing, genetics and genealogy (Tony Hillerman Prize) The Third Warrior, toxic waste clean-up with infective biological organisms Spirit Daughters, parthenogenesis (Daphne Du Maurier Award) Sacred Ghosts (hopefully out in 2025), pre-Columbian dog genetics as a subplot In Sting of Lies (Silver Falchion Finalist), I chose to research the Pleistocene epoch and learn as much as I could about Clovis culture and Mammoths because I wanted to. This book received a WONDERFUL Publisher’s Weekly review. The reviewer said it has a “rip-roaring” plot. I love that …

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Other Books by Carol Potenza

Nicky Matthews Mysteries

Hearts of the Missing: A Mystery

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The Third Warrior

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Spirit Daughters

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