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Carol Potenza

Carol Potenza

New Mexico Mysteries

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POD-Beryllium

Beryllium and the Periodic Table of DEATH and Mystery: Parts 1 & 2

December 20, 2023 by Carol Potenza

Beryllium, Criticality, and the Periodic Table of Death & Mystery Part 1 I despaired in finding anything to write about beryllium (Be), and then I saw Oppenheimer (2023). It is a seriously great “middlebrow” (4) movie and I highly recommend it. It also exposed an embarrassing hole in my education of what was probably one of the most profound discoveries in the history of humans*—unlocking the nuclear power of the elements that reside in the Periodic Table. Not only that, but I live in New Mexico, and I have never visited the Trinity Site (only 150 m/250 km from my house) or truly …

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POD-Aluminum sapphires

Aluminum, Sapphire Glass, and the Periodic Table of DEATH & Mystery

December 20, 2023 by Carol Potenza

When you saw Aluminum (Al), I bet you figured I’d write about aluminum foil, invented in Switzerland in 1910 and first used in the U.S. to wrap candy in 1913 (1). Or its innovative use in the construction of the Empire State Building in New York City (2). Or I’d write about how the best American Christmas TV special ever, A Charlie Brown Christmas*, pretty much single-handedly killed the Aluminum Christmas tree (3). But you’d be wrong. Instead, I’m going to write about Transparent Aluminum. And yes, it’s a real thing, not just made up for Star Trek IV, The Voyage Home (4) as a bargaining chip for 6-inch …

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POD-Copper

Copper, Badges, and the Periodic Table of DEATH and Mystery

December 20, 2023 by Carol Potenza

One of the periodic table elements should be “rabbit hole” because I always seem to go down one when I’m doing research. This article is particularly weird because I’m going to lead you through the workings of my mind for Copper (Cu) from the Latin cuprum, atomic number 29 and one of only a few metals that occur on earth in a usable metallic form (1). There’s a line in Milagro Beanfield War by John Nichols (1974) that I decided to use as the base for this essay on copper: “What are pennies made out of?…Dirty copper!” which is directed at Kyril Montana, an undercover …

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Zinc and the PToDaM

Zinc, Sunflowers, and the Periodic Table of Death & Mystery

December 20, 2023 by Carol Potenza

Zinc (Zn) is a German word derived from the Persian word “sing”, which means stone. Isn’t that lovely? And while it was officially discovered as an element in 1746, Greeks and Romans have known about it for a couple thousand years (1). A silvery-white metal, Zn tarnishes to a pretty blueish tinge. It’s fairly abundant, making up 0.004% of the earth’s crust, and Zn is primarily used to galvanize other metals so they don’t rust. That means zinc-galvanized stuff—like the metal in cars, buildings, ships—lasts for generations (2). Super-duper. Wonderful. What the heck is galvanize? The American Galvanizers Association has ALL the answers. There’s even a movie (3). Galvanizing is literally dipping …

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Writing Update! Plus + How Are You? It’s Been Awhile…

July 2, 2023 by Carol Potenza

I’ve been writing and publishing, thus avoiding social media and criminally ducking my website duties. I feel guilty about that, but made great progress on the fourth Nicky Matthews Mystery (Sacred Ghosts) and the next De-Extinct Zoo Mystery (Ambushed). Update 1: Signs: A De-Extinct Zoo Mystery Signs: A De-Extinct Zoo Mystery (Book 2 in the series) was released on June 27th everywhere. Amazon, Kobo, Kobo+, Barnes and Noble, and Draft2Digital, which pushes the book to platforms all over the world, like Smashwords, Tolino, Scrbd, Thalia, Vivlio, Palace Marketplace. Unmasked, Book 1 in the series, is FREE to download. Sign up …

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New Year’s Resolution: Write a Mystery Challenge from Me to You

December 26, 2022 by Carol Potenza

We’ll follow Demystifying the Beats and write a mystery What made someone who’d only written scientific papers and grants want to write fiction? (That would be me) An eReader for Christmas. This gift from my sisters-in-law was amazing. It allowed me to take dozens in not hundreds of books anywhere and read anytime. Then I started to notice that the ebooks I read had major events at certain percentages in the books: 25%, 50% was usually a big one, 75%, etc. And as someone who analyzed data, this was like an epiphany. Just like in a scientific paper submitted to …

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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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Spirit Daughters
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