DEC says mountain lion trail-cam photo “a fake”
A photo seeming to show a mountain lion that a local man claimed was taken in Esopus has been declared “a fake” by the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
Nature
The limestones of Noah’s flood?
The best place for you to visit limestones is along Rte. 9W where it passes through the Kingston malls. Almost all the rocks there are limestones. You can see more limestones along Rte. 32, just north of Saugerties.
Owl prowl in New Paltz
Saturday, Feb. 15: Learn to identify owls by sight and sound while exploring the Nyquist-Harcourt Wildlife Sanctuary. Participants will get the chance to and meet some owls up close with Annie Mardiney, a wildlife rehabilitator.
Wings of desire
OSI’s Campaign for Minnewaska Visitor Center hopes that you will sponsor a personalized bird tile.
Quantum mechanics: stranger than you can imagine
In 1935, Albert Einstein and two colleagues, Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen, wrote a now-famous paper in which they addressed one particular aspect of quantum theory. Examining the prediction that particles created together (“entangled”) can somehow know what the other is doing, the physicists argued that any such parallel behavior must be due to local effects, some contamination of the experiment, rather than some sort of “spooky action at a distance.” But recent experiments, including additional ones from 2015, show that Einstein was wrong.
Mercurial personality
Mercury alters its brightness more than any other planet, varying by three hundredfold. Each year its light goes from fainter than the “Seven Sisters” to more than double the brilliance of the Dog Star Sirius, the brightest star. These nights it’s near its brightest, but it’s fading rapidly.
‘Secrets of the Shawangunks’ lecture series begins February 6
Topics include: Bouldering and Biology; Forest Bathing; Fishers Past & Present; and Enhancing Visitor Experience Through Wayfinding. All lectures are free.
Three-day Winter Hoot festival returns to Ashokan Center
Friday-Sunday, Jan. 31-Feb. 2: Saturday features music from the Mammals, David Amram, Jay & Molly, Jeffrey Lewis, Gustafer Yellowgold, Ginny’s Kitchen, Mikhail Horowitz & Gilles Malkine as well as nature hikes, blacksmithing, kids’ activities, square dancing and a late-night Vinyl Meltdown.
The stars by name: You say tomato and I’ll say Betelgeuse
Remember the movie Contact, starring Jodie Foster? She contacted aliens from a famous star that in the movie was pronounced “VAY-ga.” Well, that star’s name was spelled Wega for centuries, and spoken as “WEE-ga,” meaning a falling eagle in Arabic. It evolved to be spelled Vega and spoken as “VEE-ga” in the 19th century. And it remains “VEE-ga” today. Those who Latinize it as “VAY-ga” are getting it wrong.
World’s oldest forest unearthed in Catskills quarry
Millipedelike creatures called myriapods likely shared this forest ecosystem, but dinosaurs would not begin to evolve for another 140 million years.