Hometown Science Series & Festival

Did you know it's possible to be a citizen herpetologist from your living room? In 'Project RattleCam', researchers from California and PA are working with citizen scientists -- using webcams to study rattlesnake behavior in a den of 2,000 snakes in Colorado.

Local herpetologist Stan Boder is planning to teach visitors to Hometown Science Festival 2024 all about Pennsylvania's timber rattlesnakes and will even bring along a rattler to the festival. We hope you'll join us!

We**am monitors hundreds of rattlesnakes at a Colorado 'mega den' for citizen science A “mega den” of rattlesnakes at a remote location in northern Colorado is now available for live, round-the-clock viewing online.

In this recent study, a graduate student named Sarah Caddy and her fellow astrophysicists at Macquarie University in Australia have used a special combinations of highly sensitive telescope lenses to observe distant stars during daylight hours -- previously this wasn't thought to be possible!

Our friends from the Pennsylvania Wilds Astronomy Club will give visitors to the Hometown Science Festival 2024 a chance to view features of the sun and moon, and possibly even the planet Venus, during daylight hours right from the Green in Wellsboro on Saturday, Sep 7, noon-4pm! We hope you'll join us.

Stargazing in broad daylight: How a multi-lens telescope is changing astronomy Astronomers at Macquarie University have pioneered a new technique for observing celestial objects during the day, potentially allowing around-the-clock visual monitoring of satellites and greatly improving safety on Earth and in space.

Our friends at the Gmeiner Art & Cultural Center are hosting a great exhibit in November open to all artists — we hope you’ll consider taking part!

Attention artists, mathematicians, and scientists! The Gmeiner Art & Cultural Center and the Hometown Science Festival announce an open call for artists.
Artists of all ages and levels of experience may enter one piece in any medium which shows their interpretation of the Golden Ratio. Drop-off for artwork is Thursday, November 2 from 12-6PM. The exhibit will be on display from November 4-26th.

For complete entry information, please go to:
https://gmeinerartculturalcenter.org/the-golden-ratio/

We sure had fun and did good things today at the Hometown Science Festival 2023! Thanks so much to everyone who helped support the festival and also to all who came out on such a chilly, wet day — anything for science! For those of you who couldn’t make it, we hope to catch you next time 🙂

It’s a bit rainy but we are still down here on the Green doing science for the Hometown Science Festival 2023! We sure hope you’ll join us but we strongly advise you to bring an umbrella 🙂💦☔️

We're only a day away from Hometown Science Festival 2023! We sure hope you'll come do a little science with us tomorrow Saturday 9/23 noon-4pm on the Green in Wellsboro! Free and open to the public, all are welcome, rain or shine.

Our friends from the Pennsylvania Wilds Astronomy Club will be at the Hometown Science Festival 2023 this Saturday on the Green in Wellsboro noon-4pm teaching us about solar astronomy. They'll bring along a solar telescope, giving visitors a chance to observe the surface of the sun, they'll demonstrate other forms of spectroscopy, and will also share details about the annular solar eclipse coming up on October 14. We hope you'll stop by!

Home - Pennsylvania Wilds Astronomy Club The Pennsylvania Wilds Astronomy Club We are a newly formed club, doing outreach and educational astronomy events in North-central Pennsylvania. Visit our Upcoming … Read more

Who has heard of David Lindo 'the urban birder'? The study of urban ecosystems that include wetlands, forests, parks and waterways or estuaries is an important new field of ecology. These ecosystems often support a surprising diversity of living organisms -- including birds! Here is an article about David, who has traveled the world to observe birds in environments dominated by humans.

Speaking of birding in town, Tiadaghton Audubon Society will be leading bird walks in Wellsboro (quasi-urban birding) at 1pm and 3pm during the Hometown Science Festival 2023! We hope you'll join us.

Discover The Joy Of Urban Birding With David Lindo - Bird Buddy Blog Urban birding is easy, fun, and right there where you live and David Lindo 'The Urban Birder' now shows people all over the world how to find birds in the city!

Bees work so hard, it only makes sense they sometimes need a little nap.

Come learn about with our friends David Pettit and Carrie Heath at the Hometown Science Festival 2023 next Saturday, Sep. 23, noon-4pm!

These pollen-covered bee butts are just too cute to ignore! 🐝

Male bees (and some species of female bees!) don't have a nest to go home to, so they'll sometimes find shelter in cozy flowers. Bees have also been observed having sleepovers, with up to 15 of them asleep on one flower head! 🌼 How adorable!

Our friends from Tioga County Conservation District and Northcentral Pennsylvania Conservancy will be teaching us about water quality of local streams and rivers and aquatic macroinvertebrates at this year's Hometown Science Festival 2023 on Saturday, Sep 23, noon-4pm. We hope you can join us!

Just for fun, here are the beautiful short films featuring various critters from freshwater ecosystems throughout the US from one of our favorite projects raising awareness for freshwater ecosystem conservation -- Freshwaters Illustrated.

Freshwater Ecosystem Film Portfolio — Freshwaters Illustrated Explore short films and documentaries on the world’s freshwater ecosystems from Freshwaters Illustrated.

Owls are fascinating birds -- here is a recent piece from Science Friday about current research on owl's specialized senses and behavior. Our friends from Tiadaghton Audubon Society will be at the Hometown Science Festival on Sat, Sep 23 noon-4p on the Green in Wellsboro to lead an activity in owl and raven pellet dissection where visitors will learn about the diets of these birds; Audubon members will also lead bird walks near the Green. We hope you'll join us!

Unmasking Owls’ Mysteries Jennifer Ackerman's new book delves into these fascinating avian predators, including their supersonic hearing, quiet flight, and complex communication.

Hometown Science Festival is just a few weeks away – Saturday, September 23 on the Green in Wellsboro! We were recently reading about this fascinating study about human DNA extraction from ancient artifacts – did you know we’ll be extracting DNA from fruit (no, not humans) at HSF with biology faculty and students from Mansfield University? We hope you’ll join us.

Ancient DNA Reveals Who Wore This 20,000-Year-Old Pendant Researchers have found a new way to extract human DNA from porous artifacts

We just had a great afternoon learning about timber rattlesnakes with herpetologist Stan Boder, and doing some herp-related crafting and a little ‘reptile bingo’! Thanks so much, everyone -- and thanks especially to Stan and to our friends at the Gmeiner Art & Cultural Center for hosting us.

We came across this great little documentary on timber rattlesnake life history in NYS -- We hope you'll join us to learn even more about timber rattler biology and conservation with herpetologist Stan Boder today Sunday July 30 at the Gmeiner Art & Cultural Center 2-4pm!

A YEAR IN THE LIFE OF THE TIMBER RATTLESNAKE A comprehensive video on the life history of the timber rattlesnake (Crotalus horridus) in the Northeast. I would like to thank Connecticut's Riverside Rep...

This time of year gravid (pregnant) female rattlesnakes need to bask in the sun to maintain body temperatures that support development of their young -- however as researchers from Penn State learned, basking in the open can also expose these mama snakes to predators. Come learn more about timber rattlesnakes with herpetologist Stan Boder this Sunday July 30 at 2pm at the Gmeiner Art & Cultural Center!

Sunnier but riskier | Penn State University Conservation efforts that open up the canopy of overgrown habitat for threatened timber rattlesnakes are beneficial to snakes but could come at a cost, according to a new study by researchers at Penn State.

Did you know that today is World Snake Day? We hope you'll join us in a couple of weeks on Sunday, July 30, 2-4pm at the Gmeiner Art & Cultural Center to learn about timber rattlesnakes with Wellsboro resident and herpetologist Stan Boder. Stan will take a break from his busy summer field season conducting studies of amphibians and reptiles to share his extensive knowledge on timber rattlers! We'll have some hands-on reptile-related activities for young kids as well.

Happy World Snake Day! Did you know that rattlesnakes, while often misunderstood and feared, are critically important? 🐍👀

Rattlesnakes have an important role in the food web as both a predator and a prey item. Not only do they help control pest populations, but rattlesnakes and other types of snakes are a food source that other animals like birds of prey, wading birds, and even other snakes depend on! 🦅🐁

Rattlesnakes offer ecological benefits, too. One team of researchers from the University of California at Berkeley found that rattlesnakes are seed dispersers who save seeds that would otherwise be lost. This is great news for the birds, bats, bees, and even the small mammals and rodents that depend on the microhabitat that saved seeds help to create. 🌱🌻🐝

Additionally, rattlesnakes remove disease vectors and rodent-bourne illnesses from their environment through their natural predation! One study from the University of Maryland found that a single timber rattlesnake can remove up to 4,500 ticks annually! 😮

Finally, did you know that rattlesnake venom could save your life? Venom is a complex, bioactive substance that is varied from species to species, and even within different populations of the same species. It's composed of countless combinations of enzymes, proteins, peptides, and molecules that are continuously evolving alongside the rest of nature and cannot easily be reproduced in a lab. It's used in research and in medicine! In fact, the life-saving drug Integrilin (Eptifibatide) is made from a protein that was discovered in the venom of the Dusky Pygmy Rattlesnake - and it's just one of many treatments available made from venom! 🩺💊💉

Did you know that flowers of the Mountain Laurel shrub have filaments that act as pollen catapults that may launch pollen into the air in order to make contact with insect pollinators like bumblebees?

Botany is pretty cool. Join us tomorrow Thursday, June 15, at 4pm, for our 'Wheelchair Accessible Botany and Wildflower Outing' at Barbour Rock Trail to learn more about Mountain Laurel and other native plants of Tioga State Forest with DCNR Botanist Chris Firestone!

Harvard researchers study flower that catapults pollen Harvard researchers used high-speed video to not only quantify how fast the filaments in mountain laurel flowers move, but how they target likely pollinators.

We’ve been thinking quite a bit about wildfires to the north in Ontario and Quebec, where snowfall was low this past winter, spring has been dry and warm, and now an unprecedented 150 active fires are reported in Quebec as of June 5. More than 270 million hectares (more than 5 million football fields) of forest have burned across Canada in 2023, 10 times the average area typically burned by this time of year. Here is a fascinating smoke forecast map generated by the Weather Forecast Research Team at the University of British Columbia.

Smoke Forecast - FireSmoke.ca Ground level concentration of particulate matter 2.5 microns and smaller (PM2.5) in units of micrograms per meter cubed (µg/m3).