Late in the afternoon on Monday, October 29, as Hurricane Sandy closed in on New Jersey, I logged into Facebook and posted this picture of my sister and me outside our Jersey Shore beach cottage back in 2009, along with the caption "Be strong, tiny beach shack!!"

This is a picture of the house after the storm:

The house was tiny: two closet-sized bedrooms, a miniature bathroom, and one larger room that served as both the living room/family room and the kitchen. The pullout bed touched the kitchen table. But on a sunny summer weekend, we would somehow manage to pack nearly a dozen people in that tiny little cottage for relaxing and quaint beach getaways, memories I cherish. Many of my favorite childhood memories are of family and friends huddled around the picnic table playing Monopoly at all hours of the day and night, jumping for joy when my mother found that last stubborn lost puzzle piece under the couch and fit it into the jigsaw puzzle we'd been doing for days (the neighbors probably thought we'd won the lottery!), and laughing as my father blamed his horrendous missed beanbag toss on the faint ocean breeze that was always swirling down the coastline.

All in all, there were great friends, great fun, and great fresh fish caught on the beach right in front of the house.

Fast-forward to that Monday. While friends and I enjoyed our day off from school, I began to get more nervous as the first reports of what would become one of the most destructive storms in U.S. history started to pour in. My Facebook news feed updated like crazy as my Jerseyan friends posted about raging winds felling trees and knocking out power in their homes. (Thank goodness for smart phones!) All the while, classmates and I sat flashlights-in-hand in the study room of our graduate dorm awaiting the plunge into darkness, wondering if the relative breeze blowing some leaves off the trees was the worst Boston would see of Sandy.

By morning, I knew the destruction had been much worse than expected. Being from New Jersey, I've seen my fair share of hurricanes. But in the past, it's always seemed that the predictions were worse than the reality. But the unlikely combination of circumstances that set the stage for maximum destruction--the high tide, the incoming nor'easter, and unusually warm waters from the Gulf--left me with little hope for my house and so many others like it on the Jersey Shore.

I was here at the NOVA office on Tuesday when I first saw video of the damage at the Jersey Shore. I was shocked to discover that that first video shot by the New Jersey Coast Guard was of my neighborhood (though mislabeled--it's Ocean Beach III in Lavalette, New Jersey, not Seaside Heights). You can also spot my neighborhood at 39:26 in NOVA's film on Hurricane Sandy, Inside the Megastorm.

When I got home to New Jersey the week of Thanksgiving, my mother and I thought it was finally time to go down to the shore, assess the damage, and see if there was anything we could salvage from our house. Only residents are allowed in the area, so we folded up our tax returns from 2011--our proof of ownership--and headed down early, knowing that at 3 p.m. the police would make their rounds to clear the island of everyone but authorized officials and the military.

Even after seeing dozens of videos and pictures of the damage at the shore, experiencing it in person was shocking. There were boats out of water and slammed through homes, houses falling into sinkholes, and streets lined with the damaged contents of each house, waiting to be taken to one of the humongous mountains of garbage and debris being piled up around the state.

We pulled up to our neighborhood and had to park down the block because the sand in the street was too deep to drive up to the house. I walked to our property, and this is what I saw:

That is the view out of what once was my living room. (Trying to lighten the mood, a friend later said upon seeing this picture, "Well, if you didn't have an ocean-front view then, you certainly do now!)

Below is the view from the other direction, and my mother looking stunned:

This next picture is of my mom crawling into what was my bedroom and her first reaction to the sight:

The following pictures show the incredible height of the sand that was piled up in the house. The left picture was taken in the bathroom; you can see that the sand is so high it nearly covers the entire toilet. The picture on the right is the entrance to my bedroom; the door was broken and pushed in from the power and weight of water and sand slamming against it.

There isn't much more I can say about this besides what you see above. When I look at the pictures now, I cannot help envisioning that first monstrous wall of water that must have slammed through our sliding glass door, sending surging rushes of seawater into the house and then tearing down the walls and dragging all the house's contents out to sea as the wave receded with incredible power back into the ocean, only to strengthen itself for the next earth-shattering blow. We don't ordinarily look at innocent water as a force to be reckoned with, but it knocked down most of this house like a deck of cards. It's as if mother nature is telling us stubborn humans that she'll always be stronger, so we'd better start listening.

The last ten years have thrown their share of challenges at us New Jerseyans and New Yorkers. Multiple disasters have tried our hearts and resilience, but they've proved to us and the world the power of community both to cope and rebuild. Though it's unfortunate that our little house in Ocean Beach III is gone, we are very lucky compared to the countless victims who lost primary homes and loved ones in the freak of a storm that materialized during just the right conditions to cause maximum destruction. We're a state half-famed and half-infamous for our strong will and pertinacity, and we're determined to rebuild. Power has been restored, streets are being cleaned up, and the public transportation system is now up and running. There is certainly a lot of work to be done, but I'm sure that the East Coast will be back and better than ever in no time.

This sign posted on one our few remaining windows says it elegantly:

For more information about how Sandy formed, the damage the storm caused, and relief efforts, check out NOVA's Inside The Megastorm.

The coverage of the Sandy Hook massacre has produced a lot of news coverage, some of it accurate and some of it not. In the course of researching the segment "Can Science Stop Mass Murder?" for the PBS special "After Newtown," the team at NOVA compiled a comprehensive list of articles and links about the tragic event and mass shootings more generally. Below is that list. Some provide context specific to Sandy Hook, others delve into the scientific research that seeks to understand what might transform these people into killers, while still others ask the question, is it right to blame these events solely on mental illness? We hope you find these links helpful and informative.

Deadliest U.S. Mass Shootings
A look back at some of the most notable mass shootings in recent U.S. history: from Killeen, Texas, in 1991 to recent rampages at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, and Sikh temple in Wisconsin.

"Exploring the Mind of James Holmes and the Tragedy in Colorado"
by Jerome Elam. The Washington Times, August 1, 2012.

"In Gun Debate, a Misguided Focus on Mental Illness"
by Richard A. Friedman, M.D. The New York Times, December 17, 2012.

"Can You Call a 9-Year-Old a Psychopath?"
by Jennifer Kahn. The New York Times Magazine, May 11, 2012.

"'I Am Adam Lanza's Mother': A Mom's Perspective on the Mental Illness Conversation in America"
by Liza Long. The Huffington Post (republished from The Blue Review), December 16, 2012.

"'I Am Adam Lanza's Psychiatrist': A Response from the Mental Health Trenches to 'I Am Adam Lanza's Mother'"
by Anonymous. xoJane.com, December 17, 2012.

"The Violent Brain: Ingredients of a Mass Murderer"
by Lauren Migliore. Brain World magazine, December 15, 2012.

"EXPERT: What Makes a Mass Killer?"
by Michael Welner, M.D. ABCNews.com, February 13, 2007.

"Mass shootings: Why it's so hard to predict who will snap"
by Stephanie Pappas. FOXNews.com, July 25, 2012.

"The Pain of Being Linked By Asperger Dx to a Mass Shooter"
by Lucy Berrington. Psychology Today, December 16, 2012.

"Mass Murders, Unlike Serial Killers, Are Hard to Profile"
by Lizzie Crocker. The Daily Beast, July 20, 2012.

"Can This Man Predict Whether or Not Your Child Will Become a Criminal?"
by Josh Fischman. The Chronicle Review, June 12, 2011.

"Good News and Bad News About Gun Laws, Mental Illness and Violence"
by Jeffrey Swanson, Ph. D. "Bill of Health" Harvard Law blog, October 5, 2012.

"Adam Lanza: Newtown Massacre Suspect a Puzzle to Authorities"
by Michael Daly. The Daily Beast, December 17, 2012

"Psychiatrist: Showing Video is 'Social Catastrophe'"
ABCNews.com, April 19, 2007.

"Notoriety Drives Mass Shooters"
by Mary Papenfuss. Newser.com, February 10, 2008.

"What Pushes Shooters Over the Edge?"
by Bill Weir. ABCNews.com, February 9, 2008.

"A Guide to Mass Shootings in America"
by Mark Follman, Gavin Aronsen, and Deanna Pan. Mother Jones, July 20, 2012.

"Current Directions in Violence Risk Assessment"
by Jennifer L. Skeem and John Monahan. Current Directions in Psychological Science, March 23, 2011.

"A Jurisprudence of Risk Assessment: Forecasting Harm among Prisoners, Predators, and Patients"
by John Monhan. Virginia Law Review, May 2006.

"Don't Blame Autism for Newtown"
by Priscilla Gilman. The New York Times, December 17, 2012.

"What Drives Suicidal Mass Killers"
by Adam Lankford. The New York Times, December 17, 2012.

Over the past year, a steady trickle of books, articles, and film proposals has crossed my desk about world-changing events that the ancient Maya are said to have predicted for the date of December 21st, 2012. The latest is a press release for a book claiming that physicists searching for the Higgs boson (the so-called "God Particle") at the giant particle accelerator at CERN, near Geneva, are at risk of triggering "seismic events that could release cataclysms prophesied by the Mayan Calendar 2,000 years ago." Other popular theories involve giant solar flares wreaking havoc on satellite communications, or a "galactic alignment" of the plane of the Milky Way that could bring spiritual enlightenment rather than doomsday. In anticipation of either dire or uplifting events, tourists are flocking to Maya sites in Guatemala, Mexico, and Belize in record numbers.

If you're inclined to suspect that Y12 might be as big a fizzle as Y2K, you may still enjoy a sober look at the evidence for what the ancient Maya actually believed about the cosmos and the calendar. There's no better introduction to that subject than "The End of Time: The Maya Mystery of 2012," a popular book by Anthony Aveni, a pioneering investigator of Maya astronomy. Shot through with characteristic humor and a gift for sharp explanation, Aveni's book presents a clear picture of Maya creation myths and the motivations of their skywatchers. He outlines how the Maya followed three separate calendar cycles that mesh together like gears in a bicycle wheel; the biggest "gear," or cycle, was the "Long Count," which tracked the number of days that had elapsed since a creation date in 3114 BC, far back in their mythological past. If you project the Long Count forward in time, then a sub-cycle known as the baktun, equivalent to roughly 395 solar years, is due to turn over and reset itself, like the numbers in an odometer, on December 21st.

An Easter procession in the highland town of Nebaj, Guatemala. Today's Maya observe ceremonies that are a blend of Christian and pre-Hispanic influences.

So what did the Maya believe about this cycling of their calendar? Since the late 1970s, scholars have made astonishing progress in deciphering Maya writing--the intricate hieroglyphs that they painted on vases or carved into stone monuments between AD 250-900. We now know that many of the inscriptions relate the ancestry of their rulers back to the start of the Long Count or other auspicious events in the deep past. Others concern the political present and give details of accessions, alliances, military conquests, and the overthrow of rival rulers. To see a vivid slice of this evidence, Mark van Stone's "2012: Science and Prophecy of the Ancient Maya" presents a highly accessible pictorial guide to Maya art and hieroglyphs and how they relate to the 2012 question.

The bottom line is that amid all the rich hieroglyphic records kept by Maya scribes, there's total silence about what they actually thought about the future turnover of the baktun. Only two inscriptions even mention the turn of the 13th baktun, which corresponds to December 21st, 2012 in our calendar. One of them was discovered this summer at the Maya site of La Corona in Guatemala by David Stuart, a leading scholar of Maya writing, who says he was stunned when he spotted a text mentioning the 2012 turn of the cycle. Like so many other inscriptions, Stuart says, its context is the politics and history of the 7th century AD, specifically the divine status of one of La Corona's rulers. "The point was to associate the divine king's time on the throne to time on a cosmic scale," he says. To understand more about how the Maya recorded and justified the affairs of their rulers, see Stuart's popular book titled "The Order of Days: Unlocking the Secrets of the Ancient Maya." In his final chapter, Stuart concludes, "No Maya text, ancient, colonial, or modern, ever predicted the end of time or the end of the world."

Today, in the highland villages of Guatemala, traditional Maya calendar cycles are still observed by "Daykeepers," or shamans, although the cycles are no longer geared to the fortunes of powerful kings and queens. The most important of these cycles is a ritual calendar of 260 days, perhaps related to the length of human pregnancy, known as the tzolk'in. The same cycle was widely observed by the Maya 1,000 years ago. One of the Daykeepers' major preoccupations is to perform ceremonies correctly so that the tzolk'in keeps running smoothly, thus ensuring the fertility and health of the community. Allen J. Christenson, an anthropologist who has worked for decades in Guatemala, says that rural Maya villagers had little or no awareness of any kind of apocalypse in December 2012 until they heard about it from outside media sources. But they do believe the world is going to die. As Christenson explained recently in Archaeology magazine, the Maya believe that the world dies each day when the sun sets or crops are harvested. "The world is constantly dying," he says, "and the role of the Daykeeper is to make sure they get things going again." In this perspective, the idea of a single cataclysmic "doomsday" is simply a projection of our own culture.

Lake Atitlan in Guatemala is the focus of traditional creation myths among the Maya. In the lakeside community of Santiago Atitlán, anthropologist Allen J. Christenson apprenticed himself to a Daykeeper to gain insights into Maya beliefs and ritual practices.

While no serious evidence supports the idea that either the ancient Maya or traditional shamans believed in a world-shattering event, the modern mythology of a 2012 apocalypse has taken on a life of its own. Across Latin America, many of today's roughly seven million Maya people are planning events and festivals to celebrate their identity around the upcoming date. Throughout Latin America, the 21st will be an occasion to celebrate the rich heritage of Maya civilization, which science has played a vital part in recovering.

For further reading, see:

Anthony F. Aveni, 2009. "The End of Time: The Maya Mystery of 2012." University of Colorado Press.

Mark Van Stone, 2010. "2012: Science and Prophecy of the Ancient Maya." Tlacaelel Press.

David Stuart, 2011. "The Order of Days: Unlocking the Secrets of the Ancient Maya." Harmony.

Zach Zorich, 2012. "The Maya Sense of Time," in Archaeology magazine, Volume 65 Number 6, November/December.

David Stuart talks briefly about the 2012 apocalypse in a recent episode of WAMC Northeast Public Radio's "The Academic Minute."

On the day that NOVA's "Ultimate Mars Challenge" aired, I was invited to attend a modest little gathering held in its honor. It was one of those times when I realized that I was clearly the least knowledgeable person in the room. The other attendees included a quantum physicist and a group--a group--of advanced roboticists. It would have been easy for me to feel intimidated by the brainpower present in that room, but I wasn't. Because my friends are...well... friendly, and because the setting was casual, I felt totally comfortable, and was able to contribute to the discussion constructively, making the conversation rich in a way it likely would not have been had I been absent.

That's the idea behind science cafés. In a casual setting like a bar or café, members of a community come together to have a discussion around a scientific topic. Sometimes, these topics are formal science, like microbiology or physics, but just as often the events revolve around everyday science, like the science of cooking, brewing, or sports. An expert researcher opens up the event with a brief description of his or her area of study, and then the floor is open for questions and conversation.

NOVA has supported science cafés since 2004, and now we administer ScienceCafes.org, where you can tap into the international science café network of close to 300 registered cafés, find one near you, or find resources to help launch a new one. NOVA's education group produces new materials to support café organizers and speakers, from simple giveaways and promotional materials like coasters to full media clips of NOVA episodes that can be used to get the conversation started.

We believe that informal strategies for science education and literacy have unique benefits. In traditionally structured, lecture-style presentations, the direction of communication--the flow of information--is one-way. But for most of us, engagement on any subject, but particularly in science, is a two-way street. Scientists invested in outreach must be able not just to speak fluently and clearly about their work, but also listen and be relatable. If, as a scientist, you want your audience to be as invested as you are in your field of study, then it's absolutely crucial that you help them understand why what you do is important. The best way to do that is to let them ask you questions about it. Let them explore for themselves and learn how they relate to what you do.

It is in encouraging this sort of exchange that science cafés really shine. By keeping spirits casual and opening the floor to the audience rather than keeping the focus solely on the speaker, cafés make each attendee, no matter his or her initial understanding of the topic, more comfortable and more able to contribute to the discourse fully and without trepidation. Further, an effective speaker can gain incredible insight through audience input. Everyone is there with a purpose, and so all feel an increased sense of agency with regard to their own learning process. Attendees and speakers learn more, understand more deeply, and are more often inspired to share their newfound knowledge with others in the community.

This was certainly the case with me at our "Mars Party." My expert friends were not only knowledgeable, but also relatable, patient, and thorough. It was a powerful learning experience that I won't soon forget. If you aren't lucky enough to be invited to science-themed parties but are still interested in seeking out informal learning experiences, we at NOVA encourage you to visit ScienceCafes.org to find your local science café, or to start one of your own.

A couple of weeks ago, word leaked out from the Curiosity team that one of the rover's instruments had found something "earthshaking." Immediately people began speculating that the NASA mission had discovered organic compounds, which would be pretty good proof of life on Mars. The news spread quickly, and NASA began backpedalling, hoping to manage expectations, instead saying the results were "interesting."

Fast forward to earlier today, when Curiosity's main scientists held a press conference about their findings so far. The rover had scooped some soil, they reported, which turned out to be completely normal Martian soil. Sort of. This batch also contained chloromethanes of various types (one, two, and three chlorine atoms). The chlorine part wasn't exciting—Phoenix, a previous rover, also discovered perchlorates—but the methyl part was. Compounds with methyl groups often indicate the presence of methane, which can be a telltale byproduct of living things.

Does this mean we finally found life on Mars? Maybe, or maybe not. The rover "has made detection of organic compounds, we just don't know if they're indigenous to Mars," said John Grotzinger, project scientist at the Mars Science Laboratory. In other words, the finding is "interesting" and definitely not "earthshaking."

Underwhelmed? Welcome to science in real time. Tests must be painstakingly run and rerun. Results must be compiled, questioned, and interpreted. All of that takes a long time, which Grotzinger emphasized at the press conference.

"Curiosity's middle name is patience, and we all have to have a healthy dose of that," he added. (Maybe someone should have reminded them of that a few weeks ago.)

There are still a bevy of tests that scientists must perform before they can determine whether the detected organic compounds are indeed from Mars and were not deposited there by an asteroid, for example. Once that is confirmed, then they have to determine whether those compounds were created by a living thing and are not just the byproduct of a more prosaic chemical reaction. The good news is that Curiosity is only a few months into its two-year mission. There's still plenty of time.

Today's announcement is slightly more intriguing than a standard early mission update. The results are exciting, but not that exciting because there's still lots more work to be done. Stiill, Curiosity scientists are hopeful. After this first round of tests are complete, the rover will start its trek up Mount Sharp, which may have more tantalizing, or perhaps more definitive, secrets locked within its ancient rocks.

"We've been at the gas station, gassed it up, checked the oil," Grotzinger said. "We're going to kick the tires around a little bit, but then we're ready for our trip. And that's when our science mission of exploration really gets into full gear."