Journalism student looking for cool science

[saimamaysidik@gmail.com]

Hello lightning enthusiasts! I'm a journalism student in MIT's Graduate Program for Science Writing, and I'm doing preliminary research to find cool science to write about while I'm in this program. I think Blitzortung and lightningmaps.org are really neat, and I'm wondering if anyone would like to give me some background info on these projects. How did they get started? What motivates members to participate? I read here that Blitzortung was used to pinpoint the origin of a forest fire in Australia. How else have the data been used?

Thank you everyone!

Saima