It’s hard to know how much water is in a snowfield
If you've ever shoveled snow, you realize how hard it is to know just by looking how much water it contains (i.e., how much each shovelful will hurt your back). A foot of snow lying in my yard, where I've measured it for years, sometimes melts down to less than an...
read moreN.H. is 2nd state to drop allowable arsenic levels in drinking water
From Dartmouth News Service: Research from the Toxic Metals Superfund Research Program at Dartmouth College formed the backbone of technical information used by the state of New Hampshire in its recent decision to reduce arsenic levels in public drinking water. For...
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It’s true: Everybody speeds (within rounding error)
91.7% - that's how many drivers went over the 30 mph speed limit on a section of road in Dunbarton in one week in June, according to data collected by one of those flashing speed-limit signs. That's the most fun part of my story today (read it here) about these signs....
read moreAnother NH wind farm rises, finally
Almost 10 years after it was first proposed, wind turbines are being built in the town of Antrim. (Story is here) It will be 28.8 megawatts with nine turbines, making it the fourth wind farm of any size in the state. People and organizations fighting the plan because...
read moreA simple road-longevity fix: Thicker asphalt
From UNH News Service: As the summer months heat up, so will the asphalt and other materials used to make roads, and climate change is just making it worse. Researchers at the University of New Hampshire say because of this one of the best ways to extend the life...
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Without capacitors from Concord, there’s no moon landing
Lots and lots of companies provided equipment that helped put Neil and Buzz on the moon 50 years ago, and I have profiled a local example: Sprague Electric's plant in Concord made Apollo's capacitors, small electricity-storing-and-discharging units that are vital to...
read moreNH women are more educated than men but earn less
An analysis of Census Bureau data by N.H. Employment Security shows that, on average, women in New Hampshire are more educated than men but their full-time salaries are less, partly because of pay differences in the fields where many of them work (e.g., construction...
read moreDirection-variable base running will save America’s pastime
Baseball is boring and getting boring-er, and people aren't watching it. Fortunately, I have the solution, which I first put forward two summers ago. To save you clicking through to the column, I'll reprint it here: This column is for geeks, who like innovative ideas...
read moreA special Science Cafe will talk about moon landings – then and (maybe) now
As the anniversary of the moon landing approaches, I promise not to bore you with stories of watching it on a black-and-white TV and dreaming about cool space stuff yet to come. Instead, I promise to excite you with a special Science Cafe in which you – yes, you! –...
read moreCheck the windsock – lightning killed the airport weather station
It appears that a nearby lightning strike fried the electronics on the automated weather station at Concord airport last week, as I reported in the Monitor. It's waiting for specialty parts and won't be back up until later this week. In the meantime, pilots might need...
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Science Cafe NHAbout Granite Geek
Dave Brooks has written a science/tech column since 1991 – yes, that long – and has written this blog since 2006, keeping an eye on topics of geekish interest in and around New Hampshire, from software to sea level rise, population dynamics to printing (3-D, of course). He moderates monthly Science Cafe NH discussions, beer in hand, and discusses the geek world regularly on WKXL radio in Concord.
Brooks earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics but got lost on the way to the Ivory Tower and ended up in a newsroom. He has reported for newspapers from Tennessee to New England. Rummage through his bag of awards you’ll find oddities like three Best Blog prizes from the New Hampshire Press Association and a Writer of the Year award from the N.H. Farm and Forest Bureau, of all places. He joined the Concord Monitor in 2015.