Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
“Wikipedia turns 15 on Friday (citation needed)” – make that “turns 20”
This post ran in 2016. Now that Wikipedia has turned 20, I figured I would run it again. This column concerns a number – 15, the number of years that Wikipedia will have existed when its birthday arrives Friday – but first let’s consider a Wikipedia-related tale about...
Back on my 15-year wikipedia anniversary, I hunted down Concord’s creator
If you’re a wikipedia geek, you’ll know who I found: Rambot.
UPDATED UPDATE: At current rate, it will take 1.8 years to vaccinate N.H.
Sorry for the confusion but I have now undone an overly hasty correction. I "corrected" myself before double-checking, which was stupid. My original posting was correct - we are getting 18,000 DOSES of vaccine a week, not 18,000 vials of vaccine containing 5 or 10...
Maine highway bridge has girders made of composites and engineers are intrigued
A replacement highway bridge in Hampden, a town next to Bangor, Maine, has girders made partly of composite materials and there's real hope this could cut down on maintenance problems, especially rust caused by road salt. The Bangor Daily News has a story - read it...
An invasive tree might help reduce impact of an invasive bug
UPDATE: See note at bottom. Invasive species are non-native plants, bugs and beasts that for various reasons, usually lack of predators, spread so quickly after being introduced that they overwhelm native species. They're a huge problem all over the world because they...
Union says Schiller coal-fired power plant is shut for good
The IBEW union in Maine says that Schiller Station in Portsmouth, with two 50 MW coal-fired and one 50 MW wood-fired power plants, has effectively shut down permanently, although the owners haven't announced anything. They said this last July - I'm embarrassed that I...
NH food-composting epicenter expands its reach and you can thank a soil shortage
There are lots of good reasons to compost your food waste, but here’s one I hadn’t thought of: a dearth of dirt. “Topsoil is getting harder and harder to find,” said Marc Morgan, solid waste manager for the city of Lebanon, who needs topsoil to cover the city landfill...
Dartmouth researchers develop a glue that sometimes isn’t gluey (which is good)
One of the most intriguingly successful inventions of my life has been Post-It Notes. The idea that glue which doesn't work very well could create an important product was counter-intuitive and bravo to the folks at 3M who pursued it. So it's interesting to hear of...
How did we get vaccines so fast? Scientific collaboration and open access
A report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development about COVID-19 makes clear the obvious: Vaccines were developed in record time because scientists around the world are good at rising above nationalism, and they also rose above commercial interest....
HVDC line through Maine might actually get built
The developer of a high-voltage DC transmission line through Maine that would carry 1,200 megawatts of hydropower down from Quebec says access road plowing started Monday and construction will around Jan. 18. This is the line that was proposed after New Hampshire shot...
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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.