Can there be a mathematics of altruism?
Dartmouth news has an interesting piece about a mathematics professor, Feng Fu, who is trying to develop a mathematics of altruism: "how to promote cooperation in the most general sense, using very theoretical mathematical models to look at how to prompt people to be...
Telecom firms sue Maine, say they have a right to sell our data
In a follow-up to my post yesterday about proposed laws in New Hampshire keeping firms from selling our cell-phone location data without our permission, comes news from Maine that they don't think that's a good idea. From the Portland Press-Herald story: Four national...
Cell phone, smart speaker, networked doorbell — Soviet spies must be so jealous
One of the painful ironies of today’s world – which seems to stab us with a new painful irony every week or two – is the way we have flipped George Orwell’s Big Brother on its head. The problem isn’t Them secretly watching Us, as “1984” predicted. The problem is Us...
Unique ice runway won’t open for pilots this overly warm winter
The Airline Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA), a national organization for private pilots, has announced that the Alton Bay ice runway on Lake Winnipesaukee will not be used this year - the ice never got thick enough. Here's the announcement. It is the...
Mushroom lovers should thank non-picky rodents
From UNH News Service: Small mammals such as mice and chipmunks who are not picky eaters play a more important role than previously known in dispersing the spores of wild mushrooms and truffles, according to new research from the New...
Lyme disease complicates the question: ‘How many deer is enough?’
Deer, as you probably know, are one of the major carriers of the black-legged tick that spreads Lyme and other nasty parasitic diseases when it bites us. Therefore, having fewer deer around would help control the ailment. But how many deer is enough? An essay by a...
Vermont has a ton of solar by NH standards, but will miss its own goal by a lot
Vermont set a goal of having 20% of its annual electricity come from solar by 2025. It will probably miss that goal by as much as one-half, even though it has installed a lot more solar than New Hampshire. Energy Central has the story (here). Vermont would have to...
Hacker who studied elections loves our paper ballots
Reported by Geoff Forester in today's Monitor; I helped with the writing: A nationally known computer hacker, a term he wears proudly, helped keep an eye on New Hampshire’s primary Tuesday but says you didn’t need computer smarts to see that it went well. “One big...
New Hampshire patents
The Concord Monitor runs a list of patents that have been issued recently to companies or individuals in New Hampshire. Check it out.
Winters to come: More snow per snowfall but fewer snowfalls (on average)
Anybody who measures precipitation, as I do for the citizen-science group CoCoRaHS, knows that measuring snowfall is hard. It drifts, it compresses over time, there's only a minor correlation between depth and moisture. So it's hard to study and understand over the...
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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.