If they dump Franklin Pierce’s name from colleges, what about Mount Pierce?
With some pushing to remove Franklin Pierce’s name from two colleges because of his support of slavery, you have to wonder about the future of a much bigger object: Mount Pierce. Right now there doesn’t seem to be any agitation to rename that 4,300-foot peak in the...
I like lobster dinner, so I care about lobster sperm counts
By Sara Schaier, UNH: If you want to understand how a species will survive or fail, one of the things you need to know is whether it’s mating at top capacity. A new study from UNH discovered a better way to count sperm in lobster that could help researchers of any...
Our summertime weekday electricity-use peaks are less peaky
Electricity demand in New England on a typical hot summer weekday can get as high as 22,000 MW, says ISO New England, the folks who run the six-state grid. The forecast for today (July 9) as I write this is 22,500 MW. The all-time high was in August 2006: 28,130 MW....
COVID hits hardest on nursing homes, minorities, and men
The number of new COVID-19 cases and new hospitalizations in New Hampshire continues to decline, but the disease is still taking an outsized toll on certain groups: people in nursing homes, Blacks and Latinos, and men. You can find the data for this and more on the...
If you want a tree that will last a century, what should you plant?
That's the question I tackle in my Monitor column this week (read it here). Spoiler alert: Variety is the spice of long life. The photo taken in lat June shows a giant ash I stumbled across in 2018 and previously wrote about. To my pleasant surprise, it is still...
Wikipedia scoffs at lesser Mount Washingtons, and I face a wiki-quandary
Editors at wikipeida (meaning anybody who wanted to get involved) have decided that New Hampshire's Mount Washington is the most important one. Hooray for us! If you search "Mount Washington" in wikipedia you'll now go to the article about the Northeast's highest...
State health officials have become media stars
In parts of the county public health officials have been threatened and harassed by the pretend-COVID-isn't-a-problem brigade, but in New Hampshire they're respected, perhaps because Gov. Sununu has made Health and Human Services Commissioner Lori Shibinette and state...
Tracking COVID in NH: Testing has slipped
I am keeping track of four measurements as indicators of how the COVID-19 pandemic is progressing. This is my fifth weekly update and the news continues to be good, although state testing numbers have slipped. At the same time, news from parts of the country where the...
Science Cafe NH has charms to soothe a savage breast
Science Cafe New Hampshire continues its digital existence next week with a conversation about Music Therapy: What is it? How does it work? Why does it work? How much of a difference can it make? Goodness knows we all need therapy these days and music therapy might...
N.H. patents through July 5
By Targeted News Service The following federal patents were assigned in New Hampshire from June 28 to July 5. *** Parallel Wireless Assigned Patent for Tracking Area Planning Parallel Wireless, Nashua, New Hampshire, has been assigned a patent (No. 10,701,668,...
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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.