Maine firm will (maybe) make biofuel from wood waste
A firm in Bangor, Maine says it is "close" to building a biorefinery that will turn wood waste from paper and lumber mills into liquid fuel that would be sold by New Hampshire's Sprague Resources. As reported by the Portland Press-Herald's Tux Turkel (story is here),...
COVID hospitalizations are starting to rise in New Hampshire
With 300 new cases of COVID-19 reported in New Hampshire in the past three days the average number of daily new cases has exceeded the peak in May and, just as worrisome, the state is seeing the first hints of an increase in hospitalizations. 10 people had been...
UNH is part of the test-your-sewage-for-COVID team
Testing wastewater for genetic markets indicating COVID-19 is an increasingly popular idea because it can spot outbreaks before they would otherwise be seen. I wrote in August about Keene starting it up - UNH has a similar program. Here's their press release: The...
Measuring mercury via dragonflies
Dragonflies might be the coolest type of insect around - beautiful engineering and deadly hunting skills all in one. They can also, it turns out, be used to measure heavy metals in the environment, as a video from Dartmouth (here it is) demonstrates. A citizen science...
Restoring oysters is part culinary economics and part science project
Cliches are annoying because they’re obvious and overused, but usually, they’re overused because they’re accurate. So I’m going to ignore my inner writing snob and tell you that today’s column concerns a win-win – in fact, a win-win-win! – for the environment, for...
Sorry, COBOL programmers, the state’s new tax-collection system is going fine
New Hampshire has entered the second of three phases in changing the way people can pay state taxes, and this time it affects a lot more people. The New Hampshire Department of Revenue Administration is rolling out an online user portal and revenue management system...
This year’s drought will slow tree growth next year
From UNH News Service: Red oak and white pine trees could experience slower growth next year as a result of the severe drought in New Hampshire and most of New England that began in mid-August, according to a researcher with the New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment...
Tired of reading my nonsense? Then listen to it!
Last week I was the comic relief for the annual meeting of the N.H. Joint Engineering Society, giving an hour-ish talk via Zoom about a few topics that have cropped up in Granite Geek over the years which I thought might interest a few folks: Benford's Law ("first...
Quantum time dilation. Need I say more?
Combining quantum mechanics and relativity remains the big unsolved problem in physics - it flummoxed Einstein, so I don't feel too bad about my confusion. Anything that combines the two is intriguing. New research led by Alexander Smith, who is part of not one...
Patents through Oct. 25
By Targeted News Service The following patents were assigned in New Hampshire from Oct. 18 to Oct. 25. *** BAE Systems Information & Electronic Systems Integration Assigned Patent for Spectrum Sharing System BAE Systems Information and Electronic Systems...
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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.