The coolest runway in the Lower 48 (both literally and figuratively) opens
The ice runway on Lake Winnipesaukee's Alton Bay has opened for the season. It's the only FAA-approved runway on ice in the lower 48 states. AOPA, the Airline Owners and Pilot's Association, loves this place. AOPA is the main organization for private pilots, the sort...
read morePut some ‘biofloc’ in a kiddie pool and become a shrimp farmer!
The Boston Globe has a nice piece about UNH research into backyard shrimp farming, as a possible addition to the local-food movement. The shrimp can be cultivated in any larger container or tank, or even a backyard kiddie pool, at a relatively low cost. .... The...
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Dartmouth is doubling down on quantum computing
These days, computers are old hat. If they want to be interesting, you need to think smaller – much smaller. As in subatomic, quantum-level small. “There are fundamentally different principles that quantum mechanics brings. There are types of quantum correlations that...
read moreRising sea levels are – surprise! – hurting New England coastal property values
A group called First Street Foundation with help from some Columbia University data scientists has crunched some numbers and says that increased erosion and tidal flooding caused by rising sea levels, caused in turn by climate change, have trimmed $15.2 million off...
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Let’s boldly go into the future – as in, the Atlantic Time Zone
Once again there are efforts in the legislature to get away from Daylight Saving Time by moving us into the Atlantic Time Zone and dumping the twice-a-year clock shift. A bill (HB567) would do it for New Hampshire as long as Massachusetts and Maine also do it....
read moreShould New Hampshire let an algorithm draw our political boundaries?
There's a bill before the state Legislature that would designate a "computer algorithm" to draw our political boundaries. It's similar to one introduce last year by the same legislator - I wrote about that effort one year ago. It went nowhere last year and probably...
read moreDartmouth will switch from oil-fired steam to wood-fired hot water for building heat
From Dartmouth News Service: Dartmouth is seeking proposals to build a biomass energy heating facility and transmission system to replace the existing central heating system. The new system, estimated to cost more than $200 million, will change how heat is produced...
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Calm down: There’s no real answer to ‘who got the most snow in this storm?’
I use a snowboard (not the Flying Tomato kind) and specialized meteorology ruler and frankly, it’s still pretty much an estimate.
read moreA two-sided solar panel is better than a one-sided one
They've rolled out a big solar canopy - solar panels over an outdoor parking lot - in Burlington, Vt., but what's interesting is that the 156 kW system has two-sided panels. (Here's an article describing that technology) From the press release: Encore Renewable Energy...
read moreWhich is safe enough: 1 ppm or 10 ppm? How do we know?
It sometimes seems that every chemical ever used in every product ever made turns out to be toxic, which we only realize after it has spread throughout the world and made people sick. Wouldn’t it be nice to know how toxic a chemical really is before we start using it?...
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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 New Hampshire Public Radio.
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.