Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
State’s biggest workplace charging site has 25 ports – is that a lot? I’m not sure
Merchant Fleet in Hooksett recently added 13 charging ports to its existing supply of 12, to meet employee demand for places to plug in their cars during the day. NHBR has a story about the unveiling here. I can't decide if we should be impressed or depressed about...
Could you grow radishes on the moon?
If you, like me, often despair of producing a garden in the mix of stones, sand and grit that New Hampshire optimistically calls “soil,” remember that it could be worse. You could be working with dirt from the moon. “It’s hard to grow in this material. It’s basically...
Big changes are coming to NH electricity (just don’t ask for long-term details)
The folks who run New England’s power grid think New Hampshire is going to see big changes in the creation and the use of electricity over the next decade, with a ton of new solar panels feeding a ton of new heat pumps and roughly 200,000 more electric vehicles. That...
Those anti-vax bills have been shelved (whew!)
The two anti-vaccine bills that I wrote about last month have been shelved and are dead this year, although they can always come back. After they passed the House due to GOP support, the Senate Health and Human Services committee is sending both to "interim study,"...
NH patents through May 12
(Links to each patent can be found here, using the patent number or inventor’s name.) By Targeted News Service WASHINGTON – The following federal patents were assigned in New Hampshire through May 12. *** System and Method for Generating a Drive Signal DEKA PRODUCTS...
As batteries and solar (finally) replace NH coal, offshore wind beckons
New Hampshire’s two coal-fired power plants in Bow and Portsmouth look similar to the passer-by with their aging industrial buildings, rail lines and smokestacks. But as both places prepare to transition from burning coal to hosting fleets of batteries and solar...
The murky world of town and city flags – yes, flags
When the Monitor ran a story recently that some residents in Boscawen were disagreeing about the design of a town flag, it produced this reaction among an awful lot of readers: “Wait – towns have flags?!? Who knew?” Not many people, it turns out, because the idea that...
When returning to the moon, politics and fear of war is (alas) part of the discussion
NASA’s return-to-the-moon program Artemis has 18 New Hampshire companies and institutions supplying products or services, from temperature sensors to gaskets to research projects, so it was no surprise that business was featured when astronaut Christina Koch...
As COVID counting ends in NH, CDC raises more concern about bird flu
The last public accounting of COVID spread in New Hampshire has ended: The N.H. Hospital Association is no longer posting weekly counts of COVID patients in hospitals. That was the last easily accessible count that gave us a sense of the disease in the state. I've...
Science Cafe May 15: Cybersecurity Demystified
Science Cafe NH in Nashua will hold its monthly discussion-in-a-bar about cybersecurity on Wednesday, May 15. "Join us as we bring together a panel of experts from the realms of high-tech and law enforcement to shed light on the intricate workings of online...