Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
Heat domes are confounding forecasters
Bloomberg Green has a story about heat domes, like the one that roasted us last week, and how their behavior is confounding weather forecasters. (The whole story is behind a paywall but you can read most of it if you subscribe to their Green Daily newsletter.)...
Backpacks on birds
OK, they're not really backpacks, they're solar-powered tags that let UNH researchers see where the salt marsh sparrows are going as part of preservation efforts. Sensors in the field spick up signals as the birds fly by. NHPR has the story here. The relationship...
Solar, batteries saved us many millions during the heat dome
Canary Media looked at New England's response to the recent heat dome and said, as I have, that 21st-century energy (solar, batteries) saved our bacon: As temperatures across New England soared above 100 degrees Fahrenheit in recent weeks, solar panels and batteries...
How to make a space suit (sewing machines are involved)
NOTE: Her talk is Thursday, July 9. Nancy-Lee Rodden was given an unexpected task after she got an accounting degree in college and started working. “One of my first jobs was to figure out how much it cost to build a space suit,” said Rodden, a native of Nashua. The...
NH patents through July 6
(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 July 6. Randomized SPI for Distributed IPsecPARALLEL WIRELESS, INC.,...
Changing climate means trees are keeping more nitrogen, depriving the soil
Warmer seasons and later onset of cold weather in the Northeast appears to be changing the chemical composition of leaves that fall from hardwood trees, reducing the amount of nitrogen available in the soil. Less soil nitrogen (actually, a different carbon-nitrogen...
The heat dome in the coolest summer of the rest of our lives
I was on vacation playing with a grandchild during last week’s heat dome, so I didn’t pay much attention to the details. Now I’m back at work and wondering: How bad was it? Bad, of course. The state’s official thermometer at Concord airport broke the daily heat record...
This is why you don’t mess with wild animals, even the cute friendly ones
A New Hampshire man has been hospitalized with symptoms consistent with rabies after being bitten by his pet raccoon, leading Fish and Game to remind people to stay away from wild animals because of the danger of the deadly disease. Rabies is almost always fatal in...
A wall-mounted printer becomes self-creating artwork
There’s something a bit odd about the framed drawing that hangs on the wall of Revelstoke Coffee: It keeps changing itself. “We were brainstorming and I thought, what if it is art that makes art?” said Richard Stoyle, who built the computer-controlled device that has...
First the bark, now the leaves: Beech trees are taking it hard
A few weeks ago a reader suggested I write about beech leaf disease, but I said it wasn’t that big a deal. Then I went for a walk in the woods and was astonished – but not in a good way. “Our beech has been dealing with bark disease for so long they’re already in...
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