Lots of vaccinations, no measles. Coincidence? (Hint: No)
As parts of the U.S. and many countries around the world deal with measles outbreaks in communities that are shunning vaccines, New Hampshire continues to be free of the disease, a reflection of the state’s high rate of school immunization. New Hampshire hasn’t seen a...Bill to require home sellers to destroy old wood stoves goes up in smoke
New Hampshire has been trying for years to make people get rid of old wood stoves that contribute a disproportionate amount to air pollution, but a bill that would have forced the issue, requiring pre-1986 stoves to be destroyed when the house is sold, seems to have...Ranked-choice voting shelved in NH, for now
A proposal to let New Hampshire adopt ranked-choice voting for the next presidential primary has been shelved for the time being. The Election Law Committee of the state House of Representatives unanimously retained the bill, HB 782, on Wednesday. This means it can be...A reminder: The Atlantic salmon isn’t completely gone from the U.S. yet
We’ve given up trying to bring the Atlantic salmon back to New Hampshire – decades-long programs on the Connecticut and Merrimack rivers were abandoned a few years ago because they weren’t accomplishing diddly-squat – but they’re still...How do you put a dollar value on forest (except for the value of cutting it down)?
The first-ever inventory of community-owned forests in New Hampshire that was released last week included an interesting number: $146 million. This was the “economic value” researchers put on the 180,439 acres divided up among 1,691 parcels, each 10 acres or larger,...
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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.