Drowning in plastic waste? Techno-Fix to the rescue! (not)
None of us, it’s safe to say, is immune to the appeal of the quick Techno-Fix even though they have let us down time and again. This includes our lawmakers, who have just doubled down and decided that a new Techno-Fix can solve the problems of an old Techno-Fix. You...N.H. lawmakers like nuclear power
The onslaught of the climate emergency has made nuclear power a lot more attractive to make people because it can be a big source of carbon-free power. The downsides are still there – especially waste disposal, very high cost and long construction times, fear of...Efforts to return the chestnut to our forests continues a slow (oh, so slow!) advance
Resurrecting a tree species is not for the impatient. It’s been more than two decades since I first encountered efforts in New Hampshire to bring back the American chestnut, a magnificent tree that filled Appalachian forests until a blight wiped it out in the early...If we create a blight-resistant chestnut tree, can birds spread it for us?
Elsewhere on this week’s blog/newsletter you’ll see my latest piece about efforts to create a blight-resistant chestnut tree. After I field it, I encountered this fascinating bit of research looking at how and whether birds, carrying chestnuts, could...
Love J.R.R. Tolkien? You can now get a graduate degree in his work
Signum University is an online university based in Nashua that emphasizes the study of fantasy and science fiction such as “Lord of the Rings” and various Medieval works, as well as some old European languages and philology, the study of how language...
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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 WGIR-AM 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.