Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
Flu and COVID-19 have a complicated relationship
This is my "COVID tracker" column in the Monitor for Feb. 21: This column tracks COVID-19 in New Hampshire, but today we’ll look at a related issue: tracking influenza. The annual scourge of the flu, which kills tens of thousands around the globe yearly, almost...
A ton of offshore wind coming here by 2025 or not much, depending on perspective
Eversource Energy, the biggest electric utility in the Northeast, expects 1,760 MW of offshore wind capacity in service off New York and New England by the end of 2025. (Article is here.) That's almost one and a half nuclear power plants worth of capacity (although...
“Biodegradable” is like “recyclable” – a label that too often doesn’t mean anything
The environmental benefits of Concord’s pay-as-you-throw program, which charges home owners for curbside trash collection but not recycling collection, are obvious. The city says the volume of trash it sends to a landfill or incinerator has fallen by over 40% since...
N.H. patents through Feb. 20
By Targeted News Service WASHINGTON, Jan. 23 – The following federal patents were assigned in New Hampshire from Feb. 13 to Feb. 20. *** Parallel Wireless Assigned Patent for VoIP, Native Carrier Call Integration Parallel Wireless, Nashua, New Hampshire, has been...
N.H. tech firms need more immigrants
"One reason New Hampshire has so much trouble finding high-tech worker workers is that the state doesn’t have enough immigrants." That's the start of a Bob Sanders article in NH Business Review (read it here) that states what most people in tech know: Immigrants make...
N.H. to offshore wind: Plug in here!
It doesn't seem like New Hampshire has a lot to bring to the table for the coming boom in Gulf of Maine offshore wind. We haven't been doing much basic R&D like Maine, we don't have much in the way of industrial seaport facilities like Massachusetts, our coastline...
Hub-and-spoke satellites will study space turbulence
We’ve all gotten familiar with the idea of a hub-and-spoke system for everything from airline flights (you have to visit Newark before you can visit L.A.) to home computer networks (except for the printer, which can never seen to get connected). But I wasn’t expecting...
N.H. patents through Feb. 13
By Targeted News Service WASHINGTON, Jan. 23 – The following federal patents were assigned in New Hampshire from Feb. 6 to Feb. 13. NB Research Assigned Patent for System, Method for Securing Resource NB Research, Bedford, New Hampshire, has been assigned a patent...
Wastewater monitoring of virus is growing but random sampling would be better
A month ago this column talked about the possibility of using wastewater monitoring to keep an eye on COVID-19 when – we move into endemic status. The Centers for Disease Control has now taken a step in that direction. Last week it released a web dashboard...
NASA chooses UNH satellite swarm to study solar wind turbulence
From SpaceNews: NASA has selected a University of New Hampshire cluster of smallsats to monitor turbulence in the solar wind, as well as a second project to study the sun’s corona, as its next Explorer-class heliophysics missions. Here is the NASA announcement. NASA...
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