Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
Are leaves changing early? Answer: 0.6
(This column ran in September 2020; time to recycle it!) It’s that time of year again, when everybody says, “The leaves are changing earlier than usual!” This year the supposed culprit behind early leaf-peeping is the drought, which continues to be very serious...
NFTs are a hot (if weird) investment, so why couldn’t New Hampshire sell them?
How much are online bragging rights to “Live Free or Die” worth? A billion dollars? Matthew St. Onge thinks that’s as good a guess as any, and he’d like New Hampshire to have a piece of it. Plus he wouldn’t mind a little bit for himself. The Concord resident has...
Forget Segway or standing wheelchairs: Kamen’s DEKA is working on a sentry robot
The Union-Leader points out that DEKA, the research-and-development firm headed by Dean Kamen in Manchester's Millyard, is working on an autonomous "sentry bot". They took it for a carefully controlled outing at a fund-raising footrace. "They were seeing what kind of...
Making bio-pesticides is hard because biology is messier than chemistry
There's a reason that so many synthetic chemicals are used in agriculture: They work really well. Biological alternatives are often harder to use or less effective for a variety of reasons, which also explain why they often have fewer side effects and are desirable....
N.H. patents through Oct. 3
By Targeted News Service The following patents were assigned in New Hampshire from Sept. 26 to Oct. 3. *** SET North America Assigned Patent for 3D Packaging with Low-Force Thermocompression Bonding of Oxidizable Materials SET North America, Chester, New Hampshire,...
Dartmouth joins the hunt for world’s oldest ice
From Dartmouth News Service: Dartmouth Engineering has been named a collaborator on a new National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded effort to locate Antarctica's oldest ice and learn more about how the Earth's climate has changed throughout history. The Center for...
Farmers try to improve, rather than worsen, the climate crisis
Excellent piece in the Valley News this weekend about some farmers trying to figure out how to make agriculture part of climate improvement instead of climate degradation: Farmers are envisioning ways to harmonize the production of food and the sequestration of...
N.H. month-long BioBlitz winds up
The month-long BioBlitz project (which I previewed here) has wound up with people taking pictures of almost 7,000 plants and animals in more than 100 communities as they explored local town-owned lands. NHPR has a quick recap.
Estimate: When it comes to CO2, Manchester airport takeoffs = 1/9 of all the cars in the state
A new online tool called Airport Tracker, a joint project by the non-profits International Council on Clean Transportation, ODI, and Transport and Environment, says annual takeoffs at Manchester-Boston Regional Airport produce as much CO2 as the annual pollution of...
It’s our biggest rooftop solar array! That’s not saying much in N.H.
The largest rooftop solar array in New Hampshire was unveiled on Wednesday and is going to make a big impact on the state. But not for the right reason. “Just to put it in perspective … these 3,400 panels will add an entire 1% to New Hampshire's total fleet of...
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