Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
Chaos theory tries to make climate change a little less chaotic
Put your hand up, everybody whose college dorm room had a poster of a Mandelbrot set on the wall, preferably in vivid psychedelic colors. And how about those who remember your mind being blown by James Gleick’s book “Chaos”? Lots of you, I see. No surprise among...
Surprisingly, a record warm October may makes leaves appear later in spring
At this time of year we fixate on the effect of weather patterns, especially warmer autumns like the record-breaking October that we're having, on leaf-peeping. Now a fascinating study has looked at the effect of warmer autumns on when leaves appear in the spring....
An informed chat about climate change and precipitation, with only a little bit of lamentation
I moderated my first online Science Cafe NH in a long time last night. The online version of this long-running program has been handled by folks on the team that ran the Nashua portion of the program when we were still in three-dimensional space, and they've got the...
Remember, 603 is no longer optional as of Sunday (boooo!)
Just a reminder that Sunday is the day that we'll have to start dialing "603" in front of most local calls. If you haven't added it to numbers in your Contact list, you'll start getting annoying messages that the call can't go through. I wrote about the change and why...
Even without flood or drought or locust plagues, farming is hard
The abrupt decision by New Hampshire to stop certifying organic livestock farms will not have a big effect on the state’s agriculture, but it shows that maintaining food production is a complicated process. “It is both a funding problem and a labor problem,”...
Towns gear up for community power
The starting gun has been fired on the most interesting energy change New Hampshire has seen in decades and Warner, the Concord area’s lone participant, is heading out of the blocks. “We’re kind of at the beginning of it all,” said Select Board Chair Clyde Carson, the...
What is it with retired engineers and misinformation?
Vaccine craziness has taken a extra-crazy turn in New Hampshire lately thanks to a 79-year-old former commercial pilot who graduated from MIT and is now in a position of power in the state legislature, where he sent a 52-page report likening vaccines to “organized...
N.H. patents through Oct. 17
By Targeted News Service The following patents were assigned in New Hampshire from Oct. 10 to Oct. 17. *** Parallel Wireless Assigned Patent for Methods of Incorporating Ad Hoc Cellular Network into Fixed Cellular Network Parallel Wireless, Nashua, New Hampshire, has...
That boom was (probably) a meteor, but why do meteors boom?
That boom which rattled southern N.H. and surrounding areas late Sunday morning now seems very likely to have been a meteor exploding, probably just a few tens of miles up. You may have seen the above picture from the GOES-16 satellite Geostationary Lightning Mapper,...
Building body parts – can the state keep its lead?
Inventors who go on to build companies know that "first-mover advantage" can disappear in a heartbeat. Dean Kamen, who is best known nationally for the Segway fizzle but better known hereabouts for creating and lead DEKA, the R&D firm, and in the process...
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