Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
U.S. population growth was lowest in 100 years, and that was before COVID-19
The U.S. population growth rate last year was the lowest in 100 years. From 2010 to 2019, rural America lost population for the first time in history, and COVID-19 is likely to further exacerbate this trend, according to a researcher with the NH Agricultural...
Got a little confused signing up for a vaccine? Me, too
As a guy with “geek” in the name of his newspaper column I’m supposed to be techy-savvy, so it’s embarrassing to admit how confused I got when signing up for a COVID-19 vaccine this week. Perhaps my experience will help those who sign up down the road. The big problem...
Dartmouth engineering professor wins an Emmy (wait – an Emmy?!?!)
Eric Fossum, Dartmouth's John H. Krehbiel Sr. Professor for Emerging Technologies, is one of a few recipients of the 72nd Annual Technology and Engineering Emmy Awards. The honor, a first for Dartmouth engineering faculty, comes from the National Academy of Television...
Predicting COVID from viruses in our wastewater is a lot trickier than I thought
Twice a week a courier picks up a bucket of pretty unsavory stuff from the Concord wastewater plant and drives it a half-hour west to the huge Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center complex in Lebanon, where it joins what is basically a big wet-lab experiment. The goal of...
N.H. patents through Jan. 24
By Targeted News Service The following patents were assigned in New Hampshire from Jan. 17 to Jan. 24. *** Nonvologic Assigned Patent for Chemical Detection Mixture with Integrated Circuit Microsensor Elements Nonvologic, Meredith, New Hampshire, has been assigned a...
At current vaccination rates, ‘herd immunity’ is more than a year away
Since it started last summer the Monitor’s weekly COVID tracker has sometimes had to present depressing data. Here’s the latest: At our current rate of vaccination, New Hampshire won’t get close to “herd immunity” until November of 2022. That’s right: Not 2021, but...
I am starting to have doubts about space travel, even as Science Cafe ponders it
f there’s any single thing that marks somebody as a geek in the original sense, it’s space travel. Computers were once the sign of true geekdom but now everybody is into computers at some level. Excitement about getting beyond Earth’s gravity is now the defining geek...
Speaking of invasive plants, it’s not easy to uproot them along a river
A stretch of tangled, mostly invasive plants that has taken over the Merrimack River riverbank by Fort Eddy Plaza in Concord will be mowed down this winter as the first step of possible eradication, and with any luck, the owners of nearby land will join in. “I’m...
Fiber-to-the-home is making it to more of New Hampshire (UPDATED)
Bristol, a 3,000-person town halfway between the Lakes Region and Hanover, is connecting many of its homes to a fiber network, using money from the pandemic's CARES Act - the Union-Leader has a story here. I wrote about its early stirrings in 2018. I've been writing...
Wikipedia turns 20 (citation needed)
This post ran in 2016 when Wikipedia turned 15. Now that Wikipedia has turned 20, I figured I would run it again. This column concerns a number – 15, the number of years that Wikipedia will have existed when its birthday arrives Friday – but first let’s consider a...
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