Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
French fries – bad for you, good for Keene State heating
My first job in high school was at a fast-food joint that made fried chicken. As low man on the totem pole I had to clean out the grease trap, a container under the floor where used fats and oils collected during the course of the day. Almost five decades later, the...
Solar dominates Maine’s big renewables push
From Greentech Media (whole story is here): Solar will account for about 482 megawatts of the 546 megawatts of projects approved Tuesday by the Maine Public Utilities Commission. Maine now has about 90 megawatts of solar installed, putting it in the bottom ten states...
As cases keep rising, our COVID tracker adds another metric
With small clusters of COVID-19 popping up at schools and perhaps elsewhere, including the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, New Hampshire’s pandemic situation remains, shall we say, unsettled. But nothing worse than that – at least, not so far. The average number of new...
Some 20,000 N.H. households haven’t responded to the Census yet
With less than two weeks left in the official deadline to complete the 2020 Census, there has been no response from people in about 4.5% of households in New Hampshire – roughly 20,000 houses, apartments, short-term housing units, group facilities and condos. About...
Is that dust on your car smoke from Western wildfires?
A reader, Marsha Rich of Chichester, sent me some photos yesterday (Sept. 17) of grey dust on her car, wondering if it was from the Western wildfires. I said that while the dust had made the sky hazy and sunsets interesting, I hadn't heard of it descending to the...
N.H. patents through Sept. 20
By Targeted News Service The following patents were assigned in New Hampshire from Sept. 13 to Sept. 20. *** Allegro MicroSystems Assigned Patent for Spin Valve with Bias Alignment Allegro MicroSystems, Manchester, New Hampshire, has been assigned a patent (No....
Yes, it’s getting dark wicked fast
This is the time of year when I'm most surprised by darkness, either in the morning or evening, and there's a good reason for that: The first derivative of sunset/sunrise times is at its highest. The two equinoxes - this coming Monday is the autumn equinox - are the...
Electric Co-op still pursuing broadband
The state’s highest profile push for rural broadband is trying again, and this time the folks in charge are on board. New Hampshire Electric Cooperative, which serves 115 mostly rural towns including portions of Loudon, Canterbury, Franklin and points north, is...
A well is a hole that groundwater falls into (assuming you have groundwater left)
Whenever a drought hits, it occurs to me that the word “aquifer” fools a lot of people. Like, me. To me, the word sounds like “aqua full,” producing visions of underground lagoons into which we can drop a straw when necessary. Apparently I’m not alone in this...
NH scientists may probe the Northern Lights
Dartmouth News reports that Professor of Physics and Astronomy Kristina Lynch is on a NASA short-list for space environment missions with her plan to use shall "cube sats" to study the processes that contribute to auroras (northern and southern lights). Some of the...
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