Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
Vermont being Vermont: Mandatory composting & plastic bag ban
As of July 1, plastic bags are mostly illegal in Vermont and people cannot throw food scraps in the garbage. These two laws, in the works for a while, were almost sidelined by COVID-19 but, as VTDigger reports (here), they have stayed in effect. Vermont has slowly...
And (honk, honk!) we’re back ($#&*@!! traffic)
Traffic counts at E-ZPass stations on New Hampshire highways are back to the level they were at before the stay-at-home order arrived March 28. So one of the few benefits of the pandemic has faded away. Car traffic is actually slightly behind the long-term average -...
Delightfully named lumpfish might boost caged salmon production
From UNH News Service: Sea lice hurt Atlantic salmon, steelhead trout and other salmonids, and researchers with the New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station at the University of New Hampshire believe using lumpfish as cleanerfish—fish that eat parasites off other...
COVID goals met – now what? We stay the course, that’s what!
(UPDATE: This ran Monday and I write this on Thursday. Numbers have continued to be good: No new hospitalizations for three days has driven the 14-day average to a record low and new cases are below 30 a day. We're still seeing some deaths in nursing homes, however.)...
Clever idea: Donate solar credits to struggling businesses
Those clever folks at Green Mountain Power created an app so that people with rooftop solar (there are a lot of them in Vermont) can donate solar credits to local businesses struggling because of the pandemic. Here's a Rutland Herald story about it.
N.H. patents through June 28
By Targeted News Service The following patents were assigned in New Hampshire from June 21 to June 28. *** Pica Product Development Assigned Patent for Cellular Automated External Defibrillator Tracker Pica Product Development, Derry, New Hampshire, has been assigned...
N.H. Electric Co-op to pursue broadband
Last week members of New Hampshire Electric Cooperative came very close to changing the structure of the group so that it would provide high-speed internet over fiber-optic cables as well as electricity over copper wires. This week the NHEC Board of Directors voted...
Atlantic salmon numbers keep dropping
Salmon and other anadromous species (part of their life cycle is in fresh water, part is in salt water) are getting hammered from two directions, with dams and pollution and competition from bass and other problems making it hard to hatch in rivers, and warming,...
Fast and furiously deadly
A higher percentage of traffic fatalities in New Hampshire involved speeding than was the case in any other state in recent years and the state’s death rate from speeding-related accidents was 50% higher than the national average, according to a new report. The...
Above treeline in the Whites, life isn’t easy
I haven’t been warm-weather hiking in the White Mountains this year because first they were closed and then they were overwhelmed by (ooh, yuck) Massachusetts people, but I’ve been above treeline enough to know that it’s a whole different world. That’s the appeal, of...
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