Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
N.H. is growing slowly, but that doesn’t mean the population is stagnant
New Hampshire's population has been growing slowly, or not at all, for the past decade or so. But Ken Johnson, the state's demography guru, says that is slightly misleading. Here's an email he sent me about his latest research: Of all the things about NH demographic...
Museum bought that weird Manchester house
The Currier Museum in Manchester bought the Usonian Automatic house in that city, a rare example of the failed attempt by Frank Lloyd Wright to create cheap but good-looking homes that could be built by the homeowners. The two-bedroom, 1,400-sq.-ft home is made of a...
The ranked-choice ballots are pouring in
(Addendum: Science Cafe NH in Concord for January will talk about alternative voting. We discussed it just a year but it looks like there's still a ton of interest in the topic. Science Cafe takes December off.) My little ranked-choice-voting experiment with the...
What makes a forest-destroying bug? The trees
For each major tree-killing species of invasive bug, around half a dozen foreign insects live quietly in our forests, causing few noticeable problems. A new study may help scientists pick out the future tree killers from the crowd, and it has a surprising conclusion:...
Climate change is even altering the vegetation at the bottom of the Gulf of Maine
From this in the 1990s... ... to this today. (Photo by Jennifer Dijkstra/UNH - 1990s photo by Larry Harris/UNH) From UNH News Service: The effects of climate change are becoming more apparent, from the rapidly warming Gulf of Maine, to more frequent and severe storms...
Grasslands beat forests in taking advantage of warming winters
From UNH News Service: As the climate changes, Northeast winters are warming more rapidly than other times of the year. While this may mean favorable growing conditions start earlier in the year, some ecosystems, such as perennial grasslands, can take better advantage...
Ranked-choice voting for the Democratic primary – now available in the Monitor!
If there was ever an election where ranked-choice voting would be useful, the upcoming Democratic Presidential Primary is that election. A slew of candidates! No obvious front-runner! A range of policies and personalities to choose from! It’s a textbook example of a...
Why are stone wall patterns different around the state? (Or are they?)
The citizen-science online program New Hampshire Stone Wall Mapper has generated a lot of interest since it launched in January. (Here's my story about it back then.) More than 146,000 walls, some 11,200 miles worth, have been found via LIDAR maps of New Hampshire...
Trumpeter swan seen in N.H. for first time in centuries
There are so many ecological disasters these days that it's nice to hear about an improvement, like the resurrection of the Trumpeter Swan, one of which returned to New Hampshire during migration this year for the first time in perhaps 200 years. By 1900, the...
By forcing our trash calamity, ‘the Chinese did us a favor’
There are a lot of surprises in a new state report about solid waste, including the fact that other states are shipping tens of thousands of tons of trash to our landfills because it’s cheaper here, but perhaps the most surprising thing is that it really shouldn’t...
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