Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
NH court settles Airbnb rules, but only a little bit
Last week the New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled in favor of Portsmouth's denial of an Airbnb permit. A couple wanted to rent out the house next to them, but the city said zoning wouldn't allow it. Here's my story in the Monitor. The ruling is the latest in the long...
Coal-fired power plant almost never runs (not because of climate)
I visited Merrimack Station this week, in advance of Saturday protests against the biggest coal-fired power plant in the region (and soon in New England). The big takeaway is that that the plant hardly ever runs - roughly the equivalent of 23 days in all of 2018 - but...
Computer math proofs – once scorned, now necessary?
Probably the most famous mathematical work with a New Hampshire connection is the proof of the four-color theorem, done by Wolfgang Haken and Ken Appel in 1976. (Appel later moved to New Hampshire and became head of the mathematics department at UNH, so the Granite...
Making a ‘climate-ready’ culvert
Regular readers (hi, mom!) know that I love culverts, those thousands of pipes/mini-bridges under that carry streams under New Hampshire roadways. They are the perfect symbol and example of the reality of dealing with climate change, which is why this blog has seen...
Why build a bridge when you can slide a new one into place?
For the time in New Hampshire, this weekend will see a new roadway bridge slid into place over a waterway instead of being constructed there part of ongoing upgrades to Route 16 in Ossipee. “It’s our first time,” said Eileen Meaney, chief communications officer...
When it comes to science cafes, we’re No. 1!
I have long maintained that on a per-capita basis, New Hampshire is the science cafe champion in the U.S. That's thanks in large part to the example set by Science Cafe New Hampshire, which started nine years ago and is still going strong, in both Nashua and Concord....
Big batteries are starting to make a real change in the energy world
Between Eversource's plan to use battery backup on an entire town instead of building a new transmission line, and Sunrun's 20 MW solar-and-battery system that won a bid in the New England capacity market, large-scale battery backup is starting to be a real thing...
‘Sharenthood’ is a goofy term for a serious issue: Digital privacy
A Concord resident and UNH law school professor has written a book called "Sharenthood" that I assumed would mostly be a screed telling parents not to put so much stuff on Facebook about their kids. It covers that, but a lot more, as I mention in my story in the...
Fungal disease found in porcupines, adding to list of species hit by fungus outbreaks
From UNH News Service: A debilitating, often fatal fungal disease has been discovered in wild North American porcupines in Maine, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, according to the New Hampshire Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire. UNH...
Dartmouth gets locked in Arctic ice as UNH tackles Arctic methane
One of the most worrisome feedback mechanism in global warming is the release of methane - a very potent, if relatively short-lived, greenhouse gas - that's trapped in arctic permafrost. As the poles warm the methane is released, leading to more warming, etc. A team...
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