Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
Pretend jet, pretend victims, real training
How do you train for a major airplane accident without actually having a major airplane accident? Put two school buses end to end, cover them with tarps and crank up a smoke machine, fill them with nursing students acting out various injuries (including some makeup...
Weirdest house in N.H. is on the market
You probably know about the Frank Lloyd Wright house in Manchester, but there's a second one made of concrete blocks. It is a "Usonian Automatic," a very rare example of a failed attempt by Wright to create cheap but good-looking homes on a sort of Lego-like model...
‘Think globally, act locally’ isn’t merely insufficient – it’s often counter-productive
My column in the Monitor today is the latest round of self-examination in which I face the unpleasant fact that a central tenant of my environmental attitude - "think globally, act locally" - has not only proven insufficient to tackle global problems like climate...
What goes on a highway sign? And what doesn’t?
I sometimes wonder when driving on the interstate - assuming I'm not zoning out in commuter-mode - who decides what gets put on which signs highway signs. Why does this one mention Milford and that one doesn't? Why is this thing mentioned on a brown sign but that...
N.H. record for Pac-Man may end up in court
In 1999 at the iconic New Hampshire gaming arcade known as Funspot, a guy named Billy Mitchell achieved the first-ever perfect score on an arcade version of Pac-Man - 3,333,270 points over about six hours. Since then, his claim and other of his arcade records have...
“Climate Science: Required by New Hampshire Law”
I first used the words "climate change" in a story in the late 1990s and it has been a regular part of my reporting since. How could it not? It's a great story, and journalists love great stories. And it has only become a better* story over time, as the effects have...
Trying to bring quinoa to N.H.
Researchers with the New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station at the University of New Hampshire have discovered a native relative of quinoa with high disease resistance that may be an ideal breeding partner to re-domesticate the grain in Northern New England. A...
Rainbows are cool; even the sky around them is cool
Rainbows are really weird, when you stop and think about it. To a certain extent they don't even exist - any given rainbow is a mass optical illusion rather than an actual thing. But they are fascinating. Even the sky around them is fascinating: Lighter on the inside,...
Watch the Ig Nobel Prizes here on Thursday
The Ig Nobel Prizes are, as you probably know, one of the cultural highlights of Western Civilization. Held at Harvard University in the stately, majestic, awesome (choose your adjective) Sanders Theater, the ceremony mixes the goofy and the intellectual in a spoof of...
AirBNB is popular in the White Mountains
I am of two minds about AirBNB. Like many of these so-called "sharing economy" startups it is great for customers - travelers, in this case - but can have drawbacks for the communities and workers who make it possible. In tourist-heavy areas, AirBNB can drive out...
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