Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
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...
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...
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