Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
Deer flies are a plague this year (actually, every year)
Biting deer flies have been a real pest - worse than usual - at my house this year. And since I'm a reporter, I get to whine about it in print! My story from the Monitor is here. It includes an entomologist's comment that they don't seem any worse than usual this...
Not just a squirt gun – a crank-operated squirt gun!
Every week I link to the Monitor's list of patents issued to New Hampshire firms and people and to be honest, most of them are pretty boring. Then there's Patent 10,344,760, by Dean Kamen (yes, him) and a Brookline man, assigned to Kamen's firm DEKA in Manchester....
Hydropower without hurting fish runs
A Maine company called Ocean renewable Power Co. says its in-river turbines, which look sort of like egg beaters with the axis perpendicular to the river flow, can produce hydropower without requiring dams or interfering with fish runs. The system will get a test in a...
Outrage! FOOBAR can’t be used on a vanity plate
Computer geeks need to picket their local DMV office: The state has ruled that FOOBAR cannot be a vanity license plate. Presumably they confused it with FUBAR, meaning "effed-up beyond all recognition" - whereas FOOBAR is, of course, placeholder terminology long...
Private space flight will/won’t be important for space science
I've always wondered how much of the crowd that shows up for Science Cafe NH events is there for the food and beer. Last night we had a natural experiment: I moderated a special SCNH in the Discovery Center, without edibles or drinkables, and filled the hall with more...
The circle of life, squirrelpocalypse edition
Last year the squirrels and chipmunks ran rampage all over New Hampshire, as you'll recall. They ate everything in our garden and berry bushes before we could stop them - it was the first time in 20 years we picked no raspberries. This year? We're entering the...
Predictions for our future weather keep getting worse
It has been more than 15 years since I wrote my first "N.H. weather will be like the South, at the rate we're going" article. It was based on work from Cameron Wake at UNH, and had a map showing the outline of North Carolina moving north. At the time it seemed a bit...
It’s hard to know how much water is in a snowfield
If you've ever shoveled snow, you realize how hard it is to know just by looking how much water it contains (i.e., how much each shovelful will hurt your back). A foot of snow lying in my yard, where I've measured it for years, sometimes melts down to less than an...
N.H. is 2nd state to drop allowable arsenic levels in drinking water
UPDATE: My Monitor column has more detail: You can read it here. From Dartmouth News Service: Research from the Toxic Metals Superfund Research Program at Dartmouth College formed the backbone of technical information used by the state of New Hampshire in its recent...
It’s true: Everybody speeds (within rounding error)
91.7% - that's how many drivers went over the 30 mph speed limit on a section of road in Dunbarton in one week in June, according to data collected by one of those flashing speed-limit signs. That's the most fun part of my story today (read it here) about these signs....
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