Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
Restored ‘Metropolis’ with accompanying piano in the state’s best movie theater
A poster of the original German release of Fritz Lang's 'Metropolis' in 1927. I am slightly embarrassed that I have never seen "Metropolis", the 1927 silent film that is generally considered the grandfather of all science fiction movies. I'll fix that June 23 when it...
Landing a plane on Mt. Washington
The Concord Monitor has a weekly photo featured called NHsnapshot that has a picture from days gone by. Here is this week's caption: "A Piper Cub is the first airplane to land on the summit of Mount Washington on March 22, 1947. The aircraft sits on a snowfield atop...
A microgrid for UNH and environs, but details lacking
Eversource and officials with UNH and the town of Durham say they're planning a microgrid in that college town that bring all the benefits that such grids can bring, including resiliency, shaving of peak energy costs and cleaner power. Unlike a similar announcement...
Anti-vax folks will love this: N.H. measles case was a vaccine reaction
This is a breaking story as I am putting together the newsletter, and more details may emerge. This news is good for the patient who doesn't have measles, but it's unfortunate for those of us trying to prevent anti-vaccine foolishness from deluding the public. One of...
A ‘non-wires alternative’ to electric line upgrades
What is it with the little towns on the Connecticut River west of Keene? First Chesterfield sets up the state's first municipally-supported broadband network with Consolidated Communications, now its neighbor Westmoreland is the target of an unusual 'non-wires...
Sneaker-net lives!
I moderated my 60th - if I'm counting correctly - Science Cafe New Hampshire this week. It featured three UNH physics professors ( Francois Foucart, James Ryan, and David Mattingly) talking about black holes and other deep-space astrophysics stuff. Science fans came...
Small ‘nudges’ may undermine support for big (and necessary) change
An intriguing paper in Nature argues that the usual method of getting people into environmental activism by doing little things first (turn out that light! take a shorter shower!) is actually counter-productive for getting real change. Across six experiments,...
Animal + electric transformer = darkness
In the course of my career I have written several articles when an animal (squirrel, hawk, something else that I forget) gets into an electrical system and blows out power to thousands of people. Here's an example. Spring is prime animals-screw-up-power season, so...
Join a statewide makerspace flash mob
New Hampshire has had makerspaces for almost a decade, so the first one and by most measures the biggest wants to celebrate. MakeIt Labs in Nashua is holding its first regional festival next month. MakeIt Fest will have representatives from New Hampshire makerspaces...
No-till & other types of sustainable farming are catching on in N.H.
From UNH News Service: New Hampshire farmers are increasingly moving to more sustainable farming practices, with those adopting no-till, reduced-till, and cover crop practices dramatically increasing since 2012, according to the 2017 Census of Agriculture....
Return to the Concord Monitor