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...

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...

This year is proving to be a good one in New Hampshire, if a slightly puzzling one, for the most iconic of all butterfly species – and sorry, Karner blue, but we mean the monarch butterfly. “It’s been a fantastic year for monarchs. People keep bringing containers of...

Portland, Maine, and Manchester, N.H., don't have as much of a rivalry as they should. Both are the biggest cities in their similarly-sized state (both are "queen cities", the term for a state's biggest city that isn't the capital), and they're just close enough but...

The concept of mathematical beauty fascinates me - and lots of other people, as the long wikipedia article demonstrates - because it's such a mix of opposites, the very quantifiable with the very non-quantifiable. There's no question that some math work produces a...

I think I'm going to have a Science Cafe NH later this year on the topic of building materials and carbon sequestration. I suspect most of it will cover modern lumber technology like cross-laminated timber, since we have so many trees, but I'd like to find a panelist...

Students at the Manchester School of Technology are building an actual airplane, but they need volunteer mentors to help students build the airplane, a two-seat RV-12iS light sport aircraft.  "Our student plane-build project has received solid financial support, but...