Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
Solar boat-cleaning unit battles invasive weeds
One of the main ways that freshwater invasive plants move from pond to pond and lake to lake is through boats - you do some boating Gorham Pond in Dunbarton in Concord and then move to Lake Sunapee, not realizing that you picked up some milfoil on your craft or boat...
Why does N.H. forbid raw milk ice cream but not raw milk yogurt?
Raw milk is a touchy subject. Some people who think that pasteurization - heating it to a certain degree for a certain period of time to kill off the pathogens that just love to grow in milk - is sometimes unnecessary, ruins the flavor and has some effects on milk's...
‘Patent troll’ isn’t defamatory because nobody knows exactly what it means
There's been a long legal fight in New Hampshire between banks and an inventor who says he has patents covering ATM machines. The bankers say he's a patent troll; he got mad and sued and it made it to the state Supreme Court. Their ruling? "Patent troll" might be...
An almost-entirely online law degree – in I.P. law, of course
The UNH law school in Concord has launched its first virtually-all-online degree (a small part of the 3 1/2 years will be on campus), which required a waiver from American Bar Association rules that frown on "distance learning." It's also an unusual law degree that...
More water or more growth? Trees change their mind as CO2 grows
From UNH News Service: Research from the University of New Hampshire finds that the increase in carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted into the atmosphere by human activity and fossil fuels is altering the way forests grow and use water. Scientists found that trees in the...
Law school goes online (finally!) for IP
The UNH law school in Concord - now renamed UNH Franklin Pierce School of Law, which was sort of its name for three decades before UNH took it over in 2010 - on Wednesday started its first class of a new online degree in Intellectual Property law. I wrote about the...
When a new planet swims into your ken
Remember when finding a planet outside the solar system was an incredible, amazing discovery? Now they seem to be all over the place - but finding one is still cool. Dartmouth Prof. Elisabeth Newton was part of a team that found one with the weird name "DS Tuc Ab", as...
Start with 3D printing, end with the existence of the soul
My weekly conversation with Chris Ryan on WKXL radio wandered a bit far afield this time: https://soundcloud.com/wkxl/nh-now-david-brooks-8-14-19
UNH has a role in the latest finding-Amelia-Earhart saga
Figuring out what happened to aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart, who disappeared into the Pacific Ocean on an around-the-world trip in 1937, has tantalized people for my entire life. I don't know how many "X has figured out what happened to Amelia Earhart" stories I've...
Why you shouldn’t be convinced by all those mountain lion ‘sightings’
Eric Orff was a wildlife biologist with New Hampshire Fish and Game for 31 years, most of it as "furbearer biologist", and he was an early user of the World Wide Web to disseminate information to the rest of us. He has retired now but he maintains his online presence,...
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