Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
George Squashington Pale Ale!
From UNH News Service: University of New Hampshire brewing science students have taken a trip back in history to brew a butternut squash pale ale using squash grown as part of the NH Agricultural Experiment Station’s cucurbit (a.k.a. gourd) breeding program. The brew,...
They celebrated video game pioneer Ralph Baer in Manchester
Last weekend Manchester celebrated Ralph Baer, a local boy led the team that created the first home video game, Magnavox Odyssey, while working for Sanders Associates (now BAE) in Nashua. Part of the celebration was playing a giant ping-pong game in honor of his first...
We’re not done with coal yet
Dave Solomon at the Union-Leader talked to the new owners of New Hampshire's two coal-fired power plants (or three, depending on how you count the twin Schiller plants in Portsmouth) and says they're going to keep running because they make enough money running at peak...
Forget it; we’ll never change time zones (will we?)
From Ethan DeWitt, the Monitor's State House reporter: The revolt has been a quiet one. For years, advocates in a small circle of New England states have entertained a radical idea: throwing off the tyrannical yoke of Eastern Standard Time and choosing a different...
The bugs aren’t disappearing – but they’re not doing very well, either
(Are your ears bored? You can listen to me talk about this column with Features Editor Sarah Pearson by clicking right here.) You may have heard that we are facing an insect apocalypse, a portent of the collapse of the global food chain and resulting planetary chaos....
Do all heat pumps really work in an N.H. winter? (updated)
UPDATE: I stupidly didn't notice, until a commenter pointed it out, that this article talks only about air-to-water heat pumps, which do the harder job of heating up water to be used in home heating, rather than the more common air-to-air system. These conclusions...
Science Cafe NH has a forensics/genetics two-fer this month
By coincidence - we're not that good at planning - the two Science Cafe New Hampshire sessions this month have topic overlaps. On Wednesday, March 13, in Nashua they're talking about the science of forensics. Panelists Tim Pilleri & Lance Reenstierna, Hosts of...
How to make a candle that looks positively edible
Researchers with Alene Candles, a firm based in Milford, N.H., that is a major contract candle manufacturer, were recently assigned a patent for inventing a new way to make "marbled" candles with swirls of color. Here's how the company described it: Previously, this...
Finding ways to measure ice storms at Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest
Ice storms are everybody’s least favorite type of winter weather. Unless you’re a certain kind of scientist, that is; then they’re fascinating in a scary sort of way. “When you first start doing the icing, with the sprayer slowly going back and forth, coating dowels...
Time to panic: It’s only five years until New Hampshire’s total solar eclipse!!!
I know what I’m doing 1,869 days from now. Do you? I’ll be watching the full solar eclipse in Littleton or thereabouts. If you want to be there, too, don’t wait too long to do your planning. “By the time you’re down to a year, or a few months, it’s too late –...
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