Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
Why does the US have a higher overdose death rate than other countries?
Study says it’s probably the way our health-care system is set up. The incentives exist to sell lots of pain pills, and we take them.
Giving up on new gas pipelines & hoping for carbon pricing
(Don't trust my reporting? You can look at the whole presentation on the ISO-New England web page here.) There’s an “elegant and simpler” way for New England’s power grid to deal with concerns about running out of fuel during a cold snap while meeting climate-change...
Feeding deer in winter causes more harm than good to them
Back in 2015, a dozen deer were found dead in South Hampton, NH, due to over-feeding during winter - an extreme case of how well-meaning attempts to help deer in winter can backfire. Northern Woodlands magazine - which is, by the way, a great magazine; you should...
Another thing that road salt might be doing: Leaching lead and arsenic into our water
We all know road salt is bad for plants and waterways, and that doesn’t even count what it’s doing to my car, but new research in New Hampshire based in part on citizen-science work says it’s worse than we realized, or at least more complicated. An analysis of water...
Dueling podcasts: The road salt edition
Do you want to hear me talk about my column this week, which concerns new research correlating road salt usage with toxic metals moving out of the soil into our water, with a side order of "hooray for citizen science"? Sure you do! Well, you have a choice! You can...
New Hampshire’s building codes are a decade behind
Every three years international national (see comment) bodies update suggested building codes to incorporate new technologies, new techniques and processes. States then have the option of adopting those codes, which would have to be followed by towns and cities. New...
Phone spoofing is bad, chapter MXVIII
Another day, another scam over the phone that pretends to come from a legitimate company – but this one is particularly bad because it’s not just trying to steal money, but to get access into your house. That’s the word from the Sanbornton Police Department. They...
Our ballot-reading machines are so old, they run on WinXP
Any salesman knows that jokes have to be pitched to the audience, which explains why James Rundlett was confident Friday in the Legislative Office Building using a comment that would have bombed almost anywhere else. “It’s not like it’s a DOS memory card,” said...
Fear of ice dam flooding leads USGS to set up ‘rapid deployment’ river gauge
(This is a press release from US Geological survey about an ice dam on the small but lovely Piscataquog River. I commute past this ice dam every day - it really is something. And no, I don't know why USGS spells it "gauge" with a U as one word but "streamgage" without...
Lots of vaccinations, no measles. Coincidence? (Hint: No)
As parts of the U.S. and many countries around the world deal with measles outbreaks in communities that are shunning vaccines, New Hampshire continues to be free of the disease, a reflection of the state’s high rate of school immunization. New Hampshire hasn’t seen a...
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