Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
How much solar power is out there?
I wish solar installations were so common that we could move past of tallying how much solar power each state has installed as a sort of virtuous race but we're not. Still, it has progressed: I can remember tallying it town by town, because it was so rare. As is...
Alternative voting methods try again in New Hampshire
Harvard law professor Larry Lessig has been in New Hampshire often enough for political advocacy that he knows what will get lawmakers’ attention here, and he got right to the point Tuesday: He thinks our presidential primary is in danger. Lessig was testifying in...
A new idea to slow Lyme disease: Vaccinate mice that carry the ticks
There's no good way to reduce the number of black-legged ticks (the sort that spread Lyme and other diseases), despite fans of tick-loving animals like possums and guinea hens, or even robotic tick-snagging robots. The best bet is to target the mammals that carry them...
A possible future of online higher ed, with a heavy dose of Tolkien and Beowulf
There is a certain subset of people who, if they were to design a college degree, would include courses like “J.R.R. Tolkien’s Poetry,” “Literature, Film and Technoculture,” and “The Cosmic Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft.” Since that subset overlaps strongly with Granite...
More proposed NH laws of interest
New Hampshire is awash in proposed legislation at this time of year when our enormous legislature (third largest government body in the English-speaking world is the usual description) puts forward all its ideas for future laws. Most will go nowhere, but you never can...
And now, my obligatory football item
The New England Patriots are the local football team - football as in "using a ball that's pointy on both ends" not "using a ball covered with pentagons and hexagons" - and they're going to the championship game for the umpteenth time in the past umpteen-plus-a-few...
Tesla X fire after a crash produced New Hampshire’s first electric-car fatality
This story just missed the newsletter deadline, so I'm sending it out separately: The death of a woman who was burned when the Tesla Model X in which she was riding hit a tree is the first fatal accident involving an electric car in New Hampshire, raising the issue of...
Dartmouth is doubling down on quantum computing
These days, computers are old hat. If they want to be interesting, you need to think smaller – much smaller. As in subatomic, quantum-level small. “There are fundamentally different principles that quantum mechanics brings. There are types of quantum correlations that...
Rising sea levels are – surprise! – hurting New England coastal property values
A group called First Street Foundation with help from some Columbia University data scientists has crunched some numbers and says that increased erosion and tidal flooding caused by rising sea levels, caused in turn by climate change, have trimmed $15.2 million off...
The coolest runway in the Lower 48 (both literally and figuratively) opens
The ice runway on Lake Winnipesaukee's Alton Bay has opened for the season. It's the only FAA-approved runway on ice in the lower 48 states. AOPA, the Airline Aircraft Owners and Pilot's Association, loves this place. AOPA is the main organization for private pilots,...
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