Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
The complexity of forest-land carbon credits and timber harvesting
NH Business Review has a long article looking at the debate in the state over the effect of carbon credits on the timber industry. You can read it here. Carbon harbored in standing trees has become a virtual commodity in the form of credits traded on global markets...
Researchers gather health information from – wait, a Reddit forum?
Some Dartmouth researchers are using "natural language processing—artificial intelligence techniques focused on human linguistics—to extract meaningful information from health-related social media interactions" and are trying it out on "posts from a Reddit forum where...
Some good news, some bad news for Manchester airport (updated)
Manchester is too close to Boston. That, in a nutshell, is why Manchester-Boston Regional Airport has struggled for the past decade and a half. The latest blow: Just three days after a new airline said it would be starting service at Manchester-Boston regional...
NH getting a utility-owned big (biggish) solar array
Unitil has begun work on a 4.9 MW solar array on 36 vacant acres in Kingston that will be the largest in the state and, importantly, the first such array owned by a regulated utility. (There are some rooftop arrays on utility buildings.) It's near an existing...
Hey look – that big offshore wind project really is happening!
The nation’s first major offshore wind farm, the under-construction Vineyard Wind off Massachusetts, has shown up in an important, if obscure, location. The project is one of more than 900 energy sources of various types (including batteries and demand reduction) who...
Bad news for anglers: Warmer water means smaller fish. It’s not clear why.
From UMASS Amherst news service: A collaborative team of scientists led by the University of Massachusetts Amherst recently found that there is no physiological evidence supporting a leading theory why many fish species are shrinking as waters grow warmer due to...
Can you crush your aluminum cans before recycling? It’s probably OK. Probably.
This question came up recently in a newsroom discussion over our recycling setup (a cardboard box with "aluminum cans" written on the side - I take it to my town recycling when full). My understanding was that crushed cans can confuse the machinery used in...
Scrambling to save the 603 area code, again
New Hampshire loves our 603 area code, even though area codes mean less and less in this cellphone-number-portability world, and for 30 years we've been freaking out about reports that we're going to "run out of numbers" and will need a second area code. This seems...
‘Dry clothes free or die’ doesn’t have the same ring to it
New Hampshire used to have an active "Right to dry" community that wanted the legislature to say that yes, people can dry their clothes on outdoor lines in their back yard. That's necessary because many homeowners associations regard clotheslines as something that...
NH patents through Feb. 18
(Links to each patent can be found here, using the patent number or inventor’s name.) By Targeted News Service WASHINGTON – The following federal patents were assigned in New Hampshire through Feb. 18. *** 5G OpenRAN Controller PARALLEL WIRELESS, INC., Nashua, New...