Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
Hedgehogs are cute, but one in NH carried an incredibly rare virus
From UNH News Service: A pathologist with the New Hampshire Veterinary Diagnostic Lab at the University of New Hampshire has identified the first case of Skunk Adenovirus-1 in the United States. The rare respiratory disease was found in tissues of a hedgehog...
Who should draw NH political boundaries – people or algorithms?
As the Concord Monitor reports today, there's a new push to have an impartial group of people, rather than the political party in power, draw legislative boundaries in New Hampshire. Similar pushes are being made around the country in response to concern about...
Were the White Mountains once as tall as the Himalayas?
NHPR reporter Sam Evans-Brown does a regular answer-reader-question feature called Ask Sam. This week's takes on a question I hadn't really thought about: How tall were the Appalachian Mountains, including the White Mountains, when they were first formed by plate...
New England has plenty of electricity this winter unless things go really wrong
There are enough power plants, power lines and systems in place to provide all the electricity that New England will need this winter, according to the organization that operates the six-state electric grid. ISO New England said Wednesday the grid can meet demand,...
Our snow will disappear, but perhaps not as quickly as we feared
Here is my Concord Monitor column this week (Nov. 27): This column will discuss the way a major climate model is overly pessimistic about the coming disappearance of snow and skiing from New Hampshire due to climate change. In other words, it’s a bit of good news...
N.H. once had 172 ski areas that are now closed – yes, 172!
In the 1950s and 1960s, a ton of little ski areas opened through New England: Any farmer with a big slanted field would haul an old Ford engine to the top and make a rope tow, trying to get a few bucks in the winter. Virtually all of them shut down in the 1970s...
The fungus that kills gypsy moths has scientists puzzled
One of the biocontrol successes of recent years involves the fungus Entomophaga maimaiga, which was introduced into the U.S. to control the gypsy moth caterpillar. It has worked pretty well, turning a forest-destroying scourge into an occasionally irritating pest. But...
The Chinese are making Segway work, but not only with a Segway
Segway occupies a weird space in the history of New Hampshire industry. The self-balancing vehicle developed by Dean Kamen and his merry band of R&D elves at DEKA in Manchester in 2001 may be the best-known invention ever to come out of the state, but it's also...
Maine would be great for a spaceport if you want polar flights
Big, empty military bases always produce lots of big ideas for reuse. Here's a big idea for the former Loring Air Force Base in northern Maine: Turn it into a spaceport. The Brunwick Daily News reports (read the whole thing here) that the proposal would concentrate on...
New approach to ‘artificial photosynthesis’ from UNH lab
From UNH News Service: Researchers at the University of New Hampshire have identified new, readily available materials that convert sunlight and carbon dioxide (CO2) into building blocks for liquid fuels. “Currently we can convert sunlight into electricity using solar...
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