Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
Mass. coal plant replaced by solar and storage, sort of
The Mount Tom Power Station, a coal-fired plant in Holyoke, Mass,. shut two years ago, and now it's the site of a solar power plus storage facility. Big win, right? Well, kind of. Mount Tom had a maximum output of 163 MW and the solar plant is just 3 MW, and the...
I wish Harry Potter studied whether magic obeys the inverse-square law
The Harry Potter books are fine, of course - my kids grew up with them - but they've always bugged me for one reason: They are a perfect embodiment of "magical thinking", which is not a good thing in reality. Here's the problem: Hogwarts is one of the the premiere...
Closed landfill in north country may produce natural gas
Liberty Utilities plans to capture methane from a closed landfill in the town of Bethlehem and use it to provide natural gas to about 6,000 homes. The company said Thursday, Sept. 27, that it has applied for permission from the Public Utilities Commission to go ahead...
The state’s oldest (probably) electric car chargers are full of wasps
(If you like old electronics, check out my story about the oldest operating solar panel in New Hampshire.) Electric vehicles are all the rage these days but as far as former NHTI professor Tom Hopper is concerned, we’re a bunch of Johnny-come-latelys. He remembers...
How the first SF magazine, ‘Amazing Stories’, got back in print
It has taken almost a decade of effort that included disputes with Apple, NBC and Steven Spielberg as well as an appeal to Kickstarter, but a New Hampshire man’s dream of relaunching the original science-fiction magazine is finally in print. Not just in print, but in...
Fan of SF? Dartmouth has an event for you
The Neukom Institute for Computational Science at Dartmouth College is a cross-discipline effort to integrate the humanities with computer science and technology, enriching both. This year it established a Literary Arts Award for Speculative Fiction, with a $5,000...
NH lottery instant games go online
New Hampshire Lottery has plunged further into the digital world by offering eight instant games online. The games, with names like Jackpot Cash and Multiplier Max-Out and costing between 2 cents and $10 dollars, are similar to instant tickets sold in stores but do...
Uh-oh – “mad cow disease” of deer has shown up in Quebec
From N.H. Fish & Game: A red deer from a captive facility in the Laurentides region of Quebec (north of Montreal) recently tested positive for chronic wasting disease (CWD). This is the Province’s first confirmed case of the disease. Therefore, Quebec is now...
I was the ‘maybe not so much’ guy on NHPR’s discussion about self-driving cars
Today I was a guest on The Exchange, the NH Public Radio talk show, as we pondered self-driving vehicles. Not entirely by design I found myself playing the skeptic about such things as whether self-driving cars would reduce traffic (me: not unless we outlaw...
The lynx is a secretive beast, but now we’ve got its genome down pat
The first whole genome for the Canada lynx is one of 14 genomes the Vertebrate Genome Laboratory is making available for use by researchers studying evolution, disease and conservation. Other animals include the duck-billed platypus, two different species of bats, a...
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