Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
Court: Data from smart meters don’t constitute an unreasonable search
New technology always brings new concerns. Here's a case in point. Electric utilities all over the country, such as New Hampshire Electric Cooperative, are installing "smart meters" in place of the old analog meters with little dials that had to be read once a month...
Determining snowfall records can be tricky
I have been measuring daily precipitation for eight years for CoCoRaHS, a "citizen science" weather data-gathering program. The biggest thing I have learned is to not take snow measurements very seriously. The days are long gone when I'd brag that my town got 12...
Hydroponic “farm” in a shipping container in Concord
Time has taken its toll on Concord’s most unusual “farm,” the hydroponic trailer that has provided lettuce to a Marriott hotel for almost five years, but fans of high-tech leafy greens needn’t fret – a replacement is on its way. “It needed to be rehabbed quite a bit....
We are ‘abnormally dry’ and record wet at the same time
(Give you ears a treat: You can listen to me talk about this story on the low-budget Granite Geek podcast) Right now in Concord, we are living in a meteorological puzzle: The National Weather Service says this is the wettest August since records began being kept 150...
And now, the world’s best sewage-related acronym
NHPR has story about plans to built a grease-recycling facility in Plymouth to help community sewage-treatment plants deal with FOG, which stands for fats, oils and grease: FOG, which comes from places like commercial kitchens, can cause costly, unsanitary sewer...
At UNH, studying how traffic lights can talk to cars
When I was a kid, futuristic visions of self-driving cars always assumed they would need all sorts of wires and gizmos installed in the roadway to give the car information about where it was, what it was doing, and where it should go. We didn't think computers and...
NH historical markers aren’t geeky enough and we’re going to fix that, starting with BASIC
If you scroll through the list of the 255 official highway historical markers maintained by the state of New Hampshire, you will find 21 bridges, two memorials to the 45th parallel, several references to Daniel Webster and a few oddities, like the sign labeled...
More on UNH and its role in the Parker Solar Probe
From UNH News Service: The recent launch of NASA's Parker Solar Probe from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station marks the beginning of a seven-year mission to learn more about the sun and solar wind — the energetic particles it creates that can pose hazards for...
I can’t show you the name of the solar-probe program
UNH will have a role in the Parker Solar Probe that was launched Sunday by NASA. Apparently, however, NASA has hired the person who convinced Prince to change his name to an unpronounceable symbol because the instruments that UNH will be operating have been given an...
New England’s forests have changed several times since the glaciers left
If you lived here 13,000 years ago, you wouldn't have much choice for Christmas trees: It was spruce and jack pine everywhere you looked. That's one of the conclusions (although they don't phrase it that way) from an analysis of multiple studies of pollen grains in...
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