Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
Can a three-story building be net-zero with its own solar panels?
People tend to over-estimate how much electricity is put out by solar panels, so I was very dubious when I heard that a 29-unit apartment complex coming to West Lebanon would get all of its energy, including heating and cooling, strictly from panels on the building....
Emerald ash borer has spread so much in NH that quarantines are no longer worth it
Five years after the invasive insect known as the emerald ash borer was first spotted in Concord, it has spread so far throughout the state that officials may end the quarantine which tried to contain it. The move would not be a surprise since scores of other states...
Less public radio, more podcast
For the last four* years I've been a pretty regular interviewee on the Tuesday broadcast of All Things Considered on New Hampshire Public Radio, talking about my column in the paper that week. It's a labor-non-intensive way (and free - no money changed hands) to get...
I’m not the only one trying to honor the creation of BASIC
As a loyal reader, you know that I am in the midst of a drive to create a highway historical marker honoring the creation of the computer language BASIC and the Dartmouth Time-Sharing System. (Here's a reminder, if you need it.) I gathered more than enough signatures...
From fruit thieves to road kill, those $%^#! squirrels are everywhere
(Squirrels and chipmunks wiped out my raspberries and peaches and blueberries this year - they are a plague. Road kill is justifiable payback.) The population explosion of squirrels and other small rodents in New Hampshire is proving to be a nuisance in more ways than...
Dockless bikes in Nashua are a hit, maybe
Veoride, an Indiana-based company that runs dockless bike operations around the country, including at New England College in Henniker, says its biggest New Hampshire operation hit 10,000 rides in two months. The company announced the number on its blog, saying it hit...
Knowing the shape of solar ejections can help analyze space weather
From UNH News Service: Revisiting some older data, researchers at the University of New Hampshire discovered new information about the shape of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – large-scale eruptions of plasma and magnetic field from the sun – that could one day help...
As a commuter with grown children, I hate the start of school
(I wrote this last year for the Monitor. I expected to get lots of praise from other commuters - instead, all I got was "why do you hate children?!?!?" emails.) No disrespect to the nation’s public-school transportation network, but I hate it in late August when the...
The Ig Nobels are coming and you can quiz their creator at Science Cafe NH
(Note: At this event I will have a petition to sign, supporting my push to create a state historical marker honoring the birth of BASIC. That makes two reasons to show up!) Every cat owner knows that felines don’t obey the rules of physics. Every chef knows that dry...
Webworms are ugly but not a real problem
Journalists both love and hate stories that come around every year, like back-to-school advances and Black Friday stories. We hate them because they're repetitive, but we love them because they're no-brainers. Almost as soon as I came to New Hampshire I created my own...
Return to the Concord Monitor