Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
It’s a pain in the neck to lift 20 tons by 250 feet; Swenson Granite would like to quarry stone differently
(There are lots more great photos and a video of the quarry at this article on the Monitor website: https://www.concordmonitor.com/swenson-granite-concord-nh-polycor-quarry-19039156) Almost two years after being purchased by a Quebec firm, Concord’s iconic Swenson...
We’re getting a lot more surprisingly heavy rainstorms, and it’s due in large part to more tropical storms
From Dartmouth News Service: From Maine to West Virginia, the Northeast has seen a larger increase in extreme precipitation than anywhere else in the U.S. Prior research found that these heavy rain and snow events, defined as a day with about two inches of...
It’s harder than you might think for rescuers to find you through your cell phone
We’re all familiar with crime-scene forensics, or at least the TV version that is the central plot point for every single cop show, but I must admit the concept of cell-phone forensics is new to me. Fortunately for the hiker who was lost for two days in the snow in...
The state bakes camp firewood in a huge oven to kill invasive insects
The battle against insects that are attacking New Hampshire’s forests takes place on many fronts, but none is more important than one of the state’s largest gas-fired ovens, a converted shipping container where hundreds of thousands of pieces of camp firewood have...
No, Mt. Washington didn’t break its all-time high temperature
If you're a wikipedia wonk, the sort of person who reads not just the articles but the associated Talk pages where editors discuss the article, you might have seen the claim earlier this week on the Talk page for Mt. Washington that the peak broke its all-time high...
No time to read my stories? Hear me talk about them. Better yet – do both!
We've put a couple more of our low-budget (i.e., no budget) Granite Geek podcast series, in which Features Editor Sarah Pearson asks me to talk about some story I've written recently and I blather on and on until she turns off the mic in desperation. (She cuts me off...
The sci/tech columnist who went up a hill and wrote about a mountain
(This is my Concord Monitor column this week. If you want to hear me talk about it, and hear a colleague tell me that the premise of the whole story is baloney, check the podcast we made. It's only a few minutes long.) I have some shocking news. You may want to sit...
Rooftop solar was surprisingly effective during the New England heat wave
The New England power grid did quite well during the week-long heat wave in early July - there was no strain on moving power around, thanks to the gazillion dollars worth of upgrades that have been built in the past few years, and no strain on power supply, and for...
Which would upset you more: forgetting your phone or forgetting your lunch?
One of the things you can do on Twitter easily is run a poll, so I ran one last week asking this important question: You get to work and realize you have left either your phone or your lunch at home (but not both). Which would upset you more? I assumed the answer...
Road salt is really doing a number on the Merrimack River watershed
From UNH News Service: University of New Hampshire researchers estimate that more than 10 percent of streams in the Merrimack River watershed, which covers areas of New Hampshire and Massachusetts, are impacted by high chloride concentrations as a result of road salt...
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