Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
Why are there solar panels on the cab of a very big truck?
When I pulled into work Wednesday there was, as if often the case, a big tractor-trailer unloading rolls of newsprint for the press. But then I noticed something different: It has flexible solar panels attached to the hood and the top of the cab. "Sometimes people ask...
SNHU launches an esports program, complete with housing ‘designed specifically for gamers’
In what is either a sign of forward thinking or the latest evidence of the decline of civilization, Southern New Hampshire University is launching a varsity esports program for University Campus students this fall. This is the first competitive esports program in New...
Dartmouth’s business school thinks being nice isn’t necessarily bad, after all
"Can a Master of the Universe be nice?" That's the excellent start to an interesting article in the Valley News about the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth trying to add some humanity to students being trained in a field where being an asshole is often seen as a...
Just because you sink into a hole doesn’t mean it’s a sinkhole
As I was putting together the newsletter, I was asked to help do a breaking story about a road-closing sinkhole. "We don't have sinkholes!" I replied. "Says who?" asked the newsroom, itching to put 'sinkhole' into the web headline. "Says this three-year-old Monitor...
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...
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