Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire

We don’t have to worry about that Chinese space station (just barely)
I am happy to say for my fellow New Hampshire residents that we are too far north for the out-of-control space station Tiangong-1 to land on us, but our friends on the south side of the border with Massachusetts might want to keep an eye on the heavens. In its orbit...

At a big enough scale, N.H. is like a washboarded dirt road
UNH researchers used data collected from extremely high-resolution LiDAR laser scans of the region to discover that the landscape was riddled with washboard-like ridges.
Oh boy, it’s Box Elder Syrup Weekend! Wait – it’s not?
Why do sugar maples dominate our syrup conversation? There are good biological reasons (plus one added by a reader in the comments that I missed).

Yeah this is a good, long-running blog – but check Cow Hampshire!
If you want to know why the lowest possible Social Security Number (001-01-0001) was issued to a New Hampshire woman, then a blog as old as mine is the place to go.

The unending fascination with New Hampshire’s first-in-nation UFO abductees
The saga of Betty and Barney Hill’s abduction by space aliens near Franconia in 1961 is still my favorite piece of New Hampshire history.
UNH says space radiation could be worse than we thought
And in *real* space news, UNH says it’s more dangerous than we thought out there.

You can’t build a house here, you’ve got the wrong kind of dirt!
Want to subdivide your parcel into 2-acre properties in a residential zone? You’d better have a high degree of “Gloucester sandy loam.” If your yard leans more toward “Woodbridge very stony loam,” you might be in a rural agricultural zone.
5.4 million words and counting …
This isn’t a theological commentary, but my career is 6.88 times wordier than the King James Bible.

A “report card” on sea-level rise
The Virginia Institute for Marine Science has launched a website with a series of "report cards" on sea level rise for 32 dozen U.S. coastal communities. It includes Boston and two Maine cities: Portland and Eastport (which is way up by Canada). Updated by the...

Regenerative medicine will be an NH strength only if it’s not a strength just for NH
It’s fun to bash Massholes, but this is an area where New Hampshire needs to partner with our bigger neighbor to the south.