Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
Digital ‘right-to-repair’ law may – that’s may – come to New Hampshire
A “digital electronic product repair” bill will be considered by the Legislature this year. It would require companies to do such things as provide device buyers and third-party shops with diagnostic and repair information – stuff that used to be included in instruction manuals – and also provide updates of firmware that is embedded in devices. Basically, the proposed legislation wants to keep manufacturers from doing anything that unreasonably gets in the way of you, me or an independent repair shop from fixing or tinkering with a device after it has been paid for.
Claims of sexual misconduct led to Dartmouth professors being kept off campus
Those three Dartmouth College professors told to stay off campus last week that I wondered about have been accused of sexual misconduct. Many people note that their research includes studies of sexual desire and attractiveness, so you have to wonder the connection between that and what is alleged to have happened. A journalistic note: The matter only came to light because of reporting by The Dartmouth, a student newspaper.
Computer science institute at Dartmouth establishes award for ‘speculative fiction’ (yeah, I still call it ‘science fiction’, too)
When I was younger I tried writing science fiction stories, including one where astronauts find the true Platonic Solids on the back side of an asteroid and thus all of philosophy (great set-up, I think, but it had a really lame-o ending). Maybe I should try again:...
Look, up in the sky! It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s an archaeologist!
Drones have made it easier for Dartmouth’s Jesse Casana to do interesting archaeology, including finding things long hidden at the Shaker Village site in Enfield, but there’s a part of him which is just a little bit sorry. “It feels like cheating a little,” admitted...
Dartmouth keeps three brain-research profs off campus, cites ‘campus safety’
I'm writing this Thursday morning, so things may have changed by the time you read this - but something very weird is happening at Dartmouth, where three tenured professors in the psychology department who do brain research have been put on paid leave and had their...
The explanation for acupuncture is nonsense, but at times it might actually work
The explanations that acupuncture gives for itself - chi and all that - collapse into a puddle of silliness when examined closely, and yet acupuncture does seem to sometimes accomplish useful things, especially reducing pain. Whether something is happening at the...
The closest thing N.H. has to a Bat Cave is now closed off from prying eyes
New Hampshire doesn't have any real caves, due to our geology, but we still have some hibernaculums - places where bats gather to over-winter. One is a mine in the North Country that has become well known to frustrated spelunkers. This fall, the New Hampshire Fish and...
Science Cafe Concord about cancer is now online
If you missed the October Science Cafe, about out understanding and treatment of cancer, you can watch it online right here thanks to Concord TV. The community access channel for Concord films* each episode and puts it on their YouTube channel, so you can scroll...
The UK government is perfectly happy with geometrically impossible road signs
To follow up on the most fascinating direct-democracy push in the world: The UK government has rejected a petition to change the soccer-ball illustration on certain road signs, making it so they are no longer geometrically impossible, covered solely with hexagons...
Why does the weirdest building in Concord look so weird?
There are disadvantages to being a newspaper reporter - like salary, hours, being a cheap target for any politician/businessman/official looking to deflect attention from their flaws, and the fact that the industry is, shall we say, struggling - but it's often an...
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