Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
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...
Tantalyzing hints of some geeky lawmaking as NH legislators return
In New Hampshire lawmaking there is something called an LSR, for Legislative Service Request, which is basically a very first draft at a bill that lawmakers want to get passed. Hundreds of them land at this time of year, jostling to get into line for hearings and all...
There’s no way Amazon is coming to N.H., but inviting them was still worth our time
Like a bunch of places, I wrote about New Hampshire pitch to host Amazon's second headquarters. Since there's zero chance it will come here, I was prepared to be pretty snide about the effort, but the state's pitch is pretty good. It didn't offer any tax breaks but...
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