Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
Public water fluoridation is a good idea
I didn’t think I had been insulted enough lately by commenters on my blog, so I ran this piece.
Here’s a grumpy Christmas column for fans of good engineering
The Christmas tree stand I’m referring to looks like a spider from one of those Alien movies. It’s nearly impossible to assemble. It’s nearly impossible to secure a tree in it. And it’s totally impossible to complete your mission with a straight-standing tree. It leans, making you feel as though you’re not home for the holidays, but in Pisa.
As oceans warm, lobsters disappear from south of Cape Cod
Lobstering has disappeared from Long Island Sound, and now, reports the Boston Globe, it's gone from anywhere south of Cape Cod as the oceans warm and lobsters die off or move. This is no surprise - here's a 2015 story from the N.Y. Post after the decline in Long...
Autumn was warmest on record in Concord
Remember how warm it was when the leaves started turning color? Your memory isn’t playing tricks on you: It broke a record. September, October and November, the period known as “meteorological autumn” to weather watchers, was the warmest on record in Concord – and by...
Brunswick may use drones to see people trespassing on train tracks
“Third boxcar, midnight train / destination, Brunswick, Maine. / Old worn out shirt and shoes / Amtrak’s drone won’t blow no fuse” ..
More extreme storms make it harder for rivers to naturally clean up our pollution
From UNH News Service: Freshwater streams and rivers naturally clean up some forms of pollution originating from urban and agricultural areas, but increased storm intensity reduces this ability, which underscores the need to improve the management of nonpoint sources...
Every year, Concord excretes the equivalent of 50,000 Newfoundland dogs worth of … stuff
I’m not sure if this is a back-of-envelope calculation, or a back-of-Cottonelle calculation.
The nation’s first real wind farm was in New Hampshire
You can still find a few of the concrete pads, but the windmills themselves are long gone.
Sunlight falling on snow is beautiful, but sunlight bouncing off snow is better for the planet
Perhaps because I grew up in Virginia, I can never shake the feeling that snow is almost too weird to be real. Each time it snows, I am surprised anew that such a wispy substance can fall from on high, trap you in your home for a week, create the most beautiful scenes...
Stories of citizen science at Portsmouth event (including a DJ!)
It hasn't been that many years since I first heard the phrase "citizen science" but nowadays it's all over the place. You can do everything from counting frogs to deciphering handwriting on 18th-century ship's logs to helping NASA find exoplanets. To celebrate this...
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