Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
Arsenic in our groundwater uncovers a weird underground rock formation
I am writing a column about arsenic naturally occurring in new Hampshire groundwater, so I thought I'd rerun this 2012 column I wrote for the Telegraph: You think you know New Hampshire? Yeah, me too. So why don’t we know about the Massabesic Gneiss Complex? It’s...
Grab a rain gauge, oh citizen scientist!
There are plenty of places that do take-offs on the college basketball playoffs called March Madness (I like the March Mammal Madness bracket) so here's one that you can participate in: CoCoRaHS March Madness. The Community Collaborative Rain Hail Snow Network is a...
Yes, there’s gold prospecting in NH – but maybe not with machines much longer
One of the great pleasures of being a reporter is stumbling onto stuff you didn't know - like the way New Hampshire issues about 140 permits a year for people to do gold prospecting in our rivers and streams. There's gold in them thar White Mountains! Who knew?...
In chainsaw mode, CRISPR could fight “superbug” bacteria
Great line in a Gizmodo story (worth reading: right here) about a variant of the CRISPR technique being eyed for killing "superbug" bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics: If CRISPR-Cas9 is a genetic scalpel, CRISPR-Cas3 is a chainsaw. As the story explains, Cas3...
Record highs are beating record lows by 100-1 this month
Mashable has a good discussion of how insanely warm February has been in the U.S. (Concord, for example, broke a 142-year-old record for high temperarue on Feb. 22): Through Feb. 22, daily record highs have been blowing away daily record lows by a greater than...
Turning wood into liquid fuel (“cellulosic biofuel”) is hard … or is it?
Nature has been honing the design of plant cells for many megaclarke years (to use the Potrzebie Systems of Weights and Measures because - well, why not?) and has developed some very tough cell walls, especially in cellulose, which acts as a support system for stems,...
After 230,000 miles, what’s my hybrid car’s savings compared to a similar non-hybrid?
Get the calculator for some dollar-and-cents fuel savings calculations.
Pro-science rally in Boston on Sunday
On Sunday, scientists, science advocates, and others will rally at Boston’s Copley Square to call for what orgaznies say is "increased vigilance to defend science against the barrage of attacks mounted by the Trump administration and Congress. The rally coincides with...
A shocking depiction on film: People who are good at math and yet … normal!?!?!
NOTE: If you subscribe to my newsletter, you saw this last week. So why not subscribe - right here! I recently saw "Hidden Figures," the movie about the black women "computers" who helped the early NASA manned launches, and it was great. Anybody who reads this...
Science fans to rally in Boston during AAAS meeting
Large anti-government protests in Boston are becoming more common than large celebrating-a-sports-championship rallies - and there will be another one on Sunday. It will have a geeky twist because it coincides with the huge American Association for the Advancement of...
Return to the Concord Monitor