Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
Let’s go down to the beach and play with the nurdles (nurdles?)
If you're looking for some new environmental problem to fret about, teeny-tiny bits of plastic in the ocean is a good candidate. All the plastic stuff we throw away eventually breaks down into little particles that don't dissolve but eventually end up in the ocean,...
Science Cafe Concord: What’s with our “silver tsunami”? Bring your demographics questions
“Gray and frazzled tsunami” would describe my tonsorial situation better.
UNH research finds “pattern of mammal dwarfing” (an awesome phrase) during ancient global warming
The body change could have been an evolutionary response to create a more efficient way to reduce body heat. A smaller body size would allow the animals to cool down faster.
Clearing roads with brine is worse for cars – yes, worse – than using road salt
Kevin Landrigan at the Union-Leader spotted an interesting tidbit from AAA and turned it into an interesting story: Using brine to clean snow and ice from roads, as compared to road salt, might be better for the environment but it's worse for cars. Why? Chemistry....
Dartmouth math prof joins save-the-climate-data push
The Valley News has a Q&A with a Dartmouth math professor who has joined the push to download and preserve data related to climate science, fearing that the current administration will delete it. The college is providing server space, as is UNH and many other...
Report: New England energy bills aren’t that high, even though our rates are. (Nobody will be convinced)
This report from UNH came out last week, while I was on vacation, so here it is late. It will, I think, change few minds because of some of the folks behind it (funding by The Nature Conservancy? Cameron Wake is involved? Conspiracy and fake news!) but it's...
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...
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