Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
Some geeky bills that the N.H. legislature might consider
Legislative Service Requests (LSRs) are sort of placeholders for bills that are in the process of being written and have yet to be considered by the New Hampshire legislature. More than 1,000 have been filed in our voluminous House and small Senate. Many of them never...
Mass. islands, riddled with Lyme disease, take more aim at those *&^$@! deer
Axios Boston reporters (here it is) that Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard are expanding deer hunting season and may even - gasp! - allow hunting on Sunday. the reason: diseases carried by ticks that the deer spread around. Lyme disease cases are 11 times higher on the...
Atop Mt. Washington, people are a problem. Also climate. Also invasive species.
Unfortunately, this preliminary report on the state of Mount Washington's ecosystem contains no surprises: High visitation has taken a toll on the unique and fragile alpine ecosystem atop the Northeast’s highest peak, where erosion, trampling, and invasive species are...
Big solar is better late than never – but boy, is it late
The newest large-scale solar array in Concord, which got an official groundbreaking Monday, is good news from the cheap-electricity standpoint, but it’s also a lesson in the obstacles slowing our transition to 21st-century energy. The 5-megawatt array — the biggest...
That new Quebec-Maine power line is sending power north, not south
It took us a decade to build another power line to bring Quebec hydropower south into New England, but guess what: It's currently selling power north (900MW at one point over the weekend) because a long drought in Quebec is clobbering their hydropower. Ironic -...
New England’s small aquifers make wells more vulnerable to erratic rainfall
New Hampshire Bulletin has a story about the effect of the summer drought on wells - the news hook concerns a state program to help pay for new wells - that includes a discussion about an important fact: Due to geology, New England's underground aquifers are...
Small mammals time their breeding according to tree seed availability
UNH Today has an article (here it is) about research into how small woodland mammals that depend on tree seeds for much of their food - shrews, voles, mice - react to the way wild seed crops ("mast") fluctuate wildly from year to year. During years with significant...
Biomanufacturing facility coming to Manchester Millyard
The ReGen Valley Tech Hub recently celebrated the groundbreaking of consortium member Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute’s (ARMI) biomanufacturing facility and workforce training center in Manchester’s Millyard. Located at 150 Dow Street and slated for...
N.H.’s best themed Christmas tree is at the Aviation Museum
Who needs tinsel or strings of popcorn when you've got airsickness bags from airlines around the world for decoration? They think so at the Aviation Museum of New Hampshire, next to the main runway of Manchester-Boston Regional Airport.
Dartmouth College goes all-in with A.I.
Dartmouth, the school where the term "artificial intelligence" was first put forward seven decades ago, is going ahead gung-ho with LLM et al through what it calls an "A.I. Partnership With Anthropic and AWS" (Amazon Web Services). Their announcement (here) says:...
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